H3D-39 Camera Body Not Turning On/ Digital back stuck in H LOADER Mode

[sudarshanchari]

Hey All,

I haven't used my camera( H3d - 39) for a couple of months now and tried turning it on yesterday and the Camera body won't turn on.
I charged the battery completely and it still wont power on.
If i connect it to the Mac using a firewire cable, the back powers on but the camera still doesn't.
I dread the very idea of having to ship the camera back to Sweden for a service.

Also have another problem with the camera that I couldn't find on any other posts on the forum.
If i don't use my camera for a couple of weeks, my back, when turned on displays a message "H LOADER" Mode
and I can only use the camera if I do a forced downgrade of the camera and back firmware using Flexcolor 4.8.8 and then upgrade back to the current firmware versions using Phocus.
( Hasselblad care did provide me with instructions to do the necessary downgrade using Flex to get out of the LOADER mode. I would however prefer a more permanent solution.
Is it possible that the internal battery(if there is one) on the digital back is dying?)

Any help on either of these issues would be much appreciated.

Thanks and regards,

Sudarshan Chari

[Miller]

Hi Sudarshan,

I am not familiar with your problem myself, but there was a post in the members area not long ago, also with a H3d. It was suggested to keep the back connected to a computer for a couple of hours in order to charge the backup battery. You might give it a try, it won't do any harm. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will come to the rescue.

Frans Rutten

[sudarshanchari]

Hi Frans,

I did leave the camera and battery and back connected via firewire to the mac overnight.
The camera body still didn't turn on.
I wonder if the Camera body has an internal battery that has died.

Sudarshan Chari

[Douglas Fairbank @ Classic V]

The digital back and camera body have internal memory batteries (to keep the time and date etc) they will be recharged when a fully charged grip battery is attached. Try cleaning the battery contacts and starting the body alone with nothing else attached. However if you do have the H loader message it will probably need to be returned to the factory (in Denmark), it may have ROM chip problem.

[sudarshanchari]

The H Loader mode is not a problem. Hasselblad did give me a workaround for that using flexcolor. The problem is that the camera body isn't powering up.
Is it possible that the internal battery on the body is dead ? is there any way i could change it without having to send the camera to sweden?

[Douglas Fairbank @ Classic V]

I have never heard of the internal battery of the H camera failing, even if it did the camera would still power up. I don't think this problem will be solved by correspondence in this forum, if you have ruled out the battery grip as the reason for the lack of power.

[Alejandro]

I have actually had the same problem with my back-up camera (H3DII-39) which really drove me crazy but the following is what worked for me. I have strolled around on the internet looking for a solution and I even went up to the Hasselblad representative in Santiago de Chile in order to have this issue solved. There was no solution than to return it to Gothenburg so I was told...

The camera didn't start up and got stuck with the H-Loader message. In the beginning phase of this matter it started up after some minutes but those minutes became quarters of hours, half hours etc etc... I did however notice that the camera started working when it was a little bit warmed up. 

The following however worked for me:
1) Fully charged battery attached to the camera and get the power on
2) I put the camera in a warmer room in order for it to get to a working temperature faster and after more than an hour there was a promising sound.
3) Next I connected it to Phocus software and ran the necessary updates (might be the cause of it all but I'm just not sure...)
4) I left the camera sitting on my desk connected with the FireWire to the desktop one whole day with the power on. Just now and than checked if all was still working
5) Next I did a reset on my batteries: Connected them to the camera while holding down the Flash- and the Menu-button until I heard a fast amount of beeps and than pulled the battery off
6) After that the batteries were  both fully charged overnight
7) The H3DII-39 by the way was still connected to the Mac with Phocus running but with no battery attached and power off. There was only one little green light to be seen on the Digital Back.
Next day I turned the camera on with the fully charged and reset battery and all was fine: the H-Loader message was gone and even after one week not having been powered on, all was still working.

So since a solution for this was hard to find anywhere on the web I really wanted to share this as it might help people who're suffering the same issue. The messages above in this thread about getting it cabled to a computer and that there could be a battery inside which needs to be charged again look to be true. However, my camera was not used for over half a year and after the problem was solved I found that the date and time were still really close to reality...

This is off course no guarantee that it will work for all suffering the same issue but one needs to have a lot of patience in order to get it working again and at least it saved me from investing a great amount of money to get it send back to the EU

For me the problems started after my emigration from NL to Chile where the camera was really well packed into one of the suitcases but it still must have had suffered some kind of shock.... There was simply no room anymore for it in my hand luggage since there was a lot of equipment in all of my bags. It proves once again that these camera's are a real joy to work with but they also need to be well taken care of as they are quite delicate ;-)

Saludos from Chile
Alejandro Quezada