ON/ OFF switch malfunctions
I own 10 Spartan cameras (A4GB) and four of them are acting up with the ON/OFF switches. I've had these a little over three years. They connect wirelessly fine but when placed in the OFF/ON positions, they don't arm correctly. I sometimes have to take the batteries out to get it to turn off.
I saw a couple other posts about this several years about rapidly moving the switch up and down or using a contact cleaner. Which contact cleaner is suggested? Once the cover is removed, just spray directly into the switch?
I love my Spartan's but find it disappointing that 4 out of my 10 are having switch issues and sounds like they are deemed useless if the above remedy's don't work. Tough pill to swallow knowing how much money was put into them in the first place.
If a switch issue only, you'd think Spartan would be able replace that vs just saying the entire camera is junk and need to buy a new one.
Cameras are used for half the year and well taken care of. Filmware is updated, SD cards are class10 32GB and no issues with batteries. These four cameras are definitely faulty as I've used other SD cards and batteries in them with no improvement.
Any other ideas besides what was suggested several years ago? Is this the new norm for these models to go bad after 3 years? I guess it's a matter of time my other six end up having the same issues.
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No special brand of contact cleaner.
The switch is soldered to the main board. It’s not worth the labor cost to try to replace switches.
- Remove batteries, SIM, and SD card.
- Put a piece of tape across the switch and another across the cursor buttons to keep the buttons attached to the inside cover when you remove it. You don’t have to cover all the cursor buttons, they’re all one piece of plastic just just get a couple or three across the middle.
- Unscrew the four tiny screws (one in each corner) holding the inside front cover in place.
- Spray electronics contact cleaner on the switch and move the switch back and forth rapidly several times.
- After the contact cleaner has dried, put four batteries (two top, two bottom, leftmost side of battery compartment) in the camera, as well as the SIM and SD card.
- Turn the camera to setup and see if it comes up properly, turns on properly, shuts off properly. If it doesn’t, repeat.
- Put everything back together.
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Thanks for the info. Will give it a try and hope for the best.
Seems to be a common issue - it's alarming if 4 out of my 10 cameras could be deemed useless if the above doesn't work. For what was then a $400 camera, I'd expect it to last more than three years. A lot of money going down the drain for consumers experiencing similar issues. They are obviously out there there but don't know to what degree. In my case, 40% failure rate. Hoping for the best would would hope to get at least another 3-4 years out of them.
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