Dead Reefmaster Mini?

[LowVizWiz]

Thanks everyone...
I've been looking to get a new bigger card anyways, this was an old SanDisk 256mb card. They are cheap now.

Wys.

 

[DandyDon]

Thanks everyone...
I've been looking to get a new bigger card anyways, this was an old SanDisk 256mb card. They are cheap now.

Wys.

I still have my first SD card, a 128 mb I bought for my DC310 - and it was not at all cheap then for that tiny thing. I sold thd DC310 to my dive buddy to try to get him interested, included a 256 mb with it. He also has my first SL with a Compact Flash card - uses it as a decoration. :silly:

 

[prskate2]

Sorry for the Hijacking, but where are you going in Panama? I just went there a few months ago.

 

[LowVizWiz]

I was born and raised in Panama City, my parents still live there. I'll be staying in my brother's house and maybe doing San Blas or Taboga. If possible I really want to do the Atlantic & Pacific in one day!

Wys

 

[ronbeau]

It's ALIVE!

Wow, I was getting ready to ship the camera to SeaLife when I decided to give it one more shot, it seems that the problem wasn't the camera, but the SD card.

I was able to extract the pictures from the SD card by using a USB SD card reader. Now the card won't mount to the desktop or be read by the camera causing the camera to not turn on.
I'm glad the camera is alright, SD cards are easily replaced, but the thought of not having my camera on my trip to Panama next month was killing me.

All is well now.

Wys.

Don't feel bad my wife has the same thing happen in Bonaire.

In my opinion the firmware within the camera is somewhat lacking if it can't tell it has a problem with a removable piece of media.

That would be the equivalent of the the Windows or Mac OS just locking up instead of being able to tell you that it had trouble reading a flash drive.

This is something that SeaLife definitely needs to fix ASAP.

Maybe Denise can pass this on to the SeaLife engineers for comment.

I wonder how many other people this happened to while on vacation resulting in a lack of pictures from an expensive vacation.

Sea & Sea had a dealer on Bonaire but SeaLife did not.

 

[Former Sealife Employee]

The ReefMaster Mini firmware is programmed to display a warning message in the event of a memory card failure, however there are many different types of card problems and some are more recent card issues that the camera may not be able to detect. For example, we have confirmation from SanDisk that a recent production batch of 1GB cards is defective which they claim to have corrected. We have one of these defective cards which prevents the camera from powering on. We tried the same card in several other major camera brands and the same thing happened. Not one of these camera brand we tested displayed an error message. Most card damages will be discovered the first time you insert the card and test the camera, so it should be easy to correct before leaving on a dive trip.

We also posted some updates regarding memory cards on the SeaLife website - Sevice Center

 

[DandyDon]

Sea Life has been great about customer services thru the 3 models I've owned, and I had problems - all from operator errors and failing to study the book. :blush: I'm sure that real problems happen, too.

I hate to mail a camera in, tho - with the pack & mail, gone for a month, etc, and it's good to do the basic trouble shooting...
> remove the card and battery(s);
> try filling the onboard memory with test shots and fresh battery(s);
> try again with different card and fresh batteries; etc

Some of the models use AA batteries, always my preference with any camera - buy them almost anywhere, but don't skimp on quality, power, price. I can get pretty good ones at Dollar Tree for my land camera and just replace them when they die; not so on a dive. My DC500 uses only the Sea Life battery but it's lithium and rechargeable so I have a spare and always have one charging.