I thought cleaning sensor contacts was snake oil until I watched a guy in Boise fix a dead 5D in 4 minutes
I used to roll my eyes at the guys who said to just clean the contacts before cracking anything open. Figured it was the easy answer people give when they don't want to actually dig into a board. Then last Thursday a customer brings in a 5D Mark III that won't power on at all, no shutter, no screen, nothing. I had it on the bench ready to pull the back off and start chasing voltage. A repair guy I know from the Boise camera shop was standing there and asked if he could try one thing first. He pulled a pink pencil eraser and a little bottle of 91 percent isopropyl, scrubbed the battery contacts and the body pins for about 90 seconds, and the thing fired right up like nothing was ever wrong. I felt pretty dumb standing there with my screwdriver out. Now I do the ten second contact check before I touch a single screw, and it has saved me at least three tear downs this month. Anyone else got a dumb simple step they now do first no matter what the symptoms look like?