Sony Alpha 99ii Hotshoe Replacement

Giriş

Hello,

I've answered on the DPReview forum to Marcomarkus question how to repair loose hotshoe on Sony profi DSLR Alpha 99ii. Does not fit really in that forum, so I'll share also here. You nearly don't find anything about disassembly of this great (and expensive) camera.

Hello, now I can give more details how to fix the loose hotshoe at a Sony alpha 99ii. I'm the father from Markus girlfriend and tried it out. First I'd an old defect a58 body at home. So to get some expieriences I dissassembled the hotshoe at this plastic clone of the a99ii. May sound funny but I is build up quite similar than the high expensive version. And it has exact the same hotshoe as the a99ii.

Ok, with real respect to tear down the loved baby of my daugher I start to open the a99ii. Follow at detailed steps.

Adım 1 Hotshoe

Sony Alpha 99ii Hotshoe Replacement, Hotshoe: adım 1, 1 resimden 1.

Be careful with the lower connector.
My first idea was to come to the hotshoe by removing the finder. Disconnect it before removing!! The connector must be opend by moving the black part up - you can see the princip in the a77i video! Don't pull the connector out when it is not opened!

Düzenle

Adım 2

Now the finder is easy to be removed by pulling it out - fixed with double-sided adhesive tape at the back. Short pull and you have it - disconnect it before!

Düzenle

Adım 3

In the top you see the back of the hotshoe. Thanks to crazy Sony engineers it is screwed from inner side - in old versions it was from outside, the repair would take 5 min. But o.k. this is premium, so I tried to fix it from here.
The angle for the screwdriver is bad, it was possible to unscrew the hotshoe and also the cable was disconnected.
The connector is somewhere in front of the top of the camera, no real change to get it reconnected!

Düzenle

Adım 4

So I went the next steps, disassemble the mainboard, and open the housing right and left.
This was easy, only few screws and some trials to snap it.

Düzenle

Adım 5

Now I can find some screws holding the top part of the body.
By removing them I can open the top. I left the connectors in as it was possible to fix the hotshoe and connect it in this condition.

Düzenle

Adım 6

I believe only fixing the hotshoe would have not helped. The flash is also at the loose hotshoe fixed to his connector.
Think the movement has broken the connector cable or something in the connector. Having the similar hotshoe of the a58 - you remember my training session - I decided to use this.
And surprise it is exact the same with same cable lengths and connector etc. Think this spare can be found also in net at it seams to be a standard component. (I love standards!).

Düzenle

Adım 7

At the end, it looks like this.
By making a lot of photos of the tear down and disciplined screw sorting it was not as difficult as expected to assemble the whole think together.
Most important: Check if all cables are connected - check it three times, at the end we forget most time one small under the mainboard etc.

Düzenle

Adım 8

Last remark, I'm not doing repair videos etc. But as there is nothing on how to repair this great camera. I decided to share my positive experience here.
It was a good job screwing all this metric screws in magnesium body instead of plastic we normally know.
And, yes I have experience with this kind of repair.
Most challenging was the astro-modification of a Sony NEX-6.
So it is not a witchcraft but don't do it w./o. a basic skill of this sensitive work. AND watch the linked video of the opening of the Alpha 77ii before, give a lot of good hints how to manage the disconnecting of the cables etc. Hope this was helpful for anyone and my daughter will have long time fun with here camera.