Please help!!! I have a Sharp digital camcorder. It says "dew" on the display screen and will not accept the miniDV tapes. I called Sharp and they told me to plug in, take out battery, open tape deck and turn upside-down overnight. They said it was dew on the heads. I tried this twice and it didn't work. The repairs place they directed me to said there is a flat repair fee of $215. Plus I'd have to ship to NY. Is there anything else I can do to correct this problem myself. It would be about the same price to replace. Thanks.
No my friend, Im sorry to say that thats not a bad price to repair one of these camcorders, because of all the differant testing jigs, cables and equipment needed to do such repairs. We are a throw away society. The problem you have is a bad dew sensor mounted on the main mechanical chassis, or a componet, most likey a surface mounted capacitor in the servo circuit. To repair these, they need to be disassembled, diagnoised, repaired, and then reassembles and alighned. This could be easaly a two and a half hour to 3 hour repair. You may want to try one of these repair places as they give free estimates http://www.videoonerepair.com/ Or http://www.videotech.com/
http://www.camcorderrepair.com/ Sorry for the bad news. Good Luck and if you do get it fixed let us know what you did or if you got the camcorder repaired.
Mommyme, I have a good new for you. The problem you are having is very common and will take you less than 5 min to do it yourself. I did have the same problem on my vl-z5 and now it works like a champ. http://www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/t115365.html
Good luck!!
i guess you have nothing to lose. i have in the past resoldered these sensors but most of the time they come back, as when you resolder, the value of the sendor changes. Now for those who it worked for GREAT!