2025-09-12 - Failed Repair of an Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II
-----------------------------------------------------------

WARNING: The flash capacitors used in cameras can hold a dangerous
charge even when the camera is off and the battery has been
disconnected. Do not attempt a repair if you do not know how to watch
out for such capacitors and discharge them if necessary.

Quite a while ago, I was given a defective Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II
camera where the display wasn't working. This is apparently a fairly
common problem with these cameras because the ribbon cable going to
the display breaks somewhere. Unfortunately, I destroyed the camera
through a very simple and stupid mistake. However, I still wanted to
write a short article on the repair attempt, mainly to prevent others
from making the same mistake.

There is a video covering this issue already[0], and there is an iFixit
manual covering the beginning of the repair[1] (mirrored locally at
[2]). The iFixit guide can be followed until the two parts of the
camera have been separated (step 7). Extreme care must be taken to
avoid damaging the ribbon cables connecting the two parts.

I have a series of images from the repair of the display[3-20],
although it's probably more convenient to just watch the linked
video. One issue with the video is that it ends after the ribbon
cable has been soldered to the display and says that the hard part
is done. That is definitely not true. In my opinion, the hardest
(or at least most annoying) part is putting the display together
again because the ribbon cable has to be bent into shape so
everything fits properly.

Once the display has been repaired, the two parts of the camera can
be joined again. This is where I made my fatal mistake. When plugging
the two ribbon cable connectors back into the circuit board, I didn't
push hard enough on them, so at least the larger one wasn't plugged
in fully. The cables are connected to ZIF sockets that have latches to
unlock them[21], so not much force should be needed to push the cables
in, but in this case, it still required enough force that I didn't push
hard enough. The problem is that this is not just a simple ribbon cable
with connections side-by-side[22], so if it is not plugged in fully, a
short circuit can occur. I'm pretty sure this is what happened because
the camera got very hot when I plugged in the battery and never worked
again, even after I plugged the cable in correctly. I gave the camera
away later to someone who wanted to fix a different camera with it,
and I was told that the display worked, so it seems I did perform the
repair correctly, I just messed up when plugging in the ribbon cable.

It is very unfortunate that the camera was destroyed by such a simple
mistake, but I guess the more optimistic view is that now I'm much more
careful when plugging in ribbon cables, so at least I'm not as likely
to make the same mistake on a more valuable device in the future.


[0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=vO3kgDNdyN4
[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Olympus+OM-D+E-M10+Mark+II++Motherboard+Replacement/126254
[2] gopher://lumidify.org/9/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/guide_126254_en.pdf
[3] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair01.jpg
[4] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair02.jpg
[5] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair03.jpg
[6] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair04.jpg
[7] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair05.jpg
[8] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair06.jpg
[9] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair07.jpg
[10] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair08.jpg
[11] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair09.jpg
[12] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair10.jpg
[13] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair11.jpg
[14] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair12.jpg
[15] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair13.jpg
[16] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair14.jpg
[17] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair15.jpg
[18] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair16.jpg
[19] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair17.jpg
[20] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/display_repair18.jpg
[21] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/ribbon_cables.jpg
[22] gopher://lumidify.org/I/phlog/2025-09-12-olympus/ribbon_cable.jpg