Reviving my dead Nikon SB-28

[DWScott]

<p>My Nikon SB-28 has suddenly quit on me.<br>

On Friday it was fine. Turned on, worked perfectly on my F100, fired. All good.<br>

Saturday, I put it on my F100 again. Pressed the ON button, and.... nothing.<br>

Just a blank screen. No sign of life. I double checked the batteries, and put in fresh AA's. I unmounted the flash from the camera and tried to fire it up. No go. I moved the head through all it's positions. I removed the batteries and left them out for a while, before putting them back in. Still nothing.<br>

Has anyone else experienced this? Any suggestions? Is there a fix? A reset? A magic trick?<br>

For the used price, it's not worth sending it to Nikon for repair. But the SB-28 isn't cheap either, so I'd rather fix the one I have instead of buying another one. Also, I'd rather buy a different flash (SB-26, etc) if the SB-28 is known to die like this. Any suggestions?</p>

[michaelchristensen]

<p>While it is possible the internal capacitor (or something else) is defective I would simply try cleaning the contacts in the battery compartment with contact cleaner on a q-tip, reinstall the batteries and turn it on. Also clean the camera's & hot shoe contacts while you are at it. With the SB28 once you have electrical flow to the unit you should be able to hear a faint whine as the capacitor charges. </p>

<p>I have a couple of SB28's and have never had problems with them, even after long periods of storage and non-use. But I also don't subject my gear to harsh handling, dropping, and am careful not to over-task the flash with too many high-speed shots at full power. Well, I did that once and the flash unit got really hot to touch. </p>

<p>I use lithium AA energizer batteries in my F100s and flashes .. and I do check the voltage of the batteries even when I open a new package .. </p>

[rawphotos]

<p>I have an SB28 and I had to take a ink pen eraser and rub the poles where both ends of the batteries go in. Just a thought. Jim</p>

[juhaniv]

<p>I have occasionally had problems in getting my SB-600 to wake up with Alkaline batteries, but with rechargeable batteries it wakes up every time. I have no idea why the problem is that way - based on the voltages you would think Alkalines are more reliable.</p>