Introduction #
If you’ve acquired one of Infant Optics’ DXR-8 baby monitor cameras (Amazon Link), you know they are not cheap - $99.99 as of today. If you run into the misfortune of having one drop and not power on, you might be lucky enough to repair it with $0.77 cents in parts plus shipping.
Observed Camera Behavior #
The camera fell onto a hardwood floor from a height of around 4ft while being plugged in. After the fall, the camera was not functioning and the power status LED on the front of the camera was not lighting up. There was no evidence of damage to the exterior of the unit.
Repair Instructions #
The first step in disassembling the camera is to lift the rubber pads off of the bottom of the camera and remove the 4x screws on the bottom. Once this is done you can inspect one side of the circuit board for more damage. In my case, the damage was quite clearly on the power connector which had a crack down the side.
After seeing this damage and noticing no power anywhere on the board when checked with a multimeter, I decided to remove the connector, measure it and find a replacement. To get to the other side of the circuit board for desoldering, the three connectors that are wired through the central hole need to be popped off. This can be done with a screwdriver or your fingernails. There is some type of adhesive to secure them in their mated positions but this scrapes off easily. After taking these connectors off, I removed the antenna screw and the motor mounting screws to loosen the board out of its casing.
The power connector can be replaced with a CUI Devices PJ-031D (Digikey) or PJ-031DH (Digikey) connector. The -H suffix indicates a higher power rating and is what I opted for on my repair; it costs 6 cents more than the regular device at a whopping $0.77. These connectors don’t have quite as good of a feel when plugging in as the original but do the job well.
