Faqs And Facts - Canon CHDK User Manual

FAQs and Facts

Q. Can CHDK damage your camera ?
A. Short answer: It is unlikely, but theoretically possible. CHDK comes with no warranty for any
use; you use it at your own risk. CHDK is created by reverse engineering an undocumented system
that directly controls hardware. Because of this, it is impossible to be certain that it is completely
safe.
Long answer: It is very unlikely that CHDK will permanently harm your camera. There have been no
confirmed reports of CHDK damaging a camera, and both the original firmware and the CHDK
developers take precautions to avoid situations where this could happen. There are at least two ways in
which CHDK could theoretically do damage:-
1). By commanding physical hardware to do something it was not designed to do. For example, it is
possible to command the lens hardware to move when the lens is closed.
lens hardware beyond limits allowed by Canons firmware, using scripts or overrides. See UBASIC/
Scripts:_Tele-Macro-Mode
2). By overwriting the internal flash ROM where the Canon firmware is kept, rendering the camera un-
bootable. Since CHDK does not ever intentionally write to internal flash, it would take an extremely
unlikely sequence of events to make this happen.
It's worth noting that neither of these cases have resulted in actual damage, and both required direct
input from the user.
If you are concerned about this, you can minimize your risk by avoiding untested development builds
(such as the autobuilds, or test builds posted on the forum) and being careful about what scripts you
run.
1.
http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php/topic,2335.0.htm
2.
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/UBASIC/Scripts:_Tele-Macro-Mode
3.
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:UBASIC/Scripts#Tele-Super-
See:
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ
Q. When I switch off my camera and then switch it on again, the CHDK program does not work,
What's wrong?
A. When you update your camera with CHDK, it doesn't actually change the firmware. Because it is just
a memory-resident program, it only remains in the camera's memory until the camera is turned all the
way off. So, if something goes wrong and camera does not respond, you can always switch the
camera off (or remove the battery, and perhaps delete it from the memory card) to return to the
original firmware.
See:- http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ
Q. Does using the CHDK program void your warranty?
A. Please bear in mind that CHDK comes with no warranty for any use; you use it at your own risk.
What follows is just a few thoughts, and is not a legal opinion. Many believe that using the CHDK
does not harm your warranty, since it is said to be loaded into the memory only temporarily (turn off
the cam and it's gone completely) and that it leaves the original camera firmware untouched.
Canon Tech Support *says: "Unfortunately, any upgrades to the software of the camera not
(2) and Talk:UBASIC/Scripts # Tele-Super-Macro_Mode_Comments
l
(1) It is also possible to move
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(3).