My SD cards for my cameras are about 5 years old and for the past few years they have been having issues being read in my Trail Cameras. They say FULL or will not even read or will jam the camera and make it not work. The main issue lately is my cameras have been running very slowly in turning on and off. Sometimes they wont even turn off or on.

I had tried to use rubbing alcohol and a qtip, rem oil, scrub them with a dry qtip and nothing has fixed them until i tried a pencil eraser!!!

I just took the pencil eraser and erased the lines and spots on my sd cards. i thought they were worn out marks but nope, they were dirt or something because they now have almost no mark on them. maybe the eraser polished them i dont know but now they work perfectly in my cameras. they read quickly, turn on and off quickly, pretty much i thought my cameras were bad but turns out it was the sd card was dirty.

If your camera is running slowly and sluggish this may fix it. Clean your SD Card with a pencil eraser.

I am in no way affiliated with pencil erasers:)

Liar!

Great tip, I'm sure this can help many of us

Great idea, thanks

Pencil eraser is an old trick in the electronics industry.

I have never been in the electronics industry and never heard of this trick...coincidence, I think not

Would have never thought to try that

Though electronics have changed a lot over the years some things like contacts haven't, the eraser trick is one that is still in date and will be for a long time to come.

So what you're say'n is my dremel tool with 80 grit stone is maybe too much?

Every tech has an old pencil/ink eraser (the pink/grey one) with a lot of wear in his toolbox. They are actually a mild abrasive and perfect for cleaning contacts.

I just can't believe that my cameras are good and the issue was my SD cards.

Mildly abrasive and non-conductive. Perfect combination.

When I was finally able to get to some of my cameras after 6 weeks of nothing but rain and high humidity, three of the cards were not recognized by the computer. On one of them especially, you could see the build up. A few passes with the eraser and they worked fine. Over time, you can begin to see pits on the contacts...I toss those.

Four thinks to have with you at all times.
1 Duct tape
2 Bailing wire
3 WD 40
4 Good old red pencil erasers

Or one of these

When my grandfather was alive he had electric trains. I remember as a young boy having to get one of pink erasers and going down every inch of track every so often to make sure there were no 'dead' spots in the line.

Tried it on SD cards a few years back and voila!

I'm shocked they still make pencil erasers!

I'm shocked that they still make pencils !!

Along these same lines, I've found that if I rub both ends of a battery that reads "DEAD," I can sometimes get a few more hours out of them before I have to replace them.

I'm not in electronics but have known of this since the late 70s... used to do this when I was young to clean the contacts on slot cars. I've cleaned contacts on a variety of items with an eraser over the years... battery contacts, mechanical servo (speed controller) on remote control cars, etc...

I was out at the lease this weekend pulling cards and 2 of the 3 cameras I checked said no pictures to import when I put the card in my laptop. Could dirty connections be the problem? I had checked cameras 3 weeks earlier and each of those had at least 1500 pics on them. I didn't make any changes to the settings and this time they had nothing. I thought maybe someone was messing with my cameras but we had rain a few days ago and there were no tire tracks on the roads.

Yes. It could be the problem. Also sometimes cameras mess up right when you turn them on. I always make sure they take a picture before I leave the camera. Also sometimes the cameras don't like too much heat and they mess up and it has been super hot lately.

I would clean all cards with eraser. Put cards in, turn on, and make sure they take a picture before I leave.

I wish I had taken more time to look them but with 7 feeders and 5 cameras total to check (I was looking after my buddy's as well) I was in a bit of a hurry. I just checked the settings to make sure everything was okay and changed the batteries in one. Both appeared to be functioning when I left but now I'm wanting to run back out there and check again.

We have a Bushnell Trophy Cam Black Max that is very particular in how we flip the switches and power it on. Only works one way. Sometimes as the cameras get older and cards get older they are very finicky.