What to do with a dead camera? - Hotwire! Hardware Mods, Accessories and Insights - CHDK Forum

What to do with a dead camera?

  • 6 Replies
  • 5055 Views
What to do with a dead camera?
« on: 28 / January / 2010, 20:08:34 »
Advertisements
You probably want to skip to the last lines of this post to the question

Currently I have a canon and use chdk, but before that I had a panasonic lumix TZ3. I stopped using it when I crushed its lens assembly, breaking the autofocus, and all sorts of stuff so that the lens no longer moved. after that happened, when I turned it on, all the camera would do was to tell me to turn it off and on again because of a lens error. SO, interested as I was by it, I disassembled it entirely to see what I had broken, and to try disconnecting the lens assembly. Even with it disconnected, the camera gives the same error message. My question is, is there anything cool I can do with the camera? Is there any way you can think of that I could take photos with it again. I am not trying to rescue it, but since I have it, if there is anything cool I can do with it, that would be awesome. that was a bit long

In Short, Is there anything cool I can do with a broken digital camera? (broken lens assembly, camera refuses to capture photos without a functioning lens)

Re: What to do with a dead camera?
« Reply #1 on: 29 / January / 2010, 22:53:01 »
It sounds like you completely dorked your camera. Have you really looked to see what sort of connections are disconnected that let the camera brain know that it's eyeball is not missing? If you can figure out what makes the camera tick and how to close the loops (Those gaps that let the camera brain know the lens is missing.) Then you could attach another lens like an slr/dslr lens and goof to see if it will focus or not. If you can't close any of the loops... I am not sure what to tell you.

 Maybe you can make a USB remote with it.

Re: What to do with a dead camera?
« Reply #2 on: 30 / January / 2010, 21:39:09 »
Yeah, that's what I thought, It doesn't have to take pictures again, but maybe I'll just use it as a photography subject. I can't tell which connections they are, i think, because it gives the message even when i plug in the lens, and those tiny wire strips are too hard to test for continuity and such.
Thanks!

*

Offline Ruta9

  • *
  • 14
Re: What to do with a dead camera?
« Reply #3 on: 30 / January / 2010, 22:32:24 »
Maybe you can build a remote flash.
This guy built one using a disposable camera

Re: What to do with a dead camera?
« Reply #4 on: 31 / January / 2010, 11:52:15 »
Yeah, that sounds cool, and the triggering mechanism is simpler than other things I see, maybe I will, the flash unit and battery are connected and easy to take out of the camera.

Thanks!

Re: What to do with a dead camera?
« Reply #5 on: 17 / December / 2010, 08:42:00 »
I have a G9 that I similarly broke by dropping it on the sidewalk in January. Its lens assembly is loose inside and turning it on merely shows an error message whereupon it shuts itself off. I've since gotten a G12, which I love, but I wonder what I can do with the dead G9 - Canon had asked for $350 to fix it.

I haven't taken it apart. At present it functions only as a paperweight or a rattle.

My CHDK adventures are with my 400D, hence my username, since that's the 400D's name in the US.

*

Offline ahull

  • *****
  • 634
Re: What to do with a dead camera?
« Reply #6 on: 01 / January / 2011, 17:43:27 »
If you want to take pictures with it, you will need to "fake" a couple of signals from the lens assembly.
So far as I can tell the lens extends and retracts during power on self test, prior to taking the first picture.
This will probably involve two limit switches, and these will almost certainly be optocouplers (A light sensitive device, probably a photo transistor or photo diode, and a light source, probably an infra red LED)

I have a couple of dead canon ebay corpses which I robbed to fix an 850IS and a SD550 and so far as I can tell this is all there is to their optical assembly, nothing too fancy from an electronic perspective. The trouble is that these signals need to be received by the microprocessor in the right time frame to convince it that the lens has extended and settled.

If you had access to a scope and a bit of spare time, you could probe the pins of a working camera, or simply switch on the dead lens one and manually operate the lens (if it is not jammed solid), or even just guess by estimating the time taken to init the lens.

This would give you the approximate required timings, which could be adjusted  till the brain of the canon powers up reliably. (The usual caveat about electrocuting yourself with the flash capacitor applies,  :o I can tell you from experience it is extremely unpleasant, and potentially fatal, so discharge it carefully if you are planning on soldering any wires anywhere, and avoid it like the proverbial if testing with the back off).

Once you know what signals are required, you would then be in a position to convert it to use some other lens, the timing signals could probably be faked with a couple of 555 ICs or a PIC micro.

Why not remove the IR filter while you are at it, Armed with this and similar info for the lens of your choice, Frankencamera lives!  :blink:




« Last Edit: 01 / January / 2011, 17:46:58 by ahull »

 

Related Topics


SimplePortal © 2008-2014, SimplePortal