Canon A550/A560 Lens Assembly Repair

Now for the lens assembly repair. First of all, unhook the spring from here:

Next, you have to dislodge the main flexible cable assembly. For this, you'll have to remove the tape (red arrow). Then slightly push up the flexible cable assembly (blue arrow). This is held down with some sort of sticky glue. You should be careful, and it will come off easily. Then, slightly push from under using a watch flat screwdriver (yellow arrow) to make this part of assembly come. It is held down by plastic tabs (visible in the pic). Next, the assembly will have to be taken out from under the plastic tab (grey arrow). Since the cable is flexible, you should be able to do that very easily:

Tape off:

And cable assembly removed from under the plastic tab:

Next, take off the five screws:

And slightly push the tab slightly, to make it come off:

Only the slightest wiggling will make the top and bottom part separate. They're still connected through the cable assembly, so don't try to take the two halves apart:

This exposes the problem. Broken gears in the gearbox:

This is not a difficult fix. This pair of gears is available on ebay for $12.50, including shipping. Seems like in this case at least, the root cause was dropping the camera, and not sand from the beach, as I'd initially thought, though the sand particles are still there.

The lens assembly can further be taken out to clean up the dust and sand particles etc.:

Now to bust an urban myth. The camera with a stuck lens does not repair itself by blowing air through it by using a compressor, or thumping it, or throwing it against the wall. In this case, severe thumping/ buggering has resulted in not just the tabs on lens cover to be broken (red arrows):

but also in other cosmetic blemishes from the "thumping":

Right now, I don't have an incentive to order these gears and repair the lens assembly, since I've already used the parts from this camera to repair the other one, but next time, I know what to do if I come across a camera which lens issues.

Disassemble a canon A540/A530 to the sensor to remove the ir cut filter

This tutorial will show you how to disassemble a canon a540/a530 to the sensor to remove the ir cut filter.

Tools:
#00 philips screw driversoldering iron

couple of notes:
- there is 300 volts or so inside the camera. canon has done a pretty good job shielding those areas, and I haven't gotten shocked even though my fingers have been everywhere, but be careful anyway. it's enough energy to kill you several times if you're unlucky.
- you may end up with an ir sensitive camera, or you may end up buying a new camera.

remove the green and red screws. the green screws are identical. take off the back cover. the back cover snaps together with the front cover at the top of the camera.

remove the screw and loosen the clips holding the lcd. disconnect the cables connecting the lcd and set the lcd aside.
remove the screw and take off the front cover. there's a thin dust ring between the cover and the lens barrel, don't lose it.

remove the screws. the red screw is a metal screw. pry off the plastic io panel and tripod thread assembly.

if you want to, now is the time to turn back first remove the two screws holding the control panel pcb, then disconnect and remove the control panel. very carefully disconnect the cables. the connectors are very delicate, and if you snap one, you'll be buying a new camera.

desolder the circled wires. it is not necessary to detach the crossed wires. remove the three screws holding the main pcb (not indicated here), and reflect the main pcb along the bottom, exposing the sensor.

circuit board pics...

sweet

remove the screws holding the sensor. the sensor is also glued down near the screw tabs. remove the sensor by prying near the screw tabs - the glue is brittle. do not pry at the center. there are three springs beneath the sensor, be careful and hold a hand over the sensor as you pry at it so the sensor does not pop out. my guess is that they are used for focus adjustment - the springs push the sensor back to to the screw, and the screws can be loosened to move the sensor back. then glue is applied to secure its position.

remove the ir cut filter (looks pinkish). you will need to move the sensor back slightly by approx 0.1 mm as removing the glass filter changes the optical path...

there are two ways that I can think of:
1. include the springs as you reassemble the sensor. screw the sensor down all the way, and loosen the screws by an equal amount to move the sensor back. glue to secure it
2. prepare three focus spacers out of a thin material (plastic, metal) and screw the sensor on top of that. you don't need the springs if you do this.

clean the sensor and the area near the ir filter, and reassemble everything. everything should work if you didn't break anything. have fun with your now ir sensitive cam

Pentax 50mm lens fix

I acquired an SMCA 50mm f1.7 from eBay. Well, what do you expect.. The aperture ring was would only turn between f1.7 and f11. Meaning no A position action for my DS. So I did a bit of reading round the net and found that this seems to be a problem peculiar to this one specific Pentax lens. I need very little encouragement to take things to bits, so I went for it, and here are my observations.

First, unscrew the five screws securing the bayonet mount.

Take it off, and it looks like this

The aperture lever cam just lifts off, like this.

Next, the tricky bit. You have to take the aperture ring off, VERY CAREFULLY. It is worth doing this in a box or perhaps a plastic bag, because there are a couple of tiny bits that could fly off and get lost. If you happen to have one of those handy magnetised parts trays (available from all good automotive tool supply shops), so much the better. Once the ring is eased off, and all the bits are accounted for, relax. But not totally. You may have one or more minute ball bearings rolling around. They are teeny tiny. Keep good track of them and BEWARE, they are soo small that if you brush against one accidentally, you can pick one up on your skin without realising it - until it is too late and you've lost it. Best advice - pick them up with a bit of Sellotape until you are ready to put it all back together. The A position button will probably fall out of the aperture ring, but it's large by comparison and hard to lose.

Now it looks like this. Note that little silver bullet-on-a-spring thingy. That's the 'A' connector, as it were, that tells the camera when the lens is in A mode. Most likely it fell off when the aperture ring came off. The bullet thingy sits on a metal tab in that grove. The bullet thing disassembles into three bits; the bullet, the spring and the carrier. If yours drops off and falls to bits, just press the bullet bit back into the carrier and shove the spring back up its arse and, come reassembly time, put the metal tab back in the grove and sit the bullet thingy assembly back on it.

Now to the main event. There are two metal tangs controlling the A position clickstop. These are held in place with plastic welds. These welds are a bit fragile and commonly fail. It seems that Pentax only used this fixing on this one specific lens, but I haven't looked inside any others to check. Yet. So there's the problem - the weld has failed on one tang and it has become detached, jamming the ring.

Solution: I have read that some people have drilled tiny holes and reaffixed the tangs with tiny screws. Far too much effort for me. I just used a blob of Araldite adhesive, which seems to have done the job perfectly. Perhaps you could lash it down with duct tape. There there, all better. Original plastic weld on the right, Araldite blob on the left.

Now to stick it all back together. Remember the detent - here's the spring, pulled a bit out of its hole so you can see it.

And there you have it. It's not brain surgery, just a bit fiddly. I do hope you didn't lose any of those ball bearings now...

Canon A430 fix

The Canon A430 is a nifty and inexpensive little P&S. We got it as an upgrade for my old Canon A60 as a family snaps camera. The red colour matches my wife's car. Anyhoo.. only six months old, the lens jams half in and half out. The camera is unusable. It beeps and says "lens error" then turns itself off. Fair enough, so send it away to the authorised Canon service centre. But oh no, they send back a fuzzy 6x4 picture showing what they say is sand in the lens mechanism. They say this invalidates the warranty and would I care to pay £99.83 for them to fix it? Seeing as a new one now costs rather less than that, I decline. I then have to fork out another £8.50 for them to post it back to me. I am not a happy punter. But with nothing to lose I decide to try and fix it myself. It turns out to be a doddle. I see no reason why this same approach will not work with any other Canon models with stuck lenses caused by grit in the mechanism. (If the mechanism itself is irreparably damaged, say after dropping the camera, you're out of luck.)

First, remove the three screws on the base (note how the serial number has rubbed off. This seems to be a modern design feature - the self-erasing serial number. I've seen it on a number of very recent consumer products)

Then remove the screw on the AV in/out connection side. Then on the opposite side, remove the screw hidden under the rubber flap

covering the USB connector.

Five screws, that's all there are.

Now gently pry open along the seam and ease off the front half of the casing.

Now you can begin to see where we're going. Just above that 6105, underneath that orange ribbon connector, is where the problem lies.

But we need more access. So remove the rear casing. As with the front casing, it just eases gently off. However, the orange ribbon cable

will remain connected between the camera and the LCD.

Now we can get at the problem. Half hidden by the strip of orange ribbon cable, by the ball of my thumb, is a worm (spiral) gear that engages with a cog. Some grains of sand or grit have got in and jammed between the gear and cog teeth. All that is required is to take a paintbrush and blower, or whatever you have to hand, and dust out the grit. At the top of the worm gear are some small turning vanes that are useful because you can use them to turn the worm gear whilst dusting.

If your eyes are sharp you may be able to make out the axe-head shape of one of the vanes in the shot below. (Travel north from 6105 and it's underneath the small stub of ribbon connector.)

After blowing and dusting and turning the screw, it is time for a test; so put the batteries back in.

Push the power button and see what happens. With luck, and perhaps a bit of a residual grinding sound, the lens mechanism will operate as designed.

I got lucky. I just slid the casings back on - remembering to locate the rubber cover grommets for the USB and AV connectors as I did so - and replaced the five screws. Now all is well. So Canon can stuff their "invalid warranty" and kiss what goodwill I had towards them goodbye. On the other hand; they do make a camera that is remarkably easy to take apart. But next time I'll be buying one of those Pentax or Olympus waterproof numbers..

Canon A70 - IR Modification

Canon A70 - IR Modification

I describe below how to modify a Canon Powershot A70 into an IR only camera by replacing the factory installed IR cut filter with an IR only passing filter.

By removing the IR cut filter, and replacing it with an appropriate filter that only lets IR radiation pass, we can create a highly sensitive, IR capable digital camera that opens up a whole new world of creative possibilities while retaining the convenience of digital photography.

Why did I choose the A70? There are no specific technical reasons, I merely had one at my disposal. This hack is not new and has been performed with numerous different camera models by many other people. However, as decent documentation is scarce, I believe this page might be worthwhile for someone.

Before I continue, a few words of caution. Please read them carefully!

- The below documentation is for entertainment or educational purposes only. It is most likely incomplete, wrong, misleading, full of errors and omissions, and potentially hazardous to yourself and your environment. Peruse at your own risk.

- Understand that it is a very likely possibility that your camera will not survive the described modification. Don't attempt this if you don't feel the camera is expendable.

- The flash capacitor in the camera stores a possibly lethal current. While unlikely, if you have a known or unknown medical condition, or just bad luck, you could possibly kill your self. If you proceed, take the appropriate precautions. The only way to stay completely safe is not to attempt this modification at all.

- You agree to hold me free of any damages or injuries that should result from you or someone you know attempting the below modification.

Tools

You will need as a minimum the following tools and equipment:

-A set of 3 or 4 fine tweezers of various shapes

-A 1mm flat head screwdriver

-A Phillips screwdriver #000

-A TORX screwdriver #T4

-Packaging tape

-A permanent pen

-A clean work area

-A Cokin P007 IR pass filter or something equivalent to create a replacement for the IR cut filter.

-A dremel tool or similar to cut the replacement for the IR cut filter to its proper size. A small hand saw can be used as well, with 150 grain sand paper to sand the piece down to final dimensions.

Before you begin, have a good system to keep track of the screws and their original location:

A large piece of packing or duct tape, turned around to expose the sticky side and fixed to your desk at it's ends is perfect. Draw outlines of the pieces you are removing directly onto the sticky side of the tape, label the drawn parts accordingly, then set down the screws at their approximate locations onto the tape while you disassemble. This will greatly help in preserving all screws and making sure they go back where they belong once you reassemble.

The Modification

First you need to remove the 3 screws on the bottom of the camera.

Open the cover for the connection ports. Remove the tray containing the CR1220 battery. You will see two screws which you need to remove.

Open the battery compartment on the bottom of the camera. There are four screws that need to be removed. Two on top and two on the inside of the compartment.

Open the CF card door and turn the camera on its head. There is another screw that needs to be removed.

Now the top plate containing the zoom and shutter release comes loose. It attaches via a tiny green connector to the body of the camera. Disconnect and remove. The CF card door will now also come off.

On the front of the camera, press the button marked with a red circle. This will allow you to unscrew the silver plastic ring around the lens.

There is one last screw on the back of the camera that you need to remove.

You will now need to carefully pry the plastic shell apart and off of the camera. Remove the back portion covering the LCD screen first, starting at the bottom and working yourself up. You will need to use some force, but not excessively so. It's more a question of feeling.

The cover for the battery compartment can be removed by pushing at the metal axis forming the hinge to the compartment in the direction of the green arrow with something like a paper clip. Watch the spring circled in red, you don't want it to go flying across the room.

This is what you end up with once the lid has been removed.

Now remove the mode dial at the top via the two screws holding it.

Before you proceed, take note of the "huge" capacitor to the left. It temporarily stores the power for a flash discharge and is probably loaded to full capacity. To prevent it from discharging via an accidental touch, possibly seriously hurting or even killing you or frying any equipment you might be touching at the time, I suggest you cover the terminals on top with electrician's tape for insulation.

Next, you need to remove the flexible circuit board covering most of the top and back of the camera. Start by removing the one screw holding it at the bottom.

Next, push the black lever to the top left inwards, so that you can remove the switch registering if the CF card door is open or shut. Be careful you don't push the black lever in too far, or it will come off and you will be hunting for it and the spring that usually pushes it back out. NOTE: this needs to work perfectly again when you put the camera back together. If not, the camera will think the CF card door is open and will NOT turn on. Be careful and take your time.

Now carefully remove the flexible circuit board from the body by lifting it off of the green circled notches one by one.

Once you have pried it completely loose, you will see where it attaches via a connector to one of the main circuit boards. carefully lift the green circled tabs with a small screw driver to unlock the connector and you will be able to pull the flexible circuit board completely off.

Now that the circuit board is removed, you can continue by removing the CF card reader. Remove the single screw circled above. Then, slowly slide the CF reader off of the rest of the body, towards you. You might need to lift it over a tab at the bottom of the camera.

Once it is almost off, separate the connector between the reader and the underlying DIGIC processor board by simply pulling back on it.

This is what it will look like once it has been separated.

Next is the LCD screen. But before you can remove it, you need to remove the optical viewfinder first. There is one screw on the front that you need to remove.

Then there are two more on top. Once removed, you can lift the viewfinder off of the top carefully. Take note that it is snapped in place in front where you removed the first screw. You will need to wiggle a bit for it to pop loose.

Under the area where the viewfinder was you will find the first screw that holds the LCD panel. There is a white ribbon cable in front of it. You will need to remove the ribbon cable eventually, so you might as well do it now by pulling it out of the marked connector which does not have a locking mechanism. Then remove the screw.

On the bottom of the camera, there are two additional screws to remove that fasten the LCD to the body.

As a last step, before you can remove the LCD, there are 2 more ribbon cables to detach - marked in blue above. The one on the side has a locking mechanism that is unlocked by moving the two blue circled pieces of plastic in the direction in which the cable detaches.

The smaller one on the bottom can just be pulled out.

Once the LCD is removed the DIGIC processor board to the right ist last before we have access to the sensor. Start by detaching the additional 3 ribbon cables marked above. The green circled one just pulls out, the blue circled ones need to be unlocked first by flipping the black plastic flap on top of them open. Next, remove the screw circled red and you should be able to wiggle the DIGIC board out of the plastic holding it to the body.

Once it is loose, there is a tiny connector on top that needs to be detached.

Finally, on the back of the board there is another ribbon cable that needs to be disconnected before you can completely remove the board.

Now you have direct access to the CCD sensor of the camera. It is fastened by three TORX screws. The top left one will be covered by the piece of metal holding the flash capacitor. Just carefully bend it to the side and out of the way.

If you have not done so yet, make sure you have a well protected, dust free place to put the sensor while you remove the IR cut filter. Check the metal housing of the sensor to see if it might be secured by one or two small drops of glue. If so, carefully scratch the glue away with a screw driver or an exacto knife. Take extreme care not to cut or otherwise damage any of the ribbon cables. Then unfasten the screws and carefully lift the sensor off by its ribbon cable.

This is what the CCD sensor looks like after being detached.

Here you can see the slightly blue tinted IR cut filter that we will be replacing by an IR only filter. Before we proceed, take note of the 3 brass shims around the screw threads holding the sensor. Also, note the two small springs marked with red arrows above. You want to be extremely careful not to lose any of them.

Carefully pull off the rubber gasket around the IR cut filter with a pair of tweezers. Then, using a screw driver, pry off the IR cut filter which is held to the plastic beneath by 2 tiny drops of glue.

Once the IR cut filter has been removed, fabricate a replacement piece out of the Cokin P007 IR filter, or whatever material you will be using. If you do not replace the IR filter with something of similar thickness and refractive index, your camera will be extremely near sighted and unusable except maybe for macros.

Above you can see the original IR cut filter in blue. As I was unable to obtain a P007 IR pass filter on short notice, I used a P003 red filter for the replacement (seen to the right) and added a piece from a thin gelatin IR filter so it would still be IR only.

Install your filter replacement in the same spot that the IR cut filter occupied and secure it with 2 additional drops of an appropriate glue. Two tiny strips of tape will work as well. Now put back the rubber gasket around the filter and re-attach the CCD sensor carefully.

Congratulations, you are almost done! Now you only need to put the whole thing back together again by retracing your steps and assembling in reverse order. Pay specific attention when re-attaching all those ribbon cables and other connectors. You want them connecting the right way around, coming together again securely and locked in place where supported. All the while you do not want to exert excessive force on any of them. Check each connection thoroughly before you move on. I would guess that 90% of the problems you might have on reassebly will be bad connections.

Good luck!!!