Reverse Engineering

Ever wanted to see inside a digital camera? This one died on us a little while ago, the diagnosis being terminal CCD failure. Professional repair wouldn’t be cost effective, so I thought I’d have a go instead. Armed with a set of miniature screwdrivers that fell out of a christmas cracker, I carefully removed the body and lens to reveal its innards. Most of the pieces were cunningly interlocked, so had to be removed in a particular order to reveal the next screw underneath. I was aiming for the CCD image sensor at the back of the lens. I had to remove the circuit boards and ribbon cables to get to it as there was no way in from the front. About half way through, the flash unit fired! That came as quite a shock but, realising there must be some residual charge left in the capacitor, I cut the wires to it - very carefully. Eventually I got to the CCD - it’s to the left of the lens in the picture. Having got this far, I decided to dismantle the LCD display and anything else that wasn’t welded together. Now all I need is an instruction manual and some glue.