A look inside a pocket digital

[Railphotog]

I bought a Sanyo pocket digital camera on a local online site because it seemed like a great deal - $7.00. The seller said he'd lost the USB cord and couldn't use the camera, and the battery had died. The cord served both to download images and charge the battery.

I found two new batteries and a charger on eBay for $10.00, postage included. Once I had the batteries charged, I got the camera to work. Well for a while, as the next time I tried to turn it on it would not. Figuring I didn't have much to loose, I opened up the camera, it came apart with about 8-10 small screws. There was a white film all over one end of the front circuit board, looks like milk or something similar had been spilled on it. I carefully removed it with a cotton swab and alcohol, and reinserted the battery - and it worked!

While I had it apart, I took a few photos of the front and back, as I was amazed at how many little thingies were incorporated into this pocket sized marvel. So I got a 7MP camera with a 3X zoom for $17.00. Here are its innards:

I was able to download a manual from the Sanyo site, and discovered the camera has an internal memory. I checked and found there were 7-8 photos taken by the previous owner, seemed to be of a family vacation. I downloaded them and contacted him asking if he'd like to have them. His reply was a short "no thanks", so I deleted them. Of course he sent me another message later asking to see them. Too late!

 

[Derrel]

Nice post. I find it amazing how "electronic" P&S digicams actually are...all the mechanical screws,springs,retaining clips and rings, and such of old 35mm P&S cameras of my youth have been replaced by IC's and whatnot...

 

[KmH]

Great story.

Many people assume if some consumer electronic device quits working, it isn't repairable.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C. Clarke

 

[Patrice]

Great story.

Many people assume if some consumer electronic device quits working, it isn't repairable.

Every electric/electronic device has a little container of smoke in it somewhere, when that smoke eventually escapes the device's utility has come to and end.

 

[KmH]

:lmao:

The smoke just means the devices needs a little TLC.

Back when I repaired mainframe computer hardware that had smoked, we always told them it was a software problem.

 

[480sparky]

It's not just ordinary smoke, people........... it's magic smoke!