(Trying to) repair a Nikon D100!

[dfabrici]

Hi everybody!
As you may have read in my presentation, I really love repairing/restoring and tinkering with mechanical and electronic items, so as I'm just entering the magic world of photography, not having any camera, I decided to try to repair the old Nikon D100 that was my uncle's.
Many years ago, the shutter decided to stop working, jamming every pair of pics taken. I asked him to not throw it away (the Nikon repair service declared it as unfixable) and give the "corpse" to me. It rested in peace until a week ago when I decided it was time to try to repair it, I've seen around the net that it's still capable of taking wonderful shots!
It's quite a daunting process, as I read from the manual that I need to dismantle the whole camera body to gain access to the shutter, but there's nothing to lose.
I ordered the genuine Nikon spare, used, with not many shots on it, and I'm waiting for the shipment.
Hope you might enjoy this journey, I noticed that DIY is quite rare in photography, so I wanted to try something different!

 

[dxqcanada]

Hmm, taking on a more modern electronic camera is quiet daunting ... would be very interesting.

 

[dfabrici]

Nice blog you have! We both like broken stuff I see!
Well then, here we go! While waiting for the shutter to get here, I decided to start dismantling and cleaning the "easiest" stuff so to familiarize with the camera itself.
Here it is, the corpse!

Unfortunately it has a crevice in the rear LCD "glass". If it ever gets to work again, I'll definitely be replacing it!

Sorry for my bad English

Davide

 

[dxqcanada]

Thanks ... and don't apologize for your "English", there is no issue there.

 

[dfabrici]

I decided to start opening the camera, to familiarise and to start cleaning it, as the externals are dusty and grimy.
Removed all the screws that held the baseplate in place:

Slowly removed all the connections’ flat cables and there it goes, the Memory compression board is removed.

Some screws later and the whole backplate comes off, starting to reveal the beauty of the camera internals. It’ll be dismantled and thoroughly cleaned, as the buttons were sticky and non responsive.

Davide

 

[dfabrici]

Hi!
While waiting for the part to arrive, I decided to give a thorough cleaning and checking of the whole back panel, as during the years some dust entered behind the lcd glass and some of the buttons got unresponsive and dirty.

Here’s the panel with the CF cover removed:

Removed the board’s screws and softened the lcd adhesive, and there it goes.

So I thoroughly cleaned the plastic frame with soap and warm water, as well as the CF cover and the many buttons and controls. Then I deoxidised the controls’ contacts on the board, the culprit of the unresponsiveness was a layer of grime that deposited under the buttons’ conductive rubber.

Here it is after some work, the back cover all reassembled, cleaned and with the CF cover spring lubricated as it was rubbing onto itself.

Should I ever get it to work again, I’ll replace that LCD cover for sure! It’s so unnerving to see

Davide

 

[Solarflare]

Good luck with the "getting it to work again".

And thanks for the imagery. Very entertaining stuff.

 

[dfabrici]

Some news! The shutter should arrive here today, but in the meantime I decided to take some steps further, I removed the DC/DC board.

Unsoldered the little wires coming from the battery, 4 screws removed and the board comes off.

On the other side I noticed a rechargeable backup battery, that I'll be replacing.

Bye!
Davide