Our old Canon point-and-click camera that we got maybe 6 years ago finally got damaged enough not to work anymore. So wife went and bought just about cheapest possible camera - specifically Nikon Coolpix A10. Price wasn't that bad either, some 85€, taxes included.
And kid dropped it on the lens which broke on the very same day. Specifically the objective/lens mechanism that moves it to storage position got stuck, most likely by breaking or jumping off the thread (rail?) or whatever.
So what are our options? Home insurance? With deductible of ~120€, that's a no go.
Return it for refund? I'm too honest for that kind of fraud.
That leaves me with option three; open it and see what could be done. But I wasn't too hopeful to begin with. Those mechanisms tend to be damn complex and in general difficult to work with, and this being plastic didn't exactly fill me with any confidence.
I can almost hear someone out there screaming about opportunity cost, but a) I just happen to be curious enough to want to see how they're build, and b) unless you actually do get paid in full for the time spent, opportunity cost is generally nothing but an excuse to avoid things you don't really want to do. Like actually saving money by cooking yourself. But I digress here once again...
Opening the camera wasn't that difficult. Some six screws and small amount of force popped front and back covers off. After looking for way to get logic board off, I peeled some tape off the boards. And next thing I found out - painfully - that camera apparently keeps the flash capacitor (330v 100uF) charged all the time. Ouch. If you open this up, be careful with it, 10k resistor is handy for discharging it. Just don't hold the resistor leads with both hands! (doubly ouch, and might do more than just hurt). Preferably hold it with no hands, like with well-insulated pliers.
After that display and it's holder came off with few screws.
The system integration is damn impressive on these things. There is a small PCB on front of camera, just for LED, and on top there is another for for buttons and flash circuits. Those are connected to each other and main logic board with solder joints, as well as the battery contacts from holder come through the main board and were soldered on. It took a while to figure this out and to pry main board off. Lead-free solder joints are damn annoying to get off sometimes, especially if there are large ground planes involved.
After getting logic board off, the lens mechanism came off as module, pretty much as I expected.
This package itself was hold closed by I think five plastic clips. Four of them are easy to get to, but fifth is under the motors flex and damn small. Small, sharp and sturdy pin with small screwdriver is the best method to get it open.
Left is the cover with CCD, right is the mechanism.
And this is pretty much where I gave up. The motor (large-ish and metallic colored, on left of mechanism) seems to drive the opening mechanism, but the large wheel down there was seriously stuck. I could not find out any way to open this non-destructively so that was it.
I put it together (making sure to salvage that nice flash capacitor first), leaving everything (including battery holder) unconnected. This is kept as reminder and practice piece for the kid - no more cameras for him until he can handle them without dropping them constantly. Sure, it won't be fun to play with as it doesn't do anything, but that's all he's going to get for now...
If I could salvage another A10 somewhere, with, say, broken screen, I might be able to build one functional camera out of them (again, more for curiosity and practice than saving money), but even that is only worth the trouble if I get the other camera for essentially free.
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