Does anyone know how the retracting mechainsm works on a (Nikon) digital camera?

I'm not familiar with Nikons, but I've repaired the lens assembly on a number of Panasonic cameras, and I expect they are similar inside.

There are a number of nested tubes, some hollow, some with lenses inside. The outside of the tubes have three (usually) pins sticking out. The inside of each tube has matching grooves into which the pins of the next smaller tube fit. The outer tube has a gear sector on the back, and a small reversible motor is used to cause it to rotate. As it rotates, the grooves and pins cause the tubes to extend or retract, sort of like a nut on a bolt. The grooves follow a very non-linear path, which causes some of the tubes to move at a different rate than the others, in sone cases even "backwards" (retracting when other tubes are moving forward).

As you might expect, the pins are small and fragile and the grooves are shallow. Forcing the lens inward will at least cause some of the pins to jump out of their grooves, and may actually cause some to break off.

From what you said, it sounds like the lens of your camera has been jammed in that way.

You might try *gently* rotating the lens while pushing and pulling, to see if any displaced (but not broken) pins might be persuaded to slip back into their grooves. I managed to fix a Panasonic camera that way

If you send the camera in for repair, it's almost certain that the entire lens assembly (which includes the auto-focus, zoom, and image stabilizer mechanisms, and the photo sensor) will be replaced. You're probably correct, that the actual piece that broke is only worth a few cents, but the labor involved in getting to it would be huge.

If you feel comfortable working with tiny screws and other components, paper-thin electrical cables, etc. it is possible to take a camera apart, disassemble the lens mechanism, glue broken pins back in place, and put the whole thing back together. I've done it, but for my own "amusement"; there could never be any money in it. At any reasonable hourly rate, a new camera would be a lot cheaper.

Isaac

Thanks Isaac for that very full reply. It seems possible to buy these camer as for parts very inexpensively on ebay at the moment and with August appro aching, prices will go even lower. How difficult is it to switch out the wh ole lens assembly mechanism itself like Nikon would do if they did the repa ir?

Back in the days when smartphones were a rarity, I replaced screens on Wing s, 8525s and Wizards and that involved taking the whole phone down to the l ast screw! What I discovered was that everything is pretty modular and desi gned to let only semi-skilled third world workers compile these SORTS of th ings from modules.

Or would the camera never focus to infinity any more if not adjusted with m inuscule accuracy when completed? (or does that theory date from the days w hen film planes were fixed and no longer apply now that intricuate electron ics designates when the camera is properly focused?)

I don't know about Nikons. The Panasonics I've opened up have been excellently engineered, with clever assembly needing nearly no screws, plus connectors everywhere so no soldering is necessary. I've opened one each HP and Olympus, and they were both POS messes of spaghetti wiring inside. Everything was connected with flying wires (no cables, flat or otherwise) and screws everywhere -- except for where pairs of boards were actually soldered together. Impossible to work on, nearly, and if you tried, you'd have to make a complete record as you took it apart, to be reasonably sure of getting all the wires properly connected again.

On the Panasonics, the complete lens assembly is attached with three or four screws, and two flat cables connect everything up. It's a drop-in; no alignment is necessary.

Isaac

On Fri, 19 Jul 2013 21:49:35 -0700, isw wrote as underneath my scribble :

Thanks for posting that useful info, Ill look more closely at Panasonic when next after a camera! Just to add info for others I broke the screen on a Pentax Optio 5i compact (very small) and it was for the bin, so i took it apart - a nightmare once inside and I would say quite impossible to repair anything to do with the lens system (tiny beautifully made plastic click together parts with absolutely no provision for reversing assembly!) without spending hours and hours and with no guarantee of success! Also really buried inside was a tiny NiCd soldered in rechargable cell which was leaking - so these cameras have a time limited life anyway! This Pentax was 5/6 years old - the bin was definitely the right way to go! C+

That's the advantage of junk equipment, you can learn from them. Since they don't work, it doesnt' matter if you damage then, but yo might get it going. But trying it on something yo don't care about yo may learn that it's not worth the effort on a good item.

I dragged home an LCD monitor a couple of years ago, and when I plugged it in, it turne dout the screen had been cracked. So I stripped it down, and in doing so saw how accessible most of the electronics were. That prepared me for the next one I found, which did work, but reset sporadically (bad capacitors in the power supply). The LCD monitors are so easy to work on compared to CRT monitors or tv sets, the boards are small, and easy to access and remove, and everything is pretty available with the power on. The lack of high voltage for the CRT helps, too.

As for the other batteries in digital cameras, that seems common. The flash on mine keeps turning on, when I keep turning it off, and that reminded me that it has some button cells accessible from the battery compartment, to keep something, presumably the settings, alive when the main batteries aren't in. I think a previous digital camera had some button cells too.

Michael

I agree with you and say that I have done this to intricate things like Sma rtphones. What I was wondering was whether it is easy or almost impossibly difficult to take apart a 12MP digital camera. Or is everything very mod ular, - even if it can be impossible to repair modules themselves? Is an ything on this camera likely to be easy to repair, - given how inexpensive ly they can be bought as repair units?

I am a bit worried that the local camera repairer (who presumably has all t he setup and calibration equipment he needs) says that he doesn't do ANY Co olpix repairs. He sends them ALL to Nikon who presumably replace the whole camera 'cos they charge approx the landed price of the new camera for any r epair.