Camera Mods

[pete....@epi.epson.com]

Hey Everybody,
Seems like every time I tear into a camera I learn something. This
time, it was that they use HUGE capacitors to power the flash, and a
500 microfarad cap at 300V hurts. REALLY hurts. The mod for these
cameras ended up being pretty different than the one from last year.
The manufacturing process for last year's camera was that they put all
the guts together in a frame and then put them into a case. The P5000
is built from the front back. The front side of the body is a
magnesium alloy (as advertised) that replaces the frame. They put
down one sub assembly at a time (i.e. a circuit board) and then put
the next one on top of that. Some of the sub assemblies are soldered
together making it impossible to remove the entire innards of the
camera and work on them. Also, the main switch panel (shutter,
autofocus, power) is a sub assembly. Guess what part goes in first?
Yep. The main switch panel. So, last year we were able to access the
actual switches that we wanted to mod. This year is a different
story. The switch assembly had a ribbon cable plugging into the main
circuit board (accessible) so Mark (A dude I work with - much steadier
hands than I) was able to ohm out the locations on the board that he'd
need to solder to. The soldering spots were less than 0.5mm wide, but
his results were good. We've got a great setup, and he's ready to
solder the other two. The even better news is that after all that
dissasembly and reassembly and shocking experiences, the spot that
ended up getting soldered is really easy to get to. And also safe.
I posted pictures of the modification before and after including a
scale on the before pictures. It should be good for your report.
I'll have the camera with me to demo tomorrow.
-pete-
and also Mark Webb - the soldering genius.