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Hi, maybe you have an older model camera at home, or, like me, you
just bought an inexpensive, not current model, like this Nikon D3000
and you would like to convert this camera to infrared. So, that's what
I want to do and rather than taking the whole camera and sending it to
the shop, I decided to just disassemble it, take the sensor and send
that in. So, in this movie, I want to share this experience and show
step by step what I did.
Here are the tools that I used: A small Philips screw driver, a 1.5
(mm) hex wrench in case I have to do any focus adjustments, a pair of
tweezers, a soldering iron and something to keep all the little screws
in, preferrably with multiple compartments for the individual
steps. So, I used this storage box for slides. And also, what comes in
very handy is a very good magnifying glass like this one, which came
with my sensor cleaning kit.
After taking out the battery I started by removing the bottom panel,
which is held in place by ten screws. You can see them here, there are
two next to the lens mount. One of these screws is hidden underneath a
small rubber tab right next to the battery compartment.
Next is the rear panel of the camera. You can see two screws here,
left and right of the view finder; I have already removed the rubber
piece that's usually here. You see two more screws on the left and two
more on the right, six total.
Once I removed those, I had to remove a flat cable that connects the
LCD with the main circuit board. That sits in what's called a "zero
insertion force" connector, which has a little hinge that I had to
unhook with my fingernail.
This is what the camera looks like after we've removed the back panel
with the LCD and also the bottom panel. You see a large circuit board
with the processor on it and 6 flat cables that we are going to remove
next. So, here you see these cables, number one, two, three, four,
five and six, and we will unplug all of those. There is a seventh
underneath here that I actually did not unplug. You also see the empty
connector here where the LCD and the back panel was connected, we
already removed this. The next step would be to unsolder this red wire
here, so the top of the circuit board will be free after we loosen
five screws that hold it in place. Here is number one, two, three,
four, and there is a fifth screw, not visible right now, underneath
this flatband cable. So, once we have done all that, we can basically
fold this circuit board over along this edge, because it's still
connected here by some more wires, so we can fold it over to the front
and we can see what's underneath.
So, what you see here is the camera, once I took the first circuit
board and folded it down, so you can see this first circuit board
hanging basically down here at the bottom. The next circuit board you
see here is the back side of the sensor, so that's the sensor we want
to remove and send in. One quick comment, well, two quick comments,
here is, first of all, the red wire that we unsoldered, second, here
is another connector that I had to remove that was on the bottom of
the first circuit board and I only saw it once I lifted it up. Ok, so,
here is by the way the connection to the sensor that we unplugged on
the top side and that we will later unplug here as well.
The sensor itself is screwed in by three, slightly larger Philips
screws. Here is one, two, and here is the third one. I found those
somewhat hard to remove, I had to work a little bit on it, but
eventually I got them out. The sensor also is attached here with two
notches, so there is nothing to remove here. You cannot actually
remove the sensor until you have unsoldered two connections here,
those two are for the sensor cleaning function.
Ok, we did it! This is the sensor assembly, removed from the camera,
now we can see the front of the sensor and also the three screws where
it was attached, as well as the sensor cleaning wire that will later
be removed during conversion. So, this is the piece I will send in to
be converted to Infrared.
Here you see the container where I kept all the screws and other
little parts.
Hello again! It's now a few days later and today I received this in
the mail: This is the converted sensor with a 720 nm filter in front
of it that appears black, basically, in visible light and now I'm
going to install this in the camera, basically doing all the steps in
reverse that we've seen earlier.
After putting everything back together, I noticed a backfocusing
problem of the camera. To fix this, I had to turn the three screws
that you see here in the bottom of the camera clockwise. I was able to
almost, but not completely, correct this problem.