Sensor cleaning on a Polaroid X530 (Cam porn)

Jesito · Expire: 2015-01-07

This was the starting point:

My X530 had a nasty dust spot that was very annoying. Cloning was possible, but since the spot was really big, not always the cloning ended happily. If it were a DSLR or an EVIL with interchangeable lenses, this would'nt have been a trouble, but being a compact camera, the issue is quite different: to get to the sensor, the whole cam has to be disassembled.

Since it's an excellent cam with a Foveon sensor, I was really disappointed having it at the "hospital" box for long time. So I decided to open it this morning and try to clean its insides. Most of the compact cams are similar, so this can be a rough guide on how to do it. However I don't recommend it to anyone without some deep electrical/electronical/mechanical skills. It's better to send the cam to the customer service. They have tools and procedures that can guarantee the success. So my disclosure: This is just informative, and I will not accept any responsiblilities if someone decides to open his/her cam and ends with a camera corpse...

The first step is take out the battery and let the cam rest for one day to allow the capacitors to discharge and avoid any accidental damage by a short-circuit. Then start disassemblying it from the top and the bottom. Finally, remove the back.

Once opened, carefully disconnect all the cables and wires, writing down all the details and shooting enough pictures to have a guide in case of doubts.

The sensor is located inside the camera body (in the picture top-left side) and fixed by four chromed flat head screws.

To reach the sensor is mandatory to take out those four screws:

So you can access the sensor and its housing:

At this point only remains to blow over the sensor and the housing to remove the dust, and assemble it back in reverse order.

And finally, test the succes of the operation by shooting a white area:

Hope this can be of interest for somebody.

Regards.
Jes.

LucisPictor · Expire: 2013-12-03

WOW!

Jes, you are a brave man!

Congratulations to your successful operation!

Jesito · Expire: 2015-01-07

ilguercio · Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 11:46 am Post subject:

I didn't know there was a Polaroid powered by Foveon.
Shocked

Nice disassembling action, not many are willing to risk their cameras to do such jobs.
Smile

LucisPictor · Expire: 2013-12-03

Schnauzer · Expire: 2012-03-08

You are braver than I am.

ludoo · Expire: 2011-12-05

Great job Jes. The first that comes to mind looking at your pictures, is that it would be wonderful to remove the insides from the x530 and fit them to a "proper" manual camera...

Jesito · Expire: 2015-01-07

Thanks for your encouraging words colleagues. All is a matter of practice, method and having the proper tools.

I've had recently a load of "gifts" coming from friends consisting on a bag with plenty of parts of a lens or a camera, and they tell me "It was a fine lens (or cam) and I've been unable to rebuild it, it's for you to fix it".

Up to now I was spending some time to fix them, but I've ended fed up because parts missing, parts broken during the disassembly, lack of instructions or notes etc. I know that practice builds up knowledge, but I'm not a magician and cannot do miracles. So I've ended only trying what I honestly feel I could repair. This is the case of the lens coming from Xpres (thanks, Tudor) or some other lenses and cams that has not been previously vandalized.

Fungus is a different tale, I've had around a 50% success on cleaning them, so I take any opportunity to experiment with them. Even badly broken lenses with fungus infestations are welcome.

This cam was a bit beyond the limits, because I didn't have any schematics or disassembly guide but at the end the experience was succesful.

@Ludoo: I've been thinking on what you suggest for long time, but to link the mechanical parts from the old camera to the X530 circuitry it would probably be necessary to retouch some firmware functions, and this is (again) beyond my limits. I know I could try to read the internal camera memory and try to disassemble it, (as the Canon freakies have done), but it would be an effort too big for my available time.

I just wanted to share my experience trying to recover this nice camera for the case it could be useful for someone else having one of them.

Again, many thanks for your comments. Smile

Regards.
Jes.

Jesito · Expire: 2015-01-07

Unfortunately all my pictures hosted in the free storage servers at Ipernity, Imageshack and Minus were lost in some point in the past, when those providers either suspended the service (Minus) or asked for money to keep them.

In that process I lost around 5.000 pictures and over 200 blog entries.
This is a daunting task to recover (if possible).

I keep some backups of my pictures but along the years the hard disks have gotten worn in some cases, so my reminder is an unclassified small set of pictures whit an only identifying criteria (the date).

I've been lucky to find the ones missing at this post, looking for pictures taken in 2012 around May. I could'nt recover the sample ones (taken before and after the cleanup) but all the disassembly is documented now again.

Believe or not, this is one of the most frequent demands I receive. It seems the Polaroid X530 is still alive Like 1

(At least mine is!).

Regards,
Jes.