From: Jim Betz (jimbetz@jimbetz.com)
Date: Mon May 05 2003 - 18:42:21 EDT
I made the attached post on Friday. I had a busy weekend but
today I decided to give-it-the-old-college-try and see what was
going on. And besides, John Flowers said "you can fix this
yourself" - and even has a webpage devoted to the repair of a
'slipped' viewfinder mechanism.
So I pulled out my trusty hobby phillips screwdriver set and
sat down to go after it - with the idea that at least I could
figure out if it was the viewfinder or not. Following John's
step-by-step was easy and my 950 was close enough to the 990
he wrote up that I got all of that done fairly easily.
When the viewfinder was out of the camera and physically
inspected it didn't seem to have any problems - and it isn't
electronically connected to the rest of the camera so I
suspected that the grinding rachet sound I was hearing was
unlikely to be coming from the viewfinder. But to be certain
I put the viewfinder to my eye - out of the camera (after
disassembly) and saw that it was working fine. So I gave the
camera the old "smoke test" and powered it up with the viewfinder
out of the camera. Sure enough the noise was still there and
the dreaded "System Error" showed up in red on the LCD (same as
before) ... and, yes, I still had to pop the battery door open
to get it to power off.
If your problem is the viewfinder the camera should work
correctly - but when you view thru the viewfinder it will be
fuzzy or perhaps not even able to see thru it at all.
At this point I was ready to send it to Nikon for their free
estimate - but I knew it was expensive no matter what. So I
decided 'why not give the lens assembly a try'.
Sorry - I don't have any pics (remember my camera is what I
was working on). But here is what I did:
The 'lens half' of the Coolpix 950, 990, etc. line has 4
main sub-assemblies inside the case. There's the flash (CAREFUL!!
there are some HIGH voltages and relatively large capacitors
storing that voltage here), the viewfinder, the lens, and the
CCD and electronics (two boards).
The first task is to separate out the sub-assemblies. (I
won't go over the basic disassembly - John has detailed that.)
1) Remove the viewfinder per John Flowers.
2) Remove the flash by unplugging the 3 cables (two 'wire cables'
and one ribbon cable).
There are several ribbon cables. They all attach at one end
that you can get at and usually by sort of trapping the cable
in a connector that has a pressed in slide locking device. You
slide the locking device out a bit and then the cable slips out.
To put it back in you just slip the ribbon cable under the locking
device and get it all the way in and seated and then push the
locking device in to lock it down and make a good connection.
There are also some strange 'metallic' tapes that hold stuff in
place - be careful when removing these and they will go back where
they were. The adhesive on them won't be as good as it was when
your camera was built in Japan ... but it WILL hold again. I
don't know how many times you can take it apart and put it back
and still use the same tape.
3) Remove the two circuit boards - one of them is just sort of
hanging there attached by its ribbon cable. The other one
is held on by screws and the CCD is mounted to it. So be
careful not to get dirt or finger prints on the glass!
4) Remove the lens assembly.
So, in my case what wasn't working had to the be motor drive
for the lens focus/zoom mechanism. That comes out with just two
screws. After it is out you should be able to see the lens
assembly and determine if it is working correctly by sliding
the slider and seeing the lens assembly move smoothly - and
when you look thru it you will see it focusing/zooming. So I
remembered the location of the pin that links to the lens - and
it didn't seem to line up. Looking carefully at the motor and
its plastic parts I was able to determine that what had
happened is that the 'clip' that connects the motor to the
lens focus/zoom slider had 'jumped off'.
So I figured out how to get it back lined up (hint - you have
to sort of line it all up and then push on the slide pin a bit
and it will all line up just fine), reinstalled the focusing
motor, redid all of the stuff I did to get to that point (ie.
re-assembled the lens half of the camera).
Turned it on and VOILA! it works perfectly. I ran it thru some
basic tests such as auto flash, focus, close-up focus, etc. and
everything is working just as it did before. I might have even
improved things a bit because I also cleaned up some internal
dust in places such as the glass in front of the CCD and the
internal surface of the lens (the one behind the part that you
screw accessories such as filters onto).
I'm a happy camper. Copious acknowledgements to John Flowers for
his web site that gave me the courage to do this!
> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 20:34:35 -0700
> From: Jim Betz <jimbetz@jimbetz.com>
> Subject: I dropped my 950 ... :-(
>
> I dropped my 950 today. About 3 feet onto a wood floor. It was
> in the soft case that came with the camera. When I opened the
> case there was no physical damage - both of the doors (battery
> door and CF card door) had popped open but were easily reclosed
> with no apparent damage. No other visible damage. So I turned
> the camera on. "Funny noises" - actually only one ... a continuous
> racheting noise. I'm assuming that the auto-focus mechanism is
> damaged in some way. And the camera wouldn't turn off - had to
> pop the battery door open to turn it off.
>
> 1) Am I right that it is probably the auto focus gear slipping?
>
> 2) How much does this cost for Nikon to fix it for me?
>
> 3) Is it possible to fix it myself?
>
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