What is "Harvest-Worthy" from a point-and-shoot camera?

[Tagg]

I have a point-and-shoot Canon camera, maybe 2 or 3 years old and it stopped working. We tried to fix it, but never could. Is there anything that I could get out of it?

Thank you,
-Zachary

 

[Morgan]

There will obviously be some lenses in there. How much use there'll be is unknown though. You'll also probably find some nice quality FS mirrors, (Front Surface), and perhaps IR Filter but not in a cheap one. Other mechanical and optical do-hickies.

Probably nothing directly laser related though but if it has no other purpose...

M

 

[Tagg]

I think I found the IR filter. It is a square thin piece of glass with a greenish blue tint. Is that correct? I also found a load of convex and concave lenses and a couple prisms. I never found FS mirrors though. =/ I did collect some cool buttons for on/off of maybe some other lasers.

-Zachary

 

[Morgan]

What you found sounds like an IR filter. To check you may want to take a camera/phone camera and look at the IR LED in a remote control for your TV. If you can see a blueish flashing without the filter between the camera/phone and the remote, when you press any button on the remote, then your camera/phone can, 'see', IR. Then try it with the filter between. No blueish light means no IR. This only shows that the filter blocks some wavelengths but you will at least know what it is.

FS mirrors may not be in there. It depends on the type of camera but keep hold of that filter if it turns out to be for IR.

M

 

[Benm]

The filter is probably good. FS mirrors aren't likely to be found in compact camera's, only in SLR's... although there were some compacts that had the zoom mechanism installed vertically so those must have had at least one mirror.

Perhaps some electronics would be salvageable as well - power supply/regulator, perhaps the flash lamp + caps + transformer if you can find a way to power it.

 

[laser_freak]

The zoom/focus lens apparatus could be useful. I'm not an expert in optics, but you might be able to build a beam expander out of it. Also the high capacity capacitor and the charging circuit to go with it would come in handy if you have any high voltage experiments or if you want to build a small scale coil gun.

 

[Tagg]

I'm not sure exactly what kind of lenses I collected, but I took quite a bit of time harvesting them all for any future use.

It is an IR filter! I tested it on my laptop webcam. The IR LEDs from the remote showed up purple, but when I slid the glass filter over the camera, I didn't see any light on the cam. I thoroughly enjoyed that experiment. =D

Thanks,
-Zachary

 

[Benm]

In priciple any zoom optics should be usable as a beam expander or contracter, this is just the function of such optics in a camera.

Practially, it may prove very diffcult to make use of it though, since the camera's processing systems are likely to take care of focussing the assembly too, I wouldn't say that it would be impossible to harvest useful components from a camera, but you would pobably be better off using some binoculars or such.

 

[psi seeker 34]

If the camera has a flash the whole circuit board attached to that is good for HV experiments/pranks and the flash bulb itself should be good to pump a dye or crystal laser though you most certainly would need more than one flash bulb in order to get any decent amount of power.

 

[Benm]

Yeah, those from compacts arent suitable for pumping something like a yag or ruby laser... but some people do recycle them into dyi stroboscopes and such, so there might be some use for the flash assembly outside the laser field.

Be warned if you intend to mess with it though, even the capacitors from a simple compact camera can give you a pretty bad jolt if you manage to discharge them through your fingers and such

 

[Tagg]

Hmm...ruby laser? I need to check that out, seems interesting! I actually took apart the power section from from an old computer that had been sitting the the garage and I found to HUGE capacitors. I'm guessing it's to prevent damage during a power surge?

-Zachary

 

[Benm]

Not likely - the big capacitors in most switching power supplies are simple rectifying the mains current before switchmode conversion to low voltage DC. Such capacitors are often rated for 400 volts or so, which could be used to power flash lamps too - but when charged they also pose a serious hazard.

I've never known anyone that died or suffered permanent injury from these capacitors, but i can assure you one jolt will make you stay away from them for a pretty long time

 

[deam_87]

can you post a picture of what you found inside it??

 

[psi seeker 34]

I had a Leyden jar capacitor which according to the internets should have had less than a 2pf capacitance. I was bitten by it when it had been charged to about 2KV. Unfortunately this was the first and last time I touched both ends with both hands......... it was like being hit in the chest with a baseball bat.

Most modern capacitors hold hundreds of times more power.

In short if you mess with charged capacitors use one hand only and be sure to discharge them twice as often as you charge them.

Camera flashes are often rated for 3-400 volts at 30-150 uf. So be careful and don't assume that just because the bulb flashed it's not charged (because it always is).

 

[Tagg]

Here are some pics of what I found...

The lenses and some mirror/prism thingamabobs including an IR filter (the blue tinted one at the left)...

The camera capturing sensor and screen...

A strange piece that I thought was interesting...

A speaker and mic...

The flash and it's capacitor...

-Zachary

 

[rangedunits]

Here are some pics of what I found...

The lenses and some mirror/prism thingamabobs including an IR filter (the blue tinted one at the left)...

The camera capturing sensor and screen...

A strange piece that I thought was interesting...

A speaker and mic...

The flash and it's capacitor...

-Zachary

Build a TAZER.