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Canon G1 Repair

     After I installed my tower on my boat, I thought it would be cool to take some pictures of it underneath the Pennybacker Bridge (also know as the 360 bridge). While I got some great shots, I managed to drop, or rather dip the camera into the lake. I rushed to eject the battery and memory card and left it in the sun to dry. The next day when I figured the camera had dried, I tried to turn it on. I had no luck getting it to power up. So I signed on to eBay and found a broken camera for parts.

     The camera I won had no lens, so i had to use parts from both cameras to make one good one. The first thing you need to do when you take anything like this apart is make sure you can put it back together. I use a couple of methods. First, I take pictures of the process at each step. That way you can go back and actually see what is should look like. Next, make sure you have a diagram of how it should be assembled. If you can't find the manufacture’s service manual, make your own drawing. Make sure you have a method of labeling your screws and small parts. I usually group like screws and place them in a tackle box.

     For the Canon G1, you should start by removing all of the screws from the outer casing. There is one on the top, one by the view finder on the back, 3 on the bottom, and 3 on each of the sides. On one side, the third screw is behind the protective covering of the power and digital ports. Once these screws are removed, you should be able to remove the front and back casings.

     Once that is done, you can start taking the guts out. Remember to make note of any screws you remove. My next focus was getting the main board out. I disconnected all the cables that i could get to. Be very careful when doing this. If you break the retention wedge, it will make it difficult to put the ribbon cables back in. The one on the top right needs even more care as it is designed differently. It pops up whereas the others pull out. I removed all but the ones connecting the LCD. Next I removed the protective plastic piece. After that, I removed the LCD and mounting bracket by taking two screws from the side and two from the top.

     Next comes the power board. There are three screws that you need to remove from this layer as well as disconnecting a ribbon cable and power cable. The easiest way i found was to first disconnect the small ribbon cable that leads to the front bottom of the camera. You can then pull the board slightly up and disconnect the power cable (red and black wires). Of special note with this board is a common failure with fuse F02. I haven't found much about why this causes so many problems, but if your camera "just stops working" one day, this would be the first place to check. If the camera is stock, the fuse is a 3.2A and should be similar to the size and color as F01 in the picture below. In my picture, I have already replaced F02. You can get the parts off of Digikey if you don't have any handy.

     If you need to go further, you can then remove the lens. To do this you will first have to remove the mic and three screws that hold the lens to the frame. When putting your lense back on, make sure the ribbon cable from the sensor does not get trapped behind the ribbon cable coming from the compact flash socket. Everything else is pretty straight forward. Just remember to mark where you pulled screws from and you should have few problems getting your camera back together. Simply work backwards in your notes and then clean up your mess! :^P