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Step 5Camera disassembly
So, you're feeling like a daredevil, willing to risk electrocution and take apart a camera?
OK, just remove every screw you can find, until the camera looks exactly like the picture. DO NOT TOUCH any of the electrical connections of the flash bulb, the flash capacitor, or the flash circuit. There can be HIGH VOLTAGE stored in the flash capacitor even if the camera has not been used for a while, and this high voltage is present on the flash bulb terminals and certain points on the flash circuit board also.
Identifying the flash components in a camera is really not that difficult. The flash bulb itself is obvious. Connected to the flash bulb with wires will be a large capacitor, usually cylinder shaped with writing on it such as "150 uF 350V". Also connected to the flash bulb and/or the capacitor will be the flash circuit board. The flash circuit is usually located on a separate circuit board from all the other electronics, and for good reason since there is high voltage (300V or more) in the flash circuit.
Before you cut any of the wires connecting the flash circuit board to the rest of the camera, identify the power supply wires. Usually they are red (+) and black (-). Check with a multimeter that these wires connect to the battery terminals of the camera. Often the + wire does not connect directly to the + battery terminal, but is switched on somewhere else in the camera.
You can now cut all the wires between the camera and the flash circuit and remove the flash unit from the camera. The next job is to identify the rest of the wires leading to the flash unit. One of these wires will be an "enable" signal, to turn on the flash circuit and charge the capacitor, preparing for a flash photo. Another wire will be the "flash" signal which triggers the flash. You can just experiment to see what each wire does. Apply power to the power supply wires (same voltage as the original batteries in the camera, for example if the camera uses 4 AA batteries, power the flash circuit with 6V). Connect a multimeter to the flash capacitor so you can tell when it is charging. Connect one of the extra wires briefly to ground or power, and watch the multimeter for signs of charging. Once you find the wire that enables the charging, search for the wire that triggers the flash.
There is some risk of blowing up something and frying the flash circuit, but what the heck, you didn't pay for that camera, did you?? For example, in one camera I took apart, there were more wires than what I identified above, and I never did figure them all out, and in the process of experimenting something fried in the circuit so that it was always charging. This was a fancy circuit that monitored the capacitor voltage and shut off the charging circuit when the capacitor voltage reached the appropriate level; if the charging circuit was allowed to continue (which it did in it's fried state), the capacitor voltage built up to well above the maximum voltage printed on the capacitor. I solved that problem by using a 3V supply voltage instead of the 6V battery voltage of the original camera, so that the capacitor voltage saturated below its maximum.
The easiest cameras to get flash units from are the simplest ones, such as single-use cameras, old 110 pocket cameras, and other simple cameras with no LCD displays or other electronic features. These ones will have a very simple flash circuit with obvious power connections to the batteries and a mechanical switch which is part of the shutter mechanism to fire the flash.
OK, just remove every screw you can find, until the camera looks exactly like the picture. DO NOT TOUCH any of the electrical connections of the flash bulb, the flash capacitor, or the flash circuit. There can be HIGH VOLTAGE stored in the flash capacitor even if the camera has not been used for a while, and this high voltage is present on the flash bulb terminals and certain points on the flash circuit board also.
Identifying the flash components in a camera is really not that difficult. The flash bulb itself is obvious. Connected to the flash bulb with wires will be a large capacitor, usually cylinder shaped with writing on it such as "150 uF 350V". Also connected to the flash bulb and/or the capacitor will be the flash circuit board. The flash circuit is usually located on a separate circuit board from all the other electronics, and for good reason since there is high voltage (300V or more) in the flash circuit.
Before you cut any of the wires connecting the flash circuit board to the rest of the camera, identify the power supply wires. Usually they are red (+) and black (-). Check with a multimeter that these wires connect to the battery terminals of the camera. Often the + wire does not connect directly to the + battery terminal, but is switched on somewhere else in the camera.
You can now cut all the wires between the camera and the flash circuit and remove the flash unit from the camera. The next job is to identify the rest of the wires leading to the flash unit. One of these wires will be an "enable" signal, to turn on the flash circuit and charge the capacitor, preparing for a flash photo. Another wire will be the "flash" signal which triggers the flash. You can just experiment to see what each wire does. Apply power to the power supply wires (same voltage as the original batteries in the camera, for example if the camera uses 4 AA batteries, power the flash circuit with 6V). Connect a multimeter to the flash capacitor so you can tell when it is charging. Connect one of the extra wires briefly to ground or power, and watch the multimeter for signs of charging. Once you find the wire that enables the charging, search for the wire that triggers the flash.
There is some risk of blowing up something and frying the flash circuit, but what the heck, you didn't pay for that camera, did you?? For example, in one camera I took apart, there were more wires than what I identified above, and I never did figure them all out, and in the process of experimenting something fried in the circuit so that it was always charging. This was a fancy circuit that monitored the capacitor voltage and shut off the charging circuit when the capacitor voltage reached the appropriate level; if the charging circuit was allowed to continue (which it did in it's fried state), the capacitor voltage built up to well above the maximum voltage printed on the capacitor. I solved that problem by using a 3V supply voltage instead of the 6V battery voltage of the original camera, so that the capacitor voltage saturated below its maximum.
The easiest cameras to get flash units from are the simplest ones, such as single-use cameras, old 110 pocket cameras, and other simple cameras with no LCD displays or other electronic features. These ones will have a very simple flash circuit with obvious power connections to the batteries and a mechanical switch which is part of the shutter mechanism to fire the flash.
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