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Picked up this tiny Panasonic Lumix FX7 camera at only $50 (Singapore dollars!) because the previous owner claimed that there is something wrong with the lens mechanism. I can be powered on fine but the lens just doesn’t extend, and need to be manually ‘pulled’ out for it to work. Well I took a risk and bought it, thinking I could let Fitzand mess with this camera instead of my Ricoh GX100 which costs way much more, then went home and tried to see if my clumsy fat fingers can perform some miracle and fix it.

For someone who was never trained in any electronic or repair knowledge, some friends said I must be crazy, always trying to fix such stuffs. So I sat at my desk one night, after baby Fitzand went to bed … and started ripping the camera apart. It’s quite a pain as the camera is so small, and of course the parts in it are super tiny.

After opening the front and back cover, I realised that the motor is actually still working and the gears are moving. So why is the lens no longer extending? Hmm. Few minutes of observation with my old eyes and something caught my attention. Aha!!! Eureka!!! Some part of the gear that drives the lens mechanism is worn out! Oh no!

My heart sank for few minutes upon that discovery … then … again … aha!!! Since the worn out part affected only the top part of the gear (see diagram below, the worn out gear is the one which is longer), I could flip the gear and it should come back to life! I began trying to remove that particular gear and after a long time (yeah, it was about 1am then), I managed to flip it and got the camera back alive! I am a happy monkey!!!

The story didn’t end there. Somehow when I was putting back the parts together, the darn zoom rocker at the shutter button dropped. Dammit! It took me about 2 hours to slowly figure out how to put it back and eventually managed to get it back in place.

So there it is … the story (and struggle) of how I got this dirt cheap little compact digital camera back to life. Well I ain’t a fan of Lumix cameras but then … Fitzand could have hours of fun with it.