Pulling something apart to find out how it works

[alphaai]

Hello,

I would like to know your guys approach to how you would pull things apart and solve it
and what helps you to figure out it works.

I was curious to see how camera technology works so I decided to:

1) Buy Two cheap working cameras. If one is apart in pieces, then I can look at the other to put it back together again.
2) Build a schematic from the parts so that I can see how they are put back together.
3) Look up the parts to find out what they do.

What are your guys views on this all of this?
i mean, it is a dangerous thing? meaning would I learn much from doing this?
Is it a waste of time? Is it better to look up on a website like www.howstuffworks.com to find out how a camera works. Or is it just a waste of money?
How many out there can hook this kind of thing up to another microcontroller eg. Arduino and control the camera from there.

Ben

 

[aljamri]

Doing maintenance for the last 20 years, this is one approach I may enforced to apply it. For example a device is brought for repair for the first time, no manual and not been repaired before, I used this technique in to assemble it again

 

[hexreader]

I would recommend taking apart anything that is broken, and beyond repair, to see how it works.
You will learns loads from it and it will cost nothing.

Maybe get family and friends to give you all their broken stuff too. They will be pleased to get some benefit from their broken stuff, instead of just binning it.

It is surprising how similar new equipment can be to their out-dated equivalents.

You will find that completely different devices may share a lot of design features.

If you are very rich, and can afford to buy two cameras when you only need one, then OK. I wish I had that kind of money.

I have found that taking the case apart without damage can be really tough. The more stuff you take apart, the better you get at guessing the best way to do it.

Just my thoughts...... take them or leave them.

EDIT: I think you will find hooking up cheap devices like cameras up to Arduino may be much harder than you think. Better to chose devices that are designed for easy connection to the outside world. (hint:- USB is NOT easy to use). But you will learn this for yourself when you try.

 

[arunb]

Just some common knowledge...

before taking apart something, take a few snapshots of the interior, so when you re-assemble it back you know where each part goes. Also it may be helpful to keep screws and nuts for each component on separate containers.

 

[mdanh2002]

Try the Gameboy camera. I got one for $5 from eBay, and successfully connect it to to the PC and view the image in black and white using this guide **broken link removed**

I later interfaced it with a PIC18F and managed to get it to take photos and store on a SD card. All was done in a day.

I guess interfacing any consumer digital camera to a microcontroller is no trivial task.