Camera repair

A friend of mine has a well-loved and heavily used Nikon D5100 DSLR. It still takes the photos she’s so passionate about, but barely. The most prominent issue is that the mirror no longer moves, so the viewfinder is useless. Also the lens needs to be removed and some internal gubbins prodded before each use.

She’s been wanting to get it repaired or replaced for months, but she’s young, overworked and underpaid. I told her I’d try bringing it to a Restart repair party in mid October, to get it looked at, but before that I’m wondering if this lovely community has any advice, or if anyone has experience repairing a DSLR and might be able to guide me? Perhaps one of the @electrotechs?

I tried Frankensteining a printer back to life a few months ago, but otherwise have zero experience with electronics.

The mirror’s sliders probably need some greasing , the problem is getting there and coming back with all the screws in the right place , DSLR are beautifully complex machines , you need a clean bench and an entire day to go though it without risk of damaging , it can be done but is a complex task.

I have a 5100 as well, I love it :slight_smile:

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I would not attempt this in the makerspace, as you want as dust-free an environment as possible!

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i would hate to be the one that broke it further. if brave youtube has camera repair videos.

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i have some old vdieo to experiment with maybe for arduino or convert to wifi or bluetooth