Circa 2010
Inspection
Now these small digital units are well known for having faulty battery door mechanisms and this example is no different. The only real way to fix this issue is by obtaining a replacement fascia with the lock mechanism in place or source a temporary fix that will get us by. The lens seems to have an autofocus issue, again this is a common fault with these kind of units. I may dismantle the lens assembly, clean and lubricate. The electronics seem fine, a factory reset may be in order. I’ve used the strap and case from a damaged L22 to further compliment this unit. Recycle that’s the theme.
The camera was received with the information that the auto focus was not working and that the battery door was broken causing the batteries to fall out, also the batteries had to be full for the camera to work. Let’s take each issue one at a time.
The autofocus. This camera has numerous settings and one of those is smart auto that sometimes goes into “panic” and causes the unit to show errors especially as the battery starts to drain due to the camera constantly trying to focus on something that is not there. Move the setting to std autofocus and the camera is not so overwhelmed with information and is more willing to cooperate. Before I did this though I reset back to factory settings, I have then spent over an hour taking pictures of all sizes using all settings with no issues. I’m assuming the issue of autofocus was never really an issue, it’s basically back to basics as in computer terms “turn it off and on again”. After a reset of course.
Battery door. This is a known design issue with these early Coolpix cameras, I don’t know why Nikon didn’t address them back when they were produced. As these were made back in 2010 when digital cameras world wide were at their peak with something like 21 million units being produced, I suspect a recall would have cost a fortune. That said 12 years down the line it explains now why items like this have become disposable and are now ending up wrongly in landfill. The battery door has two points of contact where the door actually locks. One at the very edge of the body is the main culprit and when this goes batteries will fall out. The second catch relates to a small moveable switch in the middle of the door that has to be moved to open the battery compartment. If this alone is broken as is the one on my unit, then the battery’s will stay put temporarily until the user starts moving the camera around and then the door will pop and the batteries will exit the camera. As these catches form part of the front fascia there is really only two options available. Option one: purchase a damaged donor camera, make the repair and use the remainder as parts. Option two: Make a repair that is not particularly aesthetically pleasing but allows further use of a camera that is in all other aspects working perfectly. And we save it from landfill for a while longer keeping to this sites aims of recycling. I’m going to be looking at option two and will expand on what I intend to do later in this piece.
Battery life. These units were ploughed out en masse before rechargeable batteries had a proved and viable existence. If you use bog standard cheap old batteries on these cameras using autofocus, flash and god knows whatever then prepare to replace those batteries quite frequently. Use batteries that have heavy duty not pound shop specials and here is why. Today I tried two brand new cheap batteries, the camera wouldn’t turn on and all I could hear was a clicking sound. I changed the batteries for two new high output ones and the camera operated fine, rather flummoxed with this I decided to get the multimeter out and have a check, the cheap batteries had a charge of just over one volt, about 30% less than expected and in theory it was dead. The better battery was holding one point five volts so in that respect it was working as it should. Moral of this story is don’t use cheap batteries on items that demand more such as photographic equipment.
Options for securing the battery door
Cheapest options, elastic band, piece of tape does the job, life extended. Hey presto! I have seen many fixes, Velcro tape – it works, small catches fitted as an afterthought- they work, they are all good ideas that extend the life of the product, an item that would normally just be flung in the bin as soon as the issue developed. The important thing here is that there is little value in this product now so don’t go over engineering things and looking at expensive solutions that will yield no long term benefits. Keep it simple and pass the solution on. Try and use items that you have around you, recycle and reuse that’s the purpose of this site.
I like the idea of a small 3 inch metal strip and a thumb screw that fastens into the tripod hole. I may well make this up to show you what can be done, I have some plate laying around and a number of screws so that one is a starter for me. I will also look at one of the other examples mentioned above as a comparison. If I ever get around to making this I’ll update this post in the future. For the meantime why use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, the elastic band option is more than suitable for this camera. I’m passing it onto my nephew, he’s new to photography and whilst he is deciding if he likes photography or not, why not experiment and give this little unit a few extra years of innocent experimentation 👍
Foxes Den 
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