How to speed up S40 and quiet it down, 1/2 second quicker and a lot less lens movement Options

[yetinme]

First and foremost, thanks to BadgerBuckHunter who got me started down this line of thinking on how to speed up the S40. Badger wanted me to try and switch the power to the S40 on and off with a control board so that the lens assembly would stay extended and speeds up the unit. Well, that didn't work out for me but it got me thinking and I found a different way to do the same thing.

Also thanks to Ghoot who developed the no SA hack.

What I found was that if I disabled the shutter cover, opened both shutter cover switches, and then controlled the closed cover switch with my board that I could shorten the shutter time of the camera by 1/2 a second. In addition, the lens doesn't fully retract when powered back on so the noise is a lot less. The lens will partially retract a little bit and then extend again but it is far less movement. I would like to find out where to hack into the lens assembly open switch but so far I haven't done it but I think we could eliminate all movement of the lens if I did.

The downside to the hack is that the camera can not be used outside the unit. The cover switch must be closed when the camera is powered on and open when the camera is powered off. With this hack, the switch is permanently open and so the camera must be turned on by the board.

Here is a document showing what I did and the chips will be available on my website soon. If you want to try it out, let me know I can make sure you get the right stuff ordered.

Check out the document and let me know what you think. If there is enough interest, I will start playing with the S600 next.

Mark

This post has been edited by yetinme: Jan 1 2007, 10:21 PM

Attached File(s)

 Modification_document_for_the_Sony_DSC_S40.pdf ( 1.54MB ) Number of downloads: 600

 

[phil]

good info!! I will have to try this on the one I have waiting to be built.

[FznYupr]

Nice work Mark on both the mod and PDF!

One thing I was going to do and didn't yet was modify the barrel of the lens. See as the lens extends the barrel rotates and a slot on the barrel passes an optical sensor. This is how IMO the camera knows the lens has extended into the open position and retracted back to "home" closed position. I planned on creating a new opening in just the right spot on the barrel so that the lens would have to barely retract. This is just something I was thinking of.... Perhaps you can see if it would help in your efforts at all.

Keep up the great work!

Travis

This post has been edited by FznYupr: Dec 26 2006, 04:44 PM

[yetinme]

Travis,
Cool! I wasn't sure how the lens knew where it was. I will try to work on that approach. I hope that this can all be transferd over to the s600 but for now, the s40 is cheaper to experiment with.

Mark

[tree sight]

That looks great, and I think the s600 will be even easy'er to do this to. If the lens is moving very little then the camera can be refreshed more often without as much wear on the lens assembly and be able to acheve the fastest shutter times. No more waiting on the cap to charge, right? Could'nt a small switch be added to the camera case somewhere as a second cover switch to use the camera seperate from the board? Again great job to everyone involved.

tree sight

[wildebeast]

I was noticing on the 600 when the batteries go dead the lens will stay open, also when the batteries are removed. But when you put fresh batteries back in the cam it turns on with the lens out.

What if the power wire was used on the batteries to turn the cam off ond on?

Great work Mark.

[Hill Hopper]

Great work!

[cybersniper]

Very nice Mark I'm looking forward to the 600

[rsmith]

I was noticing on the 600 when the batteries go dead the lens will stay open, also when the batteries are removed. But when you put fresh batteries back in the cam it turns on with the lens out.

What if the power wire was used on the batteries to turn the cam off ond on?

Great work Mark.

If the batteries are out long enough, doesn't the camera go back to the initial startup screen?

[gypsy]

Wildebeast, good point.
A close and hold program for power up instead of pulse,
on the power wire of the battery compartment.
I'll try that with a d380 pwr-up chip and see what happens.

rsmith, good point,
we'd need to know the time out on this and set a quick refresh
just prior to this reset time.

gyp

This post has been edited by gypsy: Dec 27 2006, 12:13 AM

[Badgerbuckhunter]

Good job Mark!

[yetinme]

Tree - I had also thought about adding a small switch to the camera to open and close the cover switch. This would allow the camera to be used externally but it would be cumbersome. The swithc would need to connect the White wire to the Black Wire.

Cliff - Badger's idea was to control the power too. The issues I saw with it were:
The LCD will default to on once the batteries are removed (this will lower battery life)
The risk for getting the polarity mixed up when wiring in the "new" batteries is real and could burn up the camera
I am not sure the time saving would be as good since you would need to turn on the batteries and then wait to turn on the camera.

I can do a battery switching scheme for someone, just let me know and I can play with it again.

Mark

[wildebeast]

Yetinme .. I just tested the 600 for 8 pictures using the battery shut off.

I turned the camera on - then opened the battery door to shut the power off - then closed the door and turned on the power button, waited four seconds and tooka picture. Did this 8 times in a row and the lens always stayed in the open position. But on powering up the cam I heard the shutter motor run as if it took this time to extend the lens, then shuttered a picture.

If there was a way to disconnect the motor I wonder if that would speed up the cam. It might be around 3 seconds if controlled by a board, but my big fingers on the shutter were slow

At least it would cut down on all the lens movement and the shutter doors making all the noise.

cliff

[Badgerbuckhunter]

Mark, I was reading the posts and looking at your PDF closer and was wondering if you can install a dummy plug with a jumper between the black and white wires on your 4 wire external connector, then allowing camera use outside your game cam.

[yetinme]

yeah, you could do that. I would think it would be easiest to have a second servo connector that would replace the cable to the board and would have the black to the white jumpered.

I will be updating the attached document today since I made a mistake with the solder jumper. The A,B&C should all be jumpered together.

Also, this mod will need a new chip to get the .5 second speed up.

Mark