Summary of ways people fixed their Nikon Coolpix camera battery door latch

Nikon CP-990 Door Latch Fix: The battery compartment door latches are metal on plastic. I was very careful of mine because of that, but it finally gave out. My camera is old and not used very much so I decided to build a retaining bracket to hold the door closed. I made a few out of cardboard until I found what I wanted and then transferred it to 1/8 " aluminum. The feet on the bottom allow the camera to sit upright on the shelf. * * * * I took Tom's advice and modified my camera. I drilled a .073" hole into the front of the battery compartment where the plastic tab broke off. Then forced a small screw through the hole to serve as a door latch retainer. Then used a Dremel cut off wheel to cut off the excess length. Retouched it with a sharpie just like Toms. Thanks again Tom.

Here's a nice picture of a fix of Nikon's infamous battery door latch problems on many Nikon camera models - it's a variation of the plate and tripod screw approach.

Looks like the Nikon Coolpix 990 has a aimilar battery latch door broken problem.

Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital Subject: Coolpix 990 battery flap broken Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 23:01:49 -0000 NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 22:58:09 +0000

Any ideas to bodge this problem ?, a broken battery flap. The plastic lugs have broken off in the battery compartment, seems to be part of the case.

I don't want to pay Nikon repair costs so at the moment I'm using a self tapper thro' the flap into the middle of the battery case... don't know how long this will last tho.

Have thought of an external battery like the Samsung LiON.

Chris

From: snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (WMAS 1960) Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital Date: 30 Nov 2002 09:18:43 GMT References: Organization: AOL

Subject: Re: Coolpix 990 battery flap broken Message-ID:

I am one who divised a plate that fits on the bottom of the camera as you discribe. It really isn't that much of a hastle. I will say it didn't work out as nicely as I had envisioned. I thought that if I simply loosened the bolt I could turn the plate enough to have the door open. That didn't work out. The door, on my design, will not fully open enough to change batteries. I do have to remove the plate. However, if you are not constantly replacing batteries it works fairly nicely.

This is how I did it.

I took a piece of metal that I got at home depot. It was a piece of galvanized metal that would be used to join two pieces of wood together. It was a plate about 5" x 5" or so. It might have been intended to join

2x6s(?) Anyways it is a metal plate that had a couple spikes in it and holes where you might drive some nails or screws. I took a Sharpie and traced the bottom of my camera(around the handle to the tripod bolt) onto the piece of metal and using a hacksaw cut out the piece of metal. I then used a file and cleaned up the edges and filed the plate until it fealt to be a good fit to the shape of the camera. I used the file also to knock off corners and edges so that it had a dull finished edge that would be safe and not cause cuts. You could then paint the plate black so that it matches the camera. Or, as I did, use some of the rubber dip that you can dip tools in to put rubber grips on. I did that and it looked great and worked very well. However the rubber did eventually wear off the edges of the plate and I now have to dip it again. I have just left it bare for now. Less hastle.

Once I had this nice little plate I found a bolt from an old camera case. The kind of case that would screw on your camera and snap over it. This bolt fits in the tripod socket and has a thread in the bottom so that you can attach it to a tripod if needed. This allows you to install the plate and still have use of a tripod socket. I had to use a washer with my bolt as it still had some play when fully screwed into the socket. I guess it takes up the space that the thickness of the leather camera case used to occupy.

I would point out that you will want to bend the plate slightly upward, toward the camera bottom. With the plate totally flat, it would not hold the door completely shut. The pressure of the batteries would push down enough, sometimes, to loose contact. By bending the plate, into a very slight bow, you compensate for that force. While the batteries are pushing pressure down, the bowing form of the plate is pushing back up.

I now have a D100 that I have started to use most of the time. Therefore my CP990 sits around a lot. I still use it for travel when the more cumbersome SLR would be a nuissance and when I am out observing with my telescope. It is much lighter weight and fits onto a telescope eyepiece very well. The CP990 also has it's value for quick snapshot things like documentation of property for damages or for insurance use... With more occasional use I use Lithium batteries in it and can put in a set of batteries and not have to change them for months. Therefore the removal and replacement of the plate is not that much of a problem. I looked into having my Coolpix fixed but was told that it would take weeks if not months to get it back and would cost a couple hundred dollars. The local Nikon service center told me that they can't fix it and would have to send it to New York(?). I figure it isn't worth it. My solution cost me about 15 bucks and took me all of about an hour to fabricate. Say 2 hours including the time I spent in Home Depot.

My camera had given me over 3000 pictures in it's livetime, so far, and asside from the battery door seems like it will easilly be able to give me hundreds or even thousands more. It still works great dispite the door latch problem.

Exactly the same thing happened to me some weeks back. I enquired about the cost of a repair and was quoted 60 GBP which I though was rather expensive and won't cure what is a fundamental design flaw. In the end I repaired it myself, but you will need some small tools and a tube of good superglue together with something like some strands of fine glass fibre.

This site

this repair, but also requires some dismantling of the camera. I managed to do it without any dismantling and so far the repair seems to be holding up and the repair is much easier to do than to describe.

OK, it doesn't look very good, but it is inside the camera so not generally visible, but it will be considerably stronger than the original design.

Forum Nikon Talk Subject 990 battery door repair instruction Posted by steve gardner [CLICK FOR PROFILE] Date/Time 7:44:28 AM, Monday, February 25, 2002 (GMT)

I have used my 990 for overy 40 gig of aviation photographs in the past two years or so and I was getting pretty used to its working every time. This made it even more agrivating when I dropped the fresh charge into the battery compartment and found that the door would not close. Upon inspection I discovered that Nikon had made the battery door latch cleets out of plastic. Plain old everyday plastic like styrene or ABS and not an engineering plastic with nylon or carbon in it. What is more when you inspect the area where the failure occurs you can see that the door could have been cleeted by the outer shell, the Magneseum shell, which I expect would have been much more rugged. In any case you will be wanting to know how to get your 990 working again. You will need a good CA type glue, NOT superglue or anything from the hardware store, but ZAP or HOT STUFF or JET glue from the local hobby shop. These glues are sold for building RC model airplanes, but you will not be finding any better glue for camera repair anywhere. Next you will need some Kevlar thread, or some glass fiber bundles from very heavy glass cloth. My Kevlar thread comes from fishing line and is about 25 pound test and very thin. The glass cloth will render glass cords thin enough for this repair and pleanty strong. On to the repair:

Remove the screws that hold the two metal shells to the grip side of the camera. Strangly enough you will not need to remove the rubber grip, I did and found no fasteners under it. There are two screws on each side of the pivot, three on the underside, two under the video out flap and one near the strap tunnel. The battery door needs to be open as well. Be careful once the shells are loose, the front shell has the mode/trigger switch and this is still attached to the camera by a flexcircuit. The speaker diaphram is also attached to the front shell and wired to the camera, but you can carefully peel it away from the shell and so help gain access to where you will need to go. This easily reataches with the stickum still in place. Once the shells are open you will see that there are two latches that fix the broken part to the rest of the plastic battery compartment. Using a very small pointed tool like a jewelers screwdriver you must unlatch these and so then remove the broken part. The repair itself:

It will be obvious where the broken plastic is. If you are lucky the bits will still be there, just bend and cracked outward. Push them down and back into position and apply glue to the cracks. Do this by putting a drop of CA onto a smooth non absorbant surface and then using the eye of a sewing needle to pick the glue up. The glue will bead across the eye and so you can put just a very small amount right where youneed it If the bits that broke off are not present then you have to cut a CD jewel case apart to make new cleets. Check a friends 990 to see the needed shape. Glue into place. These reglued cleets will not hold for even one battery change as yet, we are about to bullet proof them. Take a length of thread, kevlar or glass, and using a super small bit of glue attach it down under the cleet inside of the battery hole. then wrap the thread over the top of the cleet and down the other side back into the battery hole. make sure that the thread is positioned very near the edge of the cleet so that is can take the latch loads and so hold the door closed. once you have a thread in place put a second across the first and then add CA glue in small amounts until the thread is saturated and a fillet of glue is showing around the thread. Now you have to cut / sand /file the end of the thread in the battery hole to allow the battery to fit into the shell. Trim as you need and do not worry, so long as there is a bit of Kevlar or glass running up across and back down the cleet it will never fail again. Reverse the steps needed to disassemble the camera being careful to reattach the speaker and not pinch any wires. Wait until the camera's shells are back together and test fit the door. You may have to trim the glue or plastic bits you built the cleets from to get the door to shut. Now you have two cleets with a pair of 25 pound reenforcment cords each holding the door shut against the battery springs. You may consider adding this reenforcment to a 990 that has not yet failed, it is much easier to get the cord into the proper place with the cleets still intact. NOTE: it is very possible to perform this repair without any disassembly at all if you are very very careful with the glue. I think that it is too easy to get the part out and be free to work to do it this way, but if you are shy about seeing the inside of your camera you can try it this way. Good luck and let me know how you like the fix. Steve Gardner

Kris View profile More options Nov 30 2002, 8:06 am Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital From: "Kris" Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 15:09:47 -0000 Local: Sat, Nov 30 2002 8:09 am Subject: Re: Coolpix 990 battery flap broken Reply to author | Forward | Print | Individual message | Show original | Report this message | Find messages by this author Thanks for the tips, much appreciated.

As well as the cheap / weak plastic lugs I am sure the pressure of the bent metal battery contacts has a lot to do with it, a friends Casio has spring contacts which aren't so strong and the flap shuts easily.

Chris

Reply Reply to author Forward You must Sign in before you can post messages. To post a message you must first join this group. Please update your nickname on the subscription settings page before posting. You do not have the permission required to post. WMAS 1960 View profile I am not sure what you are referring to about bent metal contacts. At least in my situation that wasn't the case. Closely examining the situation when my door broke I found that everything was normal except the notch on the cameras frame where the latch catches. That very small plastic catch had snapped and the door simply would no longer lock in place. My understanding of the problem was that the 990 was designed where the batteries (because of the contacts and springs inside the compartment) were under so much pressure that the design of the catch was just not sufficient enough to hold the door over time. That is one reason why I figured that the metal plate was a better solution. I did try to glue the catch and looked at the fiberglass solution but that seemed way to intricate to me. You would need to take a knife and shred the glass fibers and lay them in place with some cement... Then there was the possibility that it would just happen again. The problem being that the pressure and stress is still on that catch. In fact the metal plate solution might be worth consideration for those who haven't even had their doors break yet. Properly built it will actually take some of that pressure and stress off of the catch and may also prevent what happened to me. At the least, it will prevent the door popping open on you during a shoot and can help you keep going. I was out observing with my telescope. It was a very cold night when the camera started to go on and off and act funny. A couple moments later I heard a rattling sound as the door FLEW open throwing all the batteries into the darkness. I suppose the cold weather might have played some roll in the latch breaking at that time. The plastic might have gotten a little too cold and brittle. Incidentally I have also seen similar problems mentioned with the 950 as well. I don't know if other Nikon cameras are also defective in this way. More options Nov 30 2002, 10:30 am Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital From: snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (WMAS 1960) Date: 30 Nov 2002 17:29:43 GMT Local: Sat, Nov 30 2002 10:29 am Subject: Re: Coolpix 990 battery flap broken Reply to author | Forward | Print | Individual message | Show original | Report this message | Find messages by this author I am not sure what you are referring to about bent metal contacts. At least in my situation that wasn't the case. Closely examining the situation when my door broke I found that everything was normal except the notch on the cameras frame where the latch catches. That very small plastic catch had snapped and the door simply would no longer lock in place. My understanding of the problem was that the 990 was designed where the batteries (because of the contacts and springs inside the compartment) were under so much pressure that the design of the catch was just not sufficient enough to hold the door over time. That is one reason why I figured that the metal plate was a better solution. I did try to glue the catch and looked at the fiberglass solution but that seemed way to intricate to me. You would need to take a knife and shred the glass fibers and lay them in place with some cement... Then there was the possibility that it would just happen again. The problem being that the pressure and stress is still on that catch. In fact the metal plate solution might be worth consideration for those who haven't even had their doors break yet. Properly built it will actually take some of that pressure and stress off of the catch and may also prevent what happened to me. At the least, it will prevent the door popping open on you during a shoot and can help you keep going.

I was out observing with my telescope. It was a very cold night when the camera started to go on and off and act funny. A couple moments later I heard a rattling sound as the door FLEW open throwing all the batteries into the darkness. I suppose the cold weather might have played some roll in the latch breaking at that time. The plastic might have gotten a little too cold and brittle.

Incidentally I have also seen similar problems mentioned with the 950 as well. I don't know if other Nikon cameras are also defective in this way.

Reply Reply to author Forward Cancel Send Discard From: To: Cc: Followup To: Add Cc | Add Followup-to | Edit Subject Subject: Send Discard You must Sign in before you can post messages. To post a message you must first join this group. Please update your nickname on the subscription settings page before posting. You do not have the permission required to post. ajacobs2 View profile More options Dec 1 2002, 5:48 am Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital From: "ajacobs2" Date: Sun, 01 Dec 2002 12:48:20 GMT Local: Sun, Dec 1 2002 5:48 am Subject: Re: Coolpix 990 battery flap broken Reply to author | Forward | Print | Individual message | Show original | Report this message | Find messages by this author US Fix. OK, now that few ideas have rolled into the equation, lets look at a different way to go about this. If you fix the camera with the glue and the tabs and screws and what not you still risk the same problem again, so why bother. If you alter it and decide at a later date to repair it at Nikon (the only guys with parts for these things, your "screwed" as the bill will be larger for the other parts now being modified not working. I had this problem with the 950 and the 990. The battery cover is a weak spot because of the pressure of the springs. So, I took some silicon cement and closed the doors with a dab or two. Enough to close and easy enough to get off at a later date when they get repaired. I use my Jacobs battery packs for the two cameras and never went back to the batteries. I also use the same pack on my flashes, my bikes for night halogens, my GPS's and my field radios, two power remote radios for SARs. The plans are free and the parts are very easily available. Just go to my website and look under powerpacks. They are about four to six times more powerful than the cheap stuff in the yellow packages. Read my website for other battery answers....

International Fix. (FAQ) Plan A: They do sell the Yuasa 4 amp- six volt batteries in at MDS in the UK . And I'm looking for a 6 V charger that operates on your voltage.

Plan B: I suppose you still have the AA batteries. In the UK you must have a Radio Shack or similar type store. They make a 6 cell AA holder for the NiMH. Get two you want to put them in parallel so you get twice the longevity, otherwise any powerpack is a waste of money. Why six cells, simple 4 Nimh 0nly equal 4.8 volts. They don't make a five holder. So you go six. Five cells plus a dummy = 6 Volts ( Dummy cells are fake batteries, pictures on my site) The AC port on the Nikons take six volts.

Plan C: Now for the 995 Nikon user. Six cells and you have 7.2 enough for a Nikon

995. Only the charger is 8.4 995 user can also use packs made for the RC cars we call them here.....

Why two packs together? Simple....twice the longevity. If your batteries are 1800 NiMH x 2= 3600mah pack. Now you know how the big guys make claims about their super packs.....no brainer..

Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!kibo.news.demon.net!demon!mephistopheles.news.clara.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!damia.uk.clara.net From: "Kris" Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital References: Subject: Re: Nikon Coolpix 990 battery cover fault Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2003 22:03:18 -0000 Lines: 32 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2720.3000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 X-Complaints-To: snipped-for-privacy@clara.net (please include full headers) X-Trace: 81c38418ee767e05d5282920646650f466786160d6d09201637e37413e7e2d4d NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2003 21:55:25 +0000 Message-ID:

Hi Roy, don't despair this is happening to all of us 990 owners and , yes, it's a design fault.

There are lots of threads on the NG' s about this and numerous articles like

In my case I bought an external battery

also I made up a metal plate which is held in place with a screw into the tripod fixing works fine but never used it, I drilled right through the battery compartment into the centre of the holder with a fine drill and have been using a self tapper now for

12 battery changes and still OK, don't tighten too much and use a little silicone grease. When it gives up I'll get a bigger self tapper ! until the day I have to use the plate.

Chris

Thanks for sharing. fu set

I have a nikon coolpix camera too, the L4.

It has a little bit different and probably little bit stronger gray thingy/hole.

However the plastic clippie might break off too, it doesn't look to strong.

For now it's looking ok.

Thanks for the warning though... I'll be extra carefull with it I swear LOL :D

(I don't use the camera much though... but it's nice to have for the occasional event or spotting of ufo's ! LOL ;))

Bye, Skybuck.

Maybe you could get Nikon to put some of these up on their web site.

Here's a new one - they fixed theirs with a brass staple to replace the plastic loop!

Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital From: snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com Date: 15 Jun 2005 19:52:50 -0700 Local: Wed, Jun 15 2005 7:52 pm Subject: Re: How to repair 1mm of latch plastic > snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

It's risky (but what the heck, the camera is toast otherwise), but a stape is a good idea. The gap-toothed distance is about two millimeters so I'd need to locate a 2mm staple which I could then crazy glue in place after melting the access holes.

It might work! If it does, you're a genius!

That isn't a bad idea.

Here's yet another solution. This person fixed their Nikon Coolpix camera with the broken battery latch using KEVLAR and CYANACRYLATE.

I'm not sure how the "BOTTLE ROCKET" fixed the cyanacrylate outgassing - maybe someone who understands bottle rockets can explain.

For those who have this problem with their Nikon Coolpix, read on.

From: "ZeeExSixAre" Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital Subject: Nikon CP990 update: it works! NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 08:23:46 PDT Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 11:23:26 -0400

Today I was taking pics of my Coolpix 990 to sell it. I got a few pics and wondered if I should show the battery compartment.

The battery compartment has some crap in it... it has a broken latch that I fixed with kevlar thread and cyanoacrylate glue. I dremeled the excess when I made it and it works like a charm.

The funny thing is, CA glue outgasses vapors like no tomorrow. The vapor deposit themselves all over the place. The same thing happens with your windshield when you buy a new car - the dashboard release agents that deposit themselves on your windshield as a hazy film.

So the vapor outgassed all over my battery compartment, coating everything, including the battery contacts. I cleaned off the ones on the external door regularly, but I hadn't ever done anything for the ones deep in the camera. So I thought about it as I looked inside, and I said to myself, I should try cleaning the inside ones just to see if it will work.

I grabbed a bottle rocket and swabbed the contacts on the inside, wiped the outside contacts again, threw in some batteries, and voilá! It works like new!

I spent so much time without a camera just because of microns of outgassing deposits... Funny thing is, batteries were in the camera on the night that it died, so I can't imagine the deposits getting in between the battery and the contacts. Plus, I had switched in and out different sets of batteries, which should have scraped away at least enough to keep the camera working...

So now I have two working digicams... I apologize for bad-mouthing Nikon. At least I can now sell the old one as working instead of dead, whoohoo!

Here's yet another solution to the Nikon Coolpix battery latch problem.

This person fixed their Nikon Coolpix battery door latch with something called a "roll pin".

From: "Vance Green" Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital Subject: Re: Battery door latch on Coolpix 990 broken AGAIN! Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2003 21:35:33 -0700

From March of this year, another unhappy 990 user wrote: "Terry Brown" wrote

Yes. Mine broke.

I put the camera on my drill press in a padded cross feed vice and drilled through from the front, coming out into the battery compartment right where the tab was... the idea is to have something there for the sliding tab on the battery compartment door to slide under and latch as it did with the crappy plastic tab.

Small bit .75 or .8mm if I remember correctly. I had an assortment of tiny roll pins and sized the bit to a press fit for the pin. You could use any small diameter wire to do the same thing.

I pushed the pin in from the front protruding into the battery compartment. I cut the pin off flush to the outside with a Dremel tool cutoff wheel and dabbed a bit of "Sharpie" black ink on the shiny metal. You have to look close to know it is there. All has been well since.

Took longer to tell about than to do. If you do not have a drill press, I believe it could be done by hand if careful.

Whoever the engineer at Nikon was that designed that stupid latch tab was a moron.

Tom

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------- I kept this as I own a 990 myself, and intend to do this very thing if it breaks on me...

Hope you're the handy type ;-)

This solution to the infamous Nikon Coolpix battery door latch broken problem was to use something called a "quick release shoe".

I'm not sure what that is, but the next person with this problem (and there will be a next, and a next, and a next) - now can find all the solutions in a single posting.

From: "F. D. Lewis" Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital Subject: Re: Battery door latch on Coolpix 990 broken AGAIN! Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2003 13:34:03 +0700

same thing happened on my 880. I found that if I attach the quick-release shoe from my tripod to the camera, it keeps the battery door shut. not quite a 'fix', but ...

Here's a new Nikon Camera Review Coolpix Solutions method. This guy used "auto body filler", whatever that is, to fix his Nikon Cooolpix Camera.

He says it's better than Bondo's method (who is Bondo?) so maybe someone who knows more about repairing nikon cameras can explain what Bondo's solution was. We'd like to fill in all the gaps here in our knowledge so the next person with a broken Nikon Coolpix Camera door latch has the solution all in one spot.

From: "Ozymandius" Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital Subject: Re: Battery door latch on Coolpix 990 broken AGAIN! Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 08:49:56 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.26.2.233 NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 01:49:56 PDT Organization: EarthLink Inc. --

I had this sme thing happen on my cp990. I was able to repair the latch with some auto body filler (really) and patience. Sand the area above the broken latch to coarsen the plastic (better bite for the Bondo), add a tiny amount of filler, and hold the broken latch in place while the filler sets (about

15 minutes). A second dose of Bondo may be necessary. Once the filler has fully cured, carefully file away the excess, so that the door will close and latch. Good luck

Here is an EXCELLENT review of nikon coolpix camera reliability repairs. In this posting, the camera repair was to use FISHING LINE!

From: snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (WMAS 1960) Newsgroups: rec.photo.digital Date: 15 Jan 2004 22:26:44 GMT References: Organization: AOL

Subject: Re: Nikon cp990 need help Message-ID:

If you are referring to your battery door simply will not latch because of broken catches in the mechanism. This is a common problem due to the tension of the springs in the battery compartment and the stress that they put on the battery door by pressing the batteries under strong pressure. Especially in colder weather when the plastics can get brittle the door can snap open. The problem, as I noticed, is not so much the door or the latch but the little edges on the edge of the battery opening that will break. Thus the door has nothing to catch on to. I have posted a couple of posts about this before with a solution that I found using materials that I found at my local Home Depot. I wrote a few queries a few years ago when this happened to me one cold winter night while out shooting with my telescope. The cold single digit temps, I believe, made the plastic in the camera a little brittle and the door popped open. The camera started acting a little erradically then I herd a whisssssh as the batteries launced like little missiles into the cold black darkness. The solutions included sending to Nikon which could cost a couple hundred dollars and take as much as a month to get fixed. Or one solution mentioned using fishing line or something like that, fiberglass I think was mentioned also, and shredding it into fine strands. Then using some epoxy, or super glue to bind them and using surgical skills with a tweezers etc, rebuilding the catch. My solution was to make a plate that would fit to the bottom of the camera and bolt on using a tripod bolt that also had a socket for another tripod screw. This is the bolt that is commonly used on flash mounts or camera cases that bolt to the bottom of the camera then allow a tripod to be bolted to them. For more on this check this address....

Based on the frequency of this problem I decided to put this web page together this afternoon with some pictures of what I did. Hope it is helpful. You can also run a check on GOOGLE for Coolpix 990 Battery Door and probably find more info. My solution that I describe took me about an hour to fabricate and only cost about $15 not including tools and such that I didn't already have. I had to buy a hacksaw and a set of files. Actually only one file but the set was a better value. You might also want to get some fine sand paper to finish the edges a little more cleanly. I also tried getting some of the stuff that you would use to rubberize your tool handles. It worked fairly well and using the black color blended very well with the design of the camera. However, the rubber eventually wore off. You might consider simply painting the piece with black paint. I believe, since the metal I used was galvanized you might need to clean the metal piece with some vinegar or other good cleaner to remove any oils before paint will properly adhere.

breaks

broken

paperclip

tripod

epoxy

themselves

Different camera, same problem, just used the handyman's secret weapon.

Dave

Here is an excellent set of photos of a Nikon camera repair for the notorious nikon battery catch broken problem

Updated: January 15, 2004 by snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

These photographs show a solution to a common problem where the battery door on the Nikon Coolpix 990 pops open when the catch for the door latch breaks. Other solutions involve some extensive rebuilding of the battery compartment latch and may be more involved than an average person might feel comfortable. Other solutions include sending the camera back to Nikon for repairs which can take a bit of time and expense. This solution came to me as a more simple way of securing the door with the least amount of work possible.

I think you're jumping to conclusions a little too much. Basing your assessment of Nikon's quality based on a single product is a little presumptuous. Even the best designers and engineers make mistakes sometimes. And as I've illustrated, they seem to have learned from their mistake in similar designs going forward.

Have you even tried contacting Nikon to see if they'll repair it?