Gina

That sounds good - looking forward to your findings - thank you

There were a few tiny pieces of glass that somehow got onto the sensor imaging area in spite of keeping the sensor pointing slightly downwards while removing the cover glass. Turning the sensor to face the table and tapping the frame didn't shift them so I tried blowing them off - some were removed but not all, they seem well stuck to the sensor. Put sensor back in camera and now there are problems EOS Utility takes a picture and displays it then says Err 70. Also, apart from the shadows from remaining glass bits, there are several horizontal dark lines of dead pixels. I might try removing the CFA in the middle without bothering to apply epoxy resin to the wires - I'll just stay clear of them. OTOH maybe my time would be better spent on other things Like the 1000Ds. I'm obviously bashing my head against a brick wall trying to debayer 1100D sensors Sorry folks but I've lost the battle with debayering 1100D sensors and now I've run out of ammo All I can say is that I gave it my best. It is evidently possible but I don't pretend to be the cleverest person around or it may help to have special equipment. What I can certainly say is that it needs heat to remove the cover glass and it needs polish to remove the CFA.

I found I couldn't use the dry Dremel method as it just didn't touch the CFA, however long I tried and using polish went through the CFA but didn't stop there and went too far, killing the sensor. I did manage a CFA removal without killing the sensor using polish on a piece of cotton cloth over a thin plastic tool, by hand. But the result was far from perfect and great care was needed to avoid going too deep. In my many attempts with the 1100D I have never succeeded in removing the cover glass intact as I recall. It won't come off without heat and great care is needed to avoid cooking the sensor too much. I have given this my very best shot and cannot afford to buy any more cameras even as dud ones from ebay auctions. I have just one untouched 1100D sensor left and I intend using this as a cooled OSC camera for astro. I shall continue with the sensor I'm currently working on but that is my very last chance of CFA removal with the 1100D. I agree with you regarding the 1100D - I don't think it's worth it.

Had a funny few moments and decided I fancied having another go at removing the cover glass from an 1100D sensor. Took the filters off the front and held the frame with sensor in my "helping hands", got the Dremel gas torch and quickly ran round the edge of the glass with minimum flame. In a few seconds a light area spread round most of the bond but at the same time a strange pattern of cracks appeared in the glass. It hardly had a touch of the flame Anyway, it all came off except for one corner, well clear of the image area. The sensor still works but the colours are strange but as I expect to remove the CFA this shouldn't be a problem - it could be due to UV as there were no filters. The Frog Tape I ordered arrived this afternoon so it could have been that that triggered my attack of debayering fever I have a feeling though that I might not be 100% successful with a debayered 1100D and I'm putting my money on a 1000D for mono and an 1100D for colour. In fact I think I have three 1000Ds so if my debayering goes well with that model I could have three mono 1000D cameras. I also have at least 3 bog standard Canon zoom lenses. Now I know the zoom lenses have a lot more glass than prime but they could provide me with a triple imaging rig for widefield. I do have Pentax thread prime lenses but mostly in pairs. I might be able to afford some more second hand Pentax lenses later on though. Anyway, it all depends on how things go.

I agree that the blue edge of the sensor seems to be the part to avoid at all costs. My experience too has been that many of my sensors have worked until I've tried to get that last bit of image round the edge clear of CFA and just strayed over the border. So from my experience, the causes of failure have been :- Breaking the gold wires Straying into the blue border Going too deep into the imaging areaI shall definitely be working on the 450D sensor and will try to confirm that this sensor can be successfully converted to mono in the central area - leaving a good margin round the edges. Unfortunately, epoxy resin is far too soft to afford any protection to the sensor border and there is no benefit in covering this with resin. In fact it would be detrimental in that you couldn't see where the critical border starts.

Thank you for all that I'm currently working with 1000Ds for deBayering - I have three One sensor has reached the stage of having epoxy resin added but not yet tested. I'm hoping to get testing over the weekend as I should have some time available. I also have a 450D with the intention of deBayering the sensor. As for the 1100D, I agree, it is extremely difficult to deal with, but I do have a couple of scrap cameras with good sensors that I might get round to trying again.

Here's a photo of the top ribon cable converted for astro use, fixed to ON and M, using solder blobs only,

I'm afraid 3D printers aren't that accurate - at least mine isn't. I think it might work for dribbling resin onto the gold wires and the extruder motor could be arranged to push the syringe plunger while the print bed moves the sensor so that the right point is under the syringe nozzle. But that is just one idea...

I don't mind being a pioneer Quite the opposite But there may not be too much progress here as I'm finding it difficult to concentrate on things ATM. Also, with people coming in pretty often I'm having to keep the living room, which is also my workshop tidy enough for visitors. So I'm tending to pile stuff into boxes and not label them. I need to get myself better organised and until then the various camera parts and tools I need for the job have a habit of disappearing In a week or two I may have all the current unpleasant stuff out of the way and may be able to concentrate more on my projects. Fences around the sensor sound a reasonable idea until you realise that you are within a few thou of those fragile gold wires An automated setup for this job would be ideal and I need to do some serious thinking. That is proving difficult at present. It may be possible to use something like a 3D printer with a syringe replacing the extruder hot end though the expression "using a sledgehammer to crack a nut" comes to mind

First try with the 1mL syringes. Better than the 2mL - bit more control but still not really good enough - still getting resin coming out in fits and starts. I was trying (very hard) to push out just enough resin to fill the trough round the sensor itself but control just wasn't good enough and it ran over onto the imaging surface. A 1mL syringe is sufficient for two sensors so I took the previously debayered sensor that didn't have epoxy on it and practiced on that with the second half of the syringe full. Here are photos of the results. Not what I would call good.

Glass now off and sensor ready for epoxy resin Close up check shows all gold wires intact - I turned the sensor upside down to finally remove the glass to stop it touching the wires.

Before trying again to attack an 1100D sensor I'm going to practice on 1000Ds I now have a 1000D test setup (at room temperature so far) and have checked that the sensor assembly I bought from another member was working properly before commencing debayering. Having confirmed that I'm now in the process of removing the cover glass by carefully working round the glue joint with an Exacto type knife.

Report of test of 1100D sensor part debayered :- dead! Just a black image, no error message. Tested manually saving to SD card and with EOS Utility via USB. Guess I must have gone too deep. Next time I'll use manual CFA removal with cotton cloth over plastic tool and polish. Slower but more controlable. Meanwhile, I'll have a go with a 1000D sensor (or maybe 450D one). But not tonight - had enough for today!

I now have the 1100D sensor I've been working on ready for testing. I've removed the CFA from a small area and micro lenses from a larger area. The slope down from the area with CFA to the gold coloured area without shows narrow bands of green, red and blue. I must see if I can find my USB microscope and take some microphotos. Should've thought of that before but my mind has been overloaded with other things! I am in a totally disorganised state here but hope and indeed, plan, to get things better organised. Then I won't spend half the time spent on my many projects looking for things and geting thoroughly frustrated! I'm certainly not short of things to do and keep myself busy

It would certainly seem like it, wouldn't it

I've just had a closeup look at the ribbon switch contacts and their "via" connections to the other side, the large area of which is the ground plane. And yes that inbetween contact is indeed connected to ground, so solder bridges (or other connection method) would be fine as you say Seems I wasted my time with the wire Oh well... that's nothing unusual!

Because I wasn't sure what that inbetween contact connected to.

Reading glasses and a good illuminated magnifier

Taken some photos of the 1100D top ribbon ON/OFF and selector switch. It requires more interconnections than the 450D. With selector and ON/OFF contacts in place Without contacts showing the power connection in red and the selector connections in black Wiring for the selector Finally, my attempt at soldering. I could have done with a microscope, smaller soldering iron tip and fine insulated wire.

The broken 1100D I bought off ebay came this afternoon. Been bounced Flash broken and stuck in the up position and lens very stiff but I'm not bothered about either of them. Put a battery, SD card and working lens in/on it and checked that the sensor worked - it did Just set it to Auto pointed it out of the window and pressed the shutter button. So the sensor, main board and shutter all work, so that's a viable astro camera complete. I'm happy for £80 all in I'm now taking it apart and will cut out the wanted part of the top ribbon cable, recheck the required connections for ON and M and solder some bridges onto the switch contacts. I'll then recheck that it works and post a photo. I've also started debayering the 1100D sensor that I applied epoxy resin to. Tried with just a dry buffing tool on the Bremel clone but it only took off the micro lenses. Then applied a tiny amount of Scratch X 2.0 and got through to the gold layer. Once broken through it was possible to remove CFA with a dry tool but it will be a very long job that way and I think I'll revert to the polish.

Just bought a broken 1100D from ebay auctions for debayering the sensor. Bit dearer than the 1000D but a better model.

Is that random noise or interference patterns?

The 1mL syringes came this morning They look just the job - long and thin and should provide much better control than the 2mL syringes I have which are much thicker and shorter.

TBH I would be afraid to use a sensor swab so close to the gold wires I think I'll just apply enough resin to reach the sensor itself and cover the gold wires and maybe when that's set go round adding a tiny amount of resin to cover the blue border.

The 450D I bought from ebay auctions as not working came this afternoon and is working fine now I've put a battery in it. It is body plus IS zoom lens