Gina

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

Put the 1100D sensor back in a working camera and took a photo. Sensor still working, at least at ambient temperature. Now I need to find my IPA and clean it up ready for debayering. This photo is without any filters in front of the sensor.

I've ordered some 1mL syringes Amazon Prime due for delivery tomorrow - enough to keep me going forever Cheap enough to use and throw away @ just over 10p each

Heres an image from the 1000D sensor. Where I removed the errant blob of resin and pushed it back in line with the rest, it crept back onto the imaging area a bit overnight. This is just a standard L jpeg image saved to SD card and downloaded to the PC then contrast increased and resized in Photoshop.

The problem with whatever you use is that resin will creep underneath and get on the sensor that way. I think the only way is to apply the resin slowly and carefully round the edge and not let it get onto the sensor surface. I know we want the blue edge protected as well as the gold wires but the resin will stop et the edge if you don't apply too much. Maybe the answer is to apply a bit more resin once the first lot has set enough to protect the gold wires - very tricky and needs a steady hand. I found that if I applied enough resin to cover the blue edge it refused to stop there and spread onto the image area. I've been using a 2mL syringe with one of the thin plastic tubes from a cotton bud but the syringe plunger tends to go in fits and starts and drop large blobs of resin gaps between I need to find a better way of extruding resin onto the job. For a start I'll see if I can find a source of thinner syringes.

Used cotton buds to clean the epoxy off the sensors' image areas. Still some loss around the edges but it'll do. 1000D and 1100D sensors.

I've mixed up some more epoxy potting resin and applied it to the 1000D and 1100D sensors. Didn't go as well as the other day though. On the 1000D one I had a twitch as I was dribbling the epoxy around the edge from the syringe and got a blob on the image area. I daren't touch it until it's set or I'll make it worse. With the 1100D I had a bit of a problem with the glass, though not what I had expected. I got the epoxy under the glass alright but the surface tension sucked up resin from the rest of the border and started forming a wider epoxy border. So I have reduced image area on that one. Still, I guess I should still be able to test the effect of CFA and micro lens removal - assuming the epoxy doesn't kill the sensor.

No, I haven't and my eyesight and dexterity would no longer be up to it.

It now seems that all four 350D main boards are faulty in one way or other so I think I'll abandon 350D work for the time being. The two 1000D cameras both work. One is fully debayered but with some image defects. The other is partly debayered with a border of untouched image area round the edges. In both cases the gold wires are still bare so I could test the epoxy on those. Once hard I could then continue right up to the edge of the image area of the one with some CFA left but there seems little point in adding epoxy to the fully debayered sensor. I think the first go at adding the epoxy went well enough that I could try it on the 1100D sensor though the remaining piece of cover glass will make things more difficult.

The 1000D is simple to cool using the same cold finger shape and path as the 450D and 1100D and there are no SMDs on the back of the image processing board and a nice big gap