monochrome mod Successfully Debayered a £15 350D for Full Spectrum Monochrome

[Alaness]

I've always wanted to do this modification. But now winter is upon us and the fun stuff is coming out so I finally decided to give it a serious attempt. I picked up a faulty 350D on eBay for £15, tested it and found that the fault was nothing more than a dud battery. I ripped it apart and carefully dismantled the sensor. The coverglass came off very easily with a razor blade. Things were going well until without thinking I went to wipe some of the dust off the surface and hit a gold wire. Ok, so I gritted my teeth, picked up another sensor on eBay for £20...Only this time I cut the razer in half and stuck the two sides down so they covered the amazingly delicate gold wires. Absolutely no problems from then on out. I practised various techniques on the broken sensor and found the wooden tool I made worked best.  I used the handle of an old brush and carved it down to a sharp flat blade about 3-4mm across. It took about an hour to completely remove the material. Right now I have the camera in a semi-assembled state for testing. I've taken a few test shots, but without a CF card right now I cannot upload them just yet (That's another eBay order on the way). There is a very thin line of colour on the top and bottom of the images as the razer guides overlapped a bit preventing the removal of a mm or so of the matrix. I don't mind that at all. I can see though I have a bit of cleaning work to do in some places so I'm about to start work on a dustproof glovebox for a second disassembly and cleaning. It's a lot of work but I'm having so much fun. 

[abhoriel]

Nice! Let us know how it goes

[knobby]

Brave man !

But we're expecting sharp images from it now 

[Chris]

Really well done! I've full spectrum modded several 350D's in the past, but de-bayering is a whole new level...not for the faint hearted.

[p14b]

Great post, looking forward to an update.

Thx Paul