09
2007
Don't try this at home
A while back my digital camera stopped working properly. I had it in a plastic bag with a leaky water bottle and it ended up getting wet.
I let it dry for two days but when I turned it on, the buttons on the back didn't work right. One or two did what they were supposed to, but the others did what other buttons should have done. The net result was that I could take pictures with my camera as long as I was happy with the settings as they were (macro active, flash on) -- which I wasn't.
Since I couldn't really use it, I decided to take it apart.
I got the front cover off, but couldn't really get it apart beyond that. The circuit board and other pieces seemed to have been glued to the back piece, and I didn't want to break it completely. I noticed some sticky gunk on one of the ribbons, which I swabbed clean with a damp paper towel.
As I was turning the exposed innards around in my hand, a small piece fell out. It looked like the pin of a hinge, but I couldn't figure out where to put it back, so I just reattached the face plate without it.
Once the screws were back in, I turned it on to see if I'd messed it up any further.
Lo and behold, all the buttons worked normally. I was able to change all the settings and it took photos and video as it had before the accident. I suppose maybe it was the sticky gunk causing the problem, but I prefer to think I'm like Micah on "Heroes" and have a gift for electronics.