EEVblog #625 - Retro Teardown: Sony's First Digital Camera

[EEVblog]

Dave tears down Sony's first digital camera that used removable media, a 3.5" floppy drive! The 640x480 resolution 0.3Mpixel 1997 vintage Sony Mavica MVC-FD7

Datasheets:
http://www.alldatasheet.net/datasheet-pdf/pdf/61708/FUJITSU/MB88146AP.html
UPD72069 Floppy-Disk Controller
http://www.ic-on-line.cn/view_download.php?id=1057239&file=0029\upd72069_239054.pdf
AD9801 CCD image sensor processor
http://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pdf/48588/AD/AD9801.html
MB90089 OSD: http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheets/restul/500457_DS.pdf
SH7032 32 Bit Microcontroller:
http://www.renesas.com/products/mpumcu/superh/sh7030/sh7032/index.jsp
MB3785A Switching Regulator:
http://pdf.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheets2/30/300915_1.pdf

[Chris_PL]

Dave, you should also post those images you've taken with it  I'm curious about the quality of a VGA photo done with proper lens, not those cheap plastic piece-of-shit used in early phone cameras (which happened to be also VGA res) 

[dentaku]

I was going to say the same thing as Chris_PL. It would be nice to see those photos too.
If there's no floppy drives in any of your computers you can probably find one in some of the junk you've collected from the garbage room.

I've used those cameras before too. I know someone who owns two of them.
Back when Ebay started those were great because it made it incredibly easy to quickly get images of the stuff you wanted to sell.

[EEVblog]

Dave, you should also post those images you've taken with it

Will post tomorrow.
The front cover wasn't in place properly though, so not sure how much that affected the image. Compression looked high, maybe a setting for that?

[EEVblog]

If there's no floppy drives in any of your computers you can probably find one in some of the junk you've collected from the garbage room.

Images were included at end of the video. A viewer who works in the same building bought one over when I tweeted I needed one!

[Rasz]

Pictures from teardown already on wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Mavica#mediaviewer/File:Sony_Mavica_MVC-FD7_Sensor.jpg

Dave are you Binarysequence?
looks like some asshole just appropriated them as his own, didnt even use same License Dave used (CC 2.0).

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/Binarysequence
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Binarysequence

plenty of Dave teardown photos uploaded as as if Binarysequence was the owner. Any wikipedia trolls here to explain whats going on?

I fixed few to properly attribute Dave
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Sony_Mavica_MVC-FD7_Sensor.jpg&action=history
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Sony_Mavica_MVC-FD7_Lens_Assembly.jpg&action=history

[JoannaK]

The front cover wasn't in place properly though, so not sure how much that affected the image. Compression looked high, maybe a setting for that?

One reason I didn't much like those early floppy based sony cams was the overy cooked processing done inside camera. Those images were highly compressed and way oversharpened . Especially on the later models when the images were bigger so they had to limit the size for floppy limitations.

They made some kinda neat camera designs. These days all those look so much like one another..

[tchicago]

The diagonally mounded mystery part is a piezo shock/acceleration sensor. Here is an example: http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/58860.pdf Chip next to it is an amplifier.

I believe they are mounted at 45 degrees because they want to catch both vertical and horizontal motion. These sensors are also frequently found on the HDD PCBs, also mounted at 45 degrees. Some HDDs even have several of them mounted orthogonally to each other.

[Stonent]

Yeah that JPG quality of "50" in the properties probably had a lot to do with the low quality.

If it has some kind of NVRAM perhaps the previous owner set the picture quality to optimize space on the disk.

[MLXXXp]

At 8m38s Dave says:

Alright, let's take this sucker apart. I'm not sure where to start but I'll just, uh, take off every screw possible...

http://youtu.be/1jPcYCcaHv0?t=8m38s

A tip for all you young players, and also for Dave, apparently:
If a piece of Japanese electronics gear has split arrows pointing to some of the screws, only those screws that the arrows point to need to be removed to open the case, as a first step to servicing.

Both of the first two screws that Dave removed had them. Others that he removed didn't, so could have been left in (but possibly removed later, if necessary, once inside).

[hans]

Pictures from teardown already on wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Mavica#mediaviewer/File:Sony_Mavica_MVC-FD7_Sensor.jpg

Dave are you Binarysequence?
looks like some asshole just appropriated them as his own, didnt even use same License Dave used (CC 2.0).

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/Binarysequence
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Binarysequence

plenty of Dave teardown photos uploaded as as if Binarysequence was the owner. Any wikipedia trolls here to explain whats going on?

I fixed few to properly attribute Dave
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Sony_Mavica_MVC-FD7_Sensor.jpg&action=history
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Sony_Mavica_MVC-FD7_Lens_Assembly.jpg&action=history

I've noticed it on this wikipedia page before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_departure_warning_system
Yep same user, seems to be in the list somewhere too.

[SeanB]

I have a slightly later version of that camera, that uses genuine Sony Memory Sticks. Will brain fart if you put in one that is too big ( more than 64M IIRC) and crash and die. Also uses that so lovely 7V2 Infolithium battery, which is a fancy ( and eye wateringly expensive if bought new then and even more so now) package with 2 bog standard lithium ion cells and a small protection board in the fancy case. The one I have is a little dead, as it will charge for 20 minutes, then you place in the camera and you have 10 minutes to take your 4 photos before it does a low battery warning and shuts down. Some day I will repack it, but as my other camera just uses AA cells, and the camcorder works as well for quick and dirty shots it is pretty low. The big advantage it has is that you can do a macro shot in ambient lighting, and have it come out sharp and clear.

[robrenz]

A tip for all you young players, and also for Dave, apparently:
If a piece of Japanese electronics gear has split arrows pointing to some of the screws, only those screws that the arrows point to need to be removed to open the case, as a first step to servicing.

Thanks, that is a very useful tip

[GrandTheftAuto4life]

I should have kept my Minolta Digital Camera with a whopping 2.3 MP and 3 times digital zoom, no optical zoom at all and it came with an 8MB compact flash card which could fit 22 photos or 23 seconds video in Apple Quicktime .MOV format (Required Quicktime version 4 for playback on a pc)

Maybe it would have been a nice quick teardown...

[EvilGeniusSkis]

I remember using a floppy camera for school when I was in grade 4 which was 8 years ago.   On another note on tear-downs of stuff like this can you tell us how hard it would be to re-use the interesting parts from it such as the screen and lens-sensor assembly in this case?

[dentaku]

If there's no floppy drives in any of your computers you can probably find one in some of the junk you've collected from the garbage room.

Images were included at end of the video. A viewer who works in the same building bought one over when I tweeted I needed one!

If you compare it to most 640X480 webcams, that's not horrible.

[EEVblog]

Original photos:
http://www.eevblog.com/files/Mavica
The PC floppy is playing up, couldn't get them  all.

[EEVblog]

I think teardowns should have at least one thing to recommend them over any previous teardown. At least being the first teardown of its type.

I agree.
Although for something like new test gear, that's a different story. People want to see inside the guts they might want to buy.

[EEVblog]

Dave are you Binarysequence?

Yes I am. Wikipedia will not let you use your real name, or that of website or brand etc.

looks like some asshole just appropriated them as his own, didnt even use same License Dave used (CC 2.0).

That's Flickrs fault. I want to make all my images public domain, but it doesn't have that option. The next best choice is CC attribution.

[retrolefty]

On your comment that the battery gauge display showing I think 50% on the screen being a 'bit dodgy'. I suspect it was right on as you were supplying 7.4 vdc. A 2 cell Li battery has a nominal 7.2 vdc rating but fully charged will be around 8.4vdc so I suspect the gauge is pretty accurate.

[lilshawn]

i have the later version of this camera... the FD71. it's floppy drive was VASTLY improved with a much much faster access times compared to this model. (both of which ive used)

i'll have to dig it up for some nostalgia photos....i think i have a USB floppy drive out in the carpark.

[EEVblog]

On your comment that the battery gauge display showing I think 50% on the screen being a 'bit dodgy'. I suspect it was right on as you were supplying 7.4 vdc.

Yes, but I was under the impression that the InfoLithium system used smart charge coulomb counting to get the battery gauge, not just measure the battery voltage.

[Stonent]

i have the later version of this camera... the FD71. it's floppy drive was VASTLY improved with a much much faster access times compared to this model. (both of which ive used)

i'll have to dig it up for some nostalgia photos....i think i have a USB floppy drive out in the carpark.

I remember shortly before floppies went away some 2X speed drives hit the market so I guess they might have put one of those in.

[NiHaoMike]

There was also some old camera that recorded to mini CDs.

[delmadord]

Is it just me or the sound quality dropped a lot when Dave switched to the Tagarno for viewing the sensor?