DIY D7200 shutter replacement + insights

[Bernard Delley]

this is a salvage from dpreview, hope it is a fun read and encouraging in case.

Stupid enough, it came like this: Shooting the sun with 135mm f2 DC at f/2.5 in LV to protect my eyes. Handhold LV into the sun did not damage the sensor. But exposure with the shutter being closed for a fraction of a second was enough to burn a hole into the blackened super thin shutter curtain. (Insight 1, don't do this!)

It was not noticed right away. But, on short exposure times the hole produces a bright spot in always the same place of the image.
test shot of uniformly lit object at 1/320 s f/8 : orig size: full image at 25%

[Bernard Delley]

view of the shutter curtain using MUP mode to get the mirror out of the way.

[Bernard Delley]

I got a replacement shutter assembly for D7200 at AliExpress for 55 CHF (MH store). Soldering points show that this is a removed unit from another presumably dead camera.

I got Japanese Industry Standard (JIS) screwdrivers ( Vessel ) to avoid damage to the screw heads, especially when some amount of torque is requred. I already had tools for iPhone repair (PH 00 screwdriver and plastic spudger)  and a small soft soldering tool.

The shutter is in the middle of the camera, so quite a disassembly is needed to get at it.

view of the disassembled camera, with the replacement shutter ready. The sensor is in the plastic box for dust protection.

[Bernard Delley]

I used guides by Ifixit: Nikon D7100 Motherboard Replacement  and Nikon D7000 Shutter Assembly Replacement .   Obviously these guides match only partly for the D7200. The D7000 guide gets hasty and tired towards its end and forgets to mention the soldering altogether.

A careful layout as depicted was not quite enough with the documentation on ifixit. Insight: I should have taken a picture for every screw or part removed and put the screw then into a tray array (perhaps an ice cube tray for 96 cubes). With just the careful layout, and srews rolling a bit around, I ended spending a lot of time figuring out where exactly each part had to go back.

I did succeed at putting things together and it works. AF-fine tune has been done again and a different setting was found than before the shutter replacement. This is no wonder, AF module and bajonet kept their relative place. But the sensor goes behind the shutter assembly box, so the sensor plane differ by a few micro-meters from its previous place.  With my MTF based AF-fine tune approach with sufficiently good statistical control I know fine tune values to actually better than 1 tune unit. And I have not seen it change significantly, as long as no bad treatment happened to camera or lens.



Some more detail for fun:

Some screws require a lot of torque to remove. The JIS screwdriver tip geometry allows to do this without damage to the screw head. I affixed a plastic wheel to the JIS 00 screwdriver to allow applying the torque just needed in some cases.

mainboard view. some zif sockets with open lid and ribbon cable pulled out:

[Bernard Delley]

Back view of sensor assembly.
Then front side of sensor with clearly visible dust in grazing light.

[Bernard Delley]

Back view with shutter assembly, still partly covered by internal camera skeleton.
Then, shutter assembly with 4 soldering connections at the ribbon protruding from the shutter. Soldering is also needed for two wires on the other side.

[Bernard Delley]

If you are less impressed about handling tiny springs -- they tend to jump at you before you clearly saw where they came from -- than by soldering small connections, you have an option. Rather than soldering, you can remove two more screws and slide the shutter box open and replace the shutter curtains only.

Image below: JIS screwdrivers are non-magnetic, so screws do not budge when approached by the screwdriver. The cheap PH00 screwdriver gets easily magnetized accidentally without further ado. This can be handy to pick up tiny screws or to place them back where they should go.

[Bernard Delley]

I hoped that the post was encouraging. There appears to be quite a supply of replacement shutters. I think almost anybody could do this. However, one should take my advice for better documentation and temporary storage or small parts  in a mini ice-cube tray to the heart. If one skirts the soldering by replacing just the shutter curtains, one does not need the equipment for soldering.

It did not take much bravery to try this, as the camera with punched shutter was lost to begin with. The options were:

trash the damaged 7 years old camera. (continue by investing in a different camera)

sell it for parts and recover perhaps 50 $

* spend 60 $ get insight, be back with a working D7200 on success.

get it repaired by Nikon service, offer was $ 400, go on with serviced D7200.

replace it by a used camera from Ebay or Ricardo

[Bernard Delley]

the pictures of replacement part offerings on the internet show that Nikon has abandoned soldering connections for the shutter assembly unit starting with model

D500,  D700,  D750, D800, D3

I found one ad, saying D7500 shutter is the same as D500 shutter unit.

the shutter units for D7200 D600 D610 are still with soldering connections on the ribbon.

[Erik Lund]

I was not aware that the shutter blades where that easy to melt on this series of cameras,,,
The flat cable connectors are so prone to breaking so yes take care

[Bernard Delley]

The trend to reduce shutter shock implied getting the tins of the curtain as thin as possible.
The sensor protector of the Z9 appears to be similar the shutter.
The recent post of a Z9 failure by averity  https://nikongear.net/revival/index.php?topic=10645.0 suggest that there are similar fallacies too.

[MEPER]

The camera inside looks like very cheap electronics. A lot of plastic, thin metal, self cutting screws that cuts into plastic etc. etc.
A F2 does not look that bad inside? :-)

[Øivind Tøien]

The camera inside looks like very cheap electronics. A lot of plastic, thin metal, self cutting screws that cuts into plastic etc. etc.
A F2 does not look that bad inside? :-)

The F2 has a titanium curtain that would not melt. The one in my F2 shows telltale marks on the curtain without any ill effect.

[Bernard Delley]

The camera inside looks like very cheap electronics. A lot of plastic, thin metal, self cutting screws that cuts into plastic etc. etc.
A F2 does not look that bad inside? :-)

The F2 has a titanium curtain that would not melt. The one in my F2 shows telltale marks on the curtain without any ill effect.

The electronic boards look like quality boards to me, definitely not the cheap brown hard-paper boards. The Faraday screening does not need to be thick metal. It is a mostly plastic construction with appropriate screws; good for weight. The plastic engineering appears to be state of this art, not prone to the rapid embrittlement as in cheap plastic toys. What I disliked the most was the soldering on edge for the shutter ribbon.

The F2 shutter is very thin titanium. The camera geometry of this horizontally running shutter seems to imply that it is rolled. I would not want to expose this shutter to focused sun light either.
The modern vertical running shutters are descendants of a shutter appearing first in the Nikkormat camera nearly contemporary with the F2. The blades are obviously very thin, surely titanium again. maybe a little thicker, as the must not bend and hold up for hundred thousands of actuations.

Fortunately, these shutters are protected by the mirror most of the time! Canon used a black cloth shutter in F2 times, if I recall right.
 

[mxbianco]

Titanium shutter: same as the Nikon F,. except for the first 1000 samples (extremely rare, from sn 6400001 up to sn 6401000), which had a cloth curtain. On the Nikon F, shutter curtain travelled horizontally, and flash sync was limited to 1/60", while on the F2 it travelled vertically (and sync was upped to 1/125"). I'll have to dig out an F2 to make sure... [EDIT: it travels horizontally on the F and F2, on Nikkorex and F3 it travels vertically and it's similar to current venetian-type shutter ]

Bernard, I confirm that the shutter curtains were thin enough to be rolled up in spools at the sides of the frame. Second curtain would unroll to cover the frame at the appropriate time, and at shutter speeds below 1/60" the whole frame would be exposed to light.

As an added bonus, including here an excerpt from my own Nikon F Identification Scheme (my own research, which predates heavily -and adds a little something- on the top work by Richard DeStoutz)

Ciao from Massimo