Front facing camera mod? - Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So I saw where you could install a ffc on the Samsung vibrant. Would this same procedure work on the captivate? Sorry if this is a rediculous question, Thanks
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Based off of some tear down pictures. I don't think it is possible. It seems as though the camera module used in the Captivate is slightly different in that the flex cable seems to be angled from the chip to the module whereas it appears to be straight in the Captivate. Also, the pictures of the Captivate show that it 4 posts on the corners holding the camera module in place ... this seems like it would interfere with the flex from the big camera module to the front camera module that is right on the corner.
I currently have a Captivate and really wish I could do the front facing camera mod too. I would instantly do it. I also really wish I could get the Vibrant because I am on T-mobile myself but my T-mobile blocks all T-mobile branded Android phones from the T-zones plan. If only IMEI changing/spoofing wasn't illegal.

well anything is posible but it's not easy on the captivate. and even if you get the hardware i dont know if the kernel will work, even an i-9000 kernel and rom might not see it, lust like we dont have fm radio or hsupa and when we fix hsupa bluetooth audio doesnt work.
i have had my phone apart and i realized something that should have been obvious. our camera is mounted higher in relation to the screen than a vibrant/i-9000/fascinate. what you would see if look at an i-9000 is that the ffc is mounted to the top of the rear camera, this is the most likely to work, the epic cameras are mounted seperately and require an additional connector to the board that doesnt exist on a captivate.
i would need a gt i-9000 camera assembly and a spare captivate camera to determine if the ribbon cable would cross over being that they are different. i have a feeling that they wont and would need either a very difficult and delicate splicing proceedure or a custom cable made and the cable has a video chip on the end with a connector underneath so that's another part to buy, if that's required i dont see it ever getting done for a lack of practicality.
now comes the mounting, as i said our camera is higher and the ffc gets mounted on top. if we mount there the camera would protrude through the top of the phone, to the right and below (viewed from the back) we have circuits so it cant go there, to the left we have an antenna(gps maybe dont know) if we move the antenna and butcher the board that might work but i wouldn't. instead i would let it protrude from the top of the phone above the glass and mold in a hump into the plastic. the plastic is molded directly over the metal chassis and cant be removed so it would need to be milled away and some sort of veneer would need to be made.
all in all i want to try it but a lot needs to be established before i drill holes in my phone, i need a gt i-9000 camera to play with and some spare captivate parts. once i test that the hardware and firmware work i can mod the frame for it to fit(i am a machinist so i think i can work the latter part out). that'll need to wait till i have spending money.

Actually if you look at the orientation of the chip, camera, and front camera ... it would actually work for the Captivate. The biggest problem I see is that the posts holding the camera module that I stated before and possibly whatever is beneath the headphone jack. Based on the orientation of the camera module and stuff the front facing camera would be right underneath the headphone jack next to the AT&T logo.

johnny13oi said:
Actually if you look at the orientation of the chip, camera, and front camera ... it would actually work for the Captivate. The biggest problem I see is that the posts holding the camera module that I stated before and possibly whatever is beneath the headphone jack. Based on the orientation of the camera module and stuff the front facing camera would be right underneath the headphone jack next to the AT&T logo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
let me reiterate. i have had the phone apart....
there is no room under the headphone jack nor is there room between the jack and the screen. also the ribbon cable is quite different.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=740022
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=8395614
the joggle in the ribbon cable goes the wrong way, and i would need to have a camera assembly on hand but i do not think the ffc could sit to the side of the rfc. i dont know how thin the ffc is but i can tell you there is plastic under the headphone jack and to remove that without breaking the glass would be quite a feat. and then it is questionable weather it will fit. you may as well drill a hole throug the glass for the camera to poke through. all i can think of to not completely butcher the phone is to remove the headphone jack completely. but at that point you can just buy an i-9000 and call it good.
we have different headphone logic, the pinouts are different for some components, it is highly questionable as to whether the hardware will even work without a kernel mod and the developer wont have detailed hardware specs to work with or source for some of the samsung specific code.

This is about the 5th new thread on the subject.....
The forum search is amazing - it returns threads when you search - what a concept.
It is a ridiculous question because it has been asked many times before.
If you had searched, you would see i posted my FFC hack (2MP - not a mirror) a couple times.

Agreed this has been gone over a number of times. Please search before opening a new thread.
I deem this thread closed

Related

Camera lens upgrades for BA?

Was this discuss already or no one thought about it?
You could update the lens, but the CCD matrix would remain the same :/
I think it is possible to put the AudioVox's 6600 camera *it has flash led) onto BA.
Yeah i've done this. You will need the lens with ribbon cable and the green plastic antenna portion for the xv6600 or 6601 (whichever has the camera). The antenna is necessary because the one on the blue angel will not allow the camera to fit.
I cut a whole in the back with a dremel on low speed, sanded it down, and put a rubber grommet in there. It gets dirty as hell though cause it will always be recessed unless you want to taper it. (to much work i think and you might go through the case).
It's really cool to be able to take pictures. But personally, i don't think it's worth it because the quality is just so freaking terrible. I'd rather carry around a digital camera in my pocket when i expect to need it. And for emergencies, well, everyone and there brother has a crappy camera just like this one that they can take pictures and send to you.

[Q] I dunno what I just bought, but it sure ain't the camera the rest of you have

Hi all,
I've been lurking xda for a while, getting the answers to my problems with other devices. But I don't think that anyone's ever had this particular issue with the Galaxy Camera before, so I joined up to post this.
Long story short, I saw an ad on Craigslist from some guy selling a "ATT brand Galaxy Camera" that was barely used for a ridiculously low price. Needless to say, I jumped on it. But when I saw the actual camera, I had some doubts. It didn't look like it did in all the product pictures. Something was wrong. I asked the guy what the deal was, but he had no clue. So I made the transaction and came home to take a closer look at it.
Here's what is different:
The body of the camera is made of some sort of rough plastic. There's no smooth plastic with metallic highlights. There's screws sticking out the sides, too. And little holes in a lot of places. And the shape is slightly off from the standard camera model.
Here's a pic:
[Pictures attached below because forum won't let me post links]
The lens looks standard, though. But you can see there's what appears to be a product number embossed on the left side along with a Samsung sticker.
Here's a closeup of that:
[Pictures attached below because forum won't let me post links]
The Samsung sticker looks pretty legit, and it is the correct model number for the galaxy camera. The product number is hard to see, so I'll type it out: S3GA-0766.
But the biggest oddity by far in the body is the UNPOPPABLE flash. The plastic of the body clearly holds the flash bulb immobile above the body of the camera.
Here's what I mean:
[Pictures attached below because forum won't let me post links]
You see? That flash isn't going ANYWHERE. It's held firmly in place, sticking out like a sore thumb from the side of the camera. It's what most bothers me about my ill-fortuned purchase. That immobile flash makes the camera look ugly and hard to fit in camera bags.
Plus, it doesn't even work! Oh, I know the mechanics of it works, because the flash... flashes whenever I turn on the camera app. HOWEVER, the flash is disabled in the app and when I try to enable it, a popup message says "Pop-up the flash"... so it's like the camera doesn't know the flash is permanently popped up. It's weird beyond belief.
Here's a top view camera:
[Pictures attached below because forum won't let me post links]
You can see the immobile flash and the shutter and power buttons, which for lack of a better word I'd describe as "unfinished". They don't have any coverings on those buttons, just the plastic button mechanism. But, they work, so I won't complain about it.
You can also see some more random holes, maybe for screws or something.
Finally, the screen and OS. The screen is real nice and appears to be working fine. But as for Android itself..
[Pictures attached below because forum won't let me post links]
It appears to be stuck in what I believe is called "Factory Mode" in which there's a constant dark overlay with yellow text info over everything you do in Android. It pretty much makes the camera unusable because I can't see anything behind that overlay. At least Android is working, though.
I will type up that overlay info:
PDA: GC100UCALH5
Phone: N/A
CSC: GC100ATTALH5
H/W: Not Active
RF Cal Date: N/A
SMD: 01N, PBA: 04N
CAMERA: N/A, FrontCAM: N/A
TSP: 0x15
TSK: N/A
Band: N/A, CH:N/A
UART: N/A, USB: N/A
UN: C0890B190FD726F
From all this I'm going to make a guess that this is some kind of factory model version of the Galaxy camera that was never supposed to see the light of day. I'm not sure where the guy I bought it from got it from, and he appeared to be equally clueless. If i had a tiny enough screw driver I'd take apart the body and see what was underneath, but I don't. If you all are interested I suppose I can go buy one.
Honestly this is not what I wanted. I don't want a mystery or an enigma but an actual working camera. I suppose I got what I deserved for making that Craiglist deal, though. If any of you want to trade this model for a working ATT brand, I'd love to negotiate.
But if I'm stuck with this camera, here's my priorities to try and make it work:
1. Disable factory mode, root and update firmware
2. Figure out the deal with the flash, try to get it to work normally, and if not, saw it off the top of the camera to remove the unsightly sore thumb
3. Get some sort of TPU covering to cover up the rough ugly plastic of the body and all the holes and screws sticking out.
If any of you can help me with these issues, please let me know!
changing the firmware might not be such a good idea.
it might be a prototype model never meant to be sold, and there's a chance it has slightly different components causing it to get bricked if you flash a firmware for the finished version.
if you really want to get a normal galaxy camera, sell it for more than you paid as a "unique prototype galaxy camera" or something like that.
The lens 1:1 real galaxy camera... maybe that prototype of Galaxy Camera. do you've tried it?? is working properly?
Dandyrw said:
The lens 1:1 real galaxy camera... maybe that prototype of Galaxy Camera. do you've tried it?? is working properly?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it takes pictures just fine. But the flash doesn't work.
BTW I decided to try and sell this camera as a "unique prototype" as you suggested. If anyone wants to make me an offer please do so.
I decided to sell this camera on ebay if anyone is interested. Search for "unique prototype galaxy camera".
What I would do is remove the "Extra" casing off the camera, as you can clearly see the GC inside. Take off the developer mode (sorts out yellow text on screen over image) and there you go.

Replacing ear piece speaker (complication?)

So I'm in the process of replacing the ear piece speaker. It has always acted up but finally completely went out when I dropped the phone today. Tore the phone apart and pulled the bad one out, and put it back together, so for the time being it's a phone with no speaker, but strangely now the rear camera doesn't work either.
So I'm curious, maybe I still don't have the ribbon cable from the camera seated correctly. But do you think maybe the camera and speaker are on the same circuit and without the speaker in there the camera won't work?
The ear piece not working can usually be fixed by bending the metal pins. I've managed to fix3 Droid's this way. that being said, I don't think the camera has anything to do with the ear piece.
Check if you've inserted the ribbon properly. The ribbon goes in pretty deep. It's easy to make a mistake when connecting the ribbon.
You wouldn't have some instructions for that procedure, do you? Or is there an iFixit video? Have the same problem with the speaker.
Sent from my DROID4 using Tapatalk now Free
Bumping this old thread in the event that someone in the future finds it useful. Obviously, replacing the speaker will VOID YOUR WARRANTY in every way possible, and if you're not careful will ruin your phone! But, if you're like me, your D4 is long out of warranty and it'll be a cold day in hell before you give up your keyboard.
That being said, I just replaced the speaker in my D4, after the stock speaker fizzled and died after almost 2 years. Every now and then it would "fuzz out" and I'd gently tap the phone against my head (which I'm sure looked quite comical) and it would stop. Finally the speaker gave up the ghost entirely and it was nearly impossible to hear. I used resources from this site to guide me in taking it apart.
You'll need a torx T5 and T3 driver - DO NOT try to use any substitute drivers if you don't have an official T5 or T3, like I did - you will strip the screws (they strip VERY easily) and you'll need to bust out the dremel to drill/grind away the screw, or buy a whole new LCD/digitizer assembly for $~70 (which, as of this posting, are getting harder to find). You might think that you can fudge it with an eyeglass repair flathead driver, but you can't. Trust me. T3 and T5 drivers are cheap online, do it right.
For the actual replacement speaker itself, I got a speaker for a Nokia Lumia 610 on ebay for about 4 bucks (free shipping!). It's almost identical to the stock D4 speaker, but it looks to be a little better quality and the actual place where noise comes out looks to be ever so slightly bigger. It "sits" in a little pocket in the outer housing/screen digitizer, held in place by the flex cable. You'll see once you get there.
Make sure both the dual snap connector that connects the mainboard to the screen/digitizer is securely fastened, and also make sure that the tiny snap connector that goes from the screen to the digitizer itself is securely fastened as well - this second snap connector is up by the notification LED. I scared myself when I re-assembled everything and my touchscreen didn't respond. Also, when you're working up by the notification LED, there's a small piece of white-ish rubber that sits between the actual LED itself and the little hole where light comes out on the front of the phone. It's crucial that you don't lose this - the LED is a few mm offset from the hole, and this piece of rubber glows and creates the notification light that you see on the front. Without it, no notification light.
Be careful with the mainboard, replacement units are very hard to find and will only get rarer as the D4 ages. It's basically the heart of your phone.
Tweezers and a "safe-open pry tool" (basically a piece of soft plastic to ease apart the pieces of your phone) make this process easier as well.
Another note: there are 2 hidden T5 screws behind the bezel that surrounds the rear camera and flash. When you go to peel this up, you'll probably ruin it - this is poor design IMO, and mostly inevitable. Good news though, replacement camera bezel parts are available online for a few bucks.
All in all, this process isn't difficult, but requires really good light (super bright lamp or headlamp) and will give you a greater appreciation for your phone and how it's both a magical little black box as well as just a collection of shiny bits.
Good luck!!
Khiraji said:
You'll need a torx T5 and T3 driver - DO NOT try to use any substitute drivers if you don't have an official T5 or T3, like I did - you will strip the screws (they strip VERY easily) and you'll need to bust out the dremel to drill/grind away the screw
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Listen to him. I learned this the hard way and that is precisely what I had to do. Taking a dremel to my cell phone... I never want to sweat bullets like that again.

The LG/Google FrankeNexus E973 Project

So... Your prolly wondering just exactly what I'm doing here from the title description.
Well, I have 2 devices that I acquired through working at a repair shop,
First, the LG Optimus g e973 32gb - dead board needing JTAG repair, our shop doesn't do jtag.
So I acquired it for my personal parts collection..
Second, the LG Nexus 4 E960 8gb - busted back glass, punctured lipo cell from back glass, scratched front glass and a portion of the left most touch sensor not working, dead external speaker, rear camera lens scratched.. Possibly more..
Another parts doner
So I noticed that both devices seemed of similar layout and size and everything looked identical other then casings
Began lookup of logic board pics and parts of both devices and noticed that they are VERY similar in that they share same parts.. Both rear camera modules have identical ribbon connection and physical size, same with front cam modules and headset jacks cept the nexus 4 headset jack is slightly angled, charger ports and all.. Just casings and antennae placement and NFC/qi charge pad are different
Took both phones apart to the last piece and screw one on left other on right,
I grabbed the casing/lcd, vibration motor, cameras, headset jack, battery from the Optimus,
I grabbed the logic board, bottom speaker/rf plastic, usb/rf module, rf antenna wire, upper half of the plastic support plate that helps hold logic board in, power button, sim tray, peeled off the antennae from the nexus backplate
Assembly...
After several test fits of all the parts to check for tolerances and placements,
I started with the E973 backplate, I removed its NFC pad and all of its antennae, had to dremel off the screw mounts that keep the device together with the tobackplate, peeled off the E973 imei label and stuck it to its own logic board, took imei label off nexus plate and put into E973 backplate, several attempts later I finally get all the antennae and the NFC/qi pad installed on the backplate.. Now the backplate portion of phone is complete..
LCD and logic board mating time.
I test fitted the logic board from nexus to the LCD and touch connections and power button only of the E973, connect battery, hit power, board boots and google logo, lollipop animation, desktop, touch responds, good to go from here
So I notice a few spots that needed light dremeling to allow the slightly differently shaped nexus board to fit proper, now its seated and connected to the LCD and touch, I connect the front cam, back cam, headset modules, and do another test boot, boots again and I test the E973 camera modules on the nexus board, everything is perfect working, headset works, ambient sensors work.
Next is USB RF board placement, some more dremeling around the charger port area of the E973 casing, removed the light defuser from the E973s capacitive home button, dremeled the nexus rf antenna and speaker plate to fit proper and cover the usb section and no i did not need to touch the antenna conductor paint on the plastic
Then connected that usb rf board to logic board, did another boot and charge and led test, all success still so far
So now with all major components tested and working it was on to final assembly
Some more minor dremel work and razor trimming and soldering of volume and power buttons to logic board as they didn't match from nexus to optimus some more tolerance checks and trimming and finally case closed with a bit of bulge at bottom near USB port and near back camera.. Just a few more checks and it will be perfect
Unit boots up, everything functions, and now instead of two dead devices, I have a hybrid working Frankenstein Nexus
I'll update with a video but here is a few pics if they allow them
Awesome :good:
I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this, it's amazing you got everything to work
Wow. Nice work! Recycling at its best.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Free mobile app
i love my droids, if i can use it in any manner, ill try
ive gone so far as to have used a galaxy s3 with mhl video and bluetooth keyboard/mouse with no lcd panel attached and running off a 5v to 3.7 regulated circuit instead of battery, basically converted my lcd monitor into a smart lcd
ive notice that by using the optimus g's 13mp sensor module, i was creating some bulge around the rear camera area of the backplate, and the nexus 4 motherboard doesnt even tell that its the 13mp sensor, so the kernel must not be enabled for it, wonder if that could be a possible?
because i currently have the 13mp sensor in, everything operates, ill post a video when i can, but the firmware says its 8mp in camera res settings
so im gonna take it out for now, and if there is a way to enable it, ill put it back in and deal with that tiny bulge, as for the bottom bulge in the previous pics, ive figured out what caused that, and it was some extra plastic flashing and clip points that didnt match between the optimus plate and nexus rf antenna module
trimmed out the optimus plate some more and now the bulge is almost gone, but due to not having internal screw mount holes anymore i cannot secure the casing together like in stock form..
there is a before and after pic of the bottom bulge near the usb port attached here
i think that xda should take your senior member title, lock in a box, throw it in the deepest part of the ocean and award you the title of master tinkerer!!
very interesting project and glad to see it worked! must spend quiet a few hours on this Frankenstein mod! if i had your knowledge an talent i would try it to for the sake of more storage!

Poking the sim card tool in the wrong hole

So when activating the phone, I foolishly followed the Verizon tech's advice to poke the sim tool in both holes in the top. Doing my research post-activation, I see that I poked the tool into the mic.
Likely damage? There are two mics, but the one on top surely has a slightly different purpose. How can I verify if I did any damage?
LOL - I see a ton of posts on this site and reddit with people that have done the same thing. Still would love to know what the top mic is for and ideas for testing for damage.
Likely candidates for damage are "waterproofing", the mic itself, fabric, etc.
If my eyesight and the light were better I'd have noticed the outline of the tray, but couldn't see it. I should know better than to listen to a phone tech for advice like that.
mseifert said:
LOL - I see a ton of posts on this site and reddit with people that have done the same thing. Still would love to know what the top mic is for and ideas for testing for damage.
Likely candidates for damage are "waterproofing", the mic itself, fabric, etc.
If my eyesight and the light were better I'd have noticed the outline of the tray, but couldn't see it. I should know better than to listen to a phone tech for advice like that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Noise cancelation, most likely. As to testing for damage, that may prove difficult.
Mostly, those mics aren't directly behind the hole in the frame. They're mounted on top of the PCB and a 90° plastic tube is glued on them to prevent dust, sand and poking derps to damage the microphones. I don't know how Samsung did this in the S10 series.
Testing noise reduction microphones isn't possible directly, just when in use. They're not used by Android, they're used by the actual sound driver and can't be controlled directly via the OS.
Jerryrigeverything did a video on this (in a video he talked about it not a full video on it) the phone is designed for people who do this and it doesn't have any effect. The top mic is probably used for both noise canceling and when you are in a loud environment and have your hand covering the bottom of your phone (like a concert)
If it was my phone and I had done this specifically at the direction of a Verizon representative and it could be verified phone was damaged as a result, I would be trying to get them to replace phone. A tech uninformed enough to suggest a stupid move like this will probably lie and say they never instructed you to do this. Maybe poking tech in wrong hole would be fitting revenge.
LMAO.. i did that to my wife and she liked it.
bsam55 said:
If it was my phone and I had done this specifically at the direction of a Verizon representative and it could be verified phone was damaged as a result, I would be trying to get them to replace phone. A tech uninformed enough to suggest a stupid move like this will probably lie and say they never instructed you to do this. Maybe poking tech in wrong hole would be fitting revenge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If Verizon had actually sold me the phone, I'd consider it. But since I bought it directly from Samsung (it was a $300 off deal!) I don't believe I'd end up with a replacement. The first thing I have to get over is feeling so stupid. I had read something somewhere about dual sim slots - probably on some future phone - and because of the symmetry thought that there were two of them.
Zmantech said:
Jerryrigeverything did a video on this (in a video he talked about it not a full video on it) the phone is designed for people who do this and it doesn't have any effect. The top mic is probably used for both noise canceling and when you are in a loud environment and have your hand covering the bottom of your phone (like a concert)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It makes sense they would design the phone to prevent such a common mistake. Why design two identical holes in the top where one opens the tray and one destroys a mic? Reminds me of a Dilbert strip. Thanks for the assurance. It helps ease that worried feel.
Player04 said:
LMAO.. i did that to my wife and she liked it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hilarious
Simple, just use the built in voice recorder in interview mode.
Did the same thing the very next second I unboxed it...it seems to me there is no damage...but I cant verify it....thinking of it, I probably haven't shot a single video from this phone since the time I got it (its launch)
Player04 said:
LMAO.. i did that to my wife and she liked it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have never seen a better reply on XDA ever. That's funny.
Wrong hole compilation
Uhh
Wow, this is why there are 2 mics, one on bottom, one on top...It is simply for STEREO sound during video recording.
I did this on the bottom hole ?
But seriously I worry now about waterproof. I tested the mic by recording a video in landscape talking in stereo in both mics and playback sounded fine.
Nope. The top microphone is for noise cancellation during a phone conversation on speaker. Your other party will hear a lot of uncancelled background noise.
Ejector tool cannot damage the mic
mseifert said:
So when activating the phone, I foolishly followed the Verizon tech's advice to poke the sim tool in both holes in the top. Doing my research post-activation, I see that I poked the tool into the mic.
Likely damage? There are two mics, but the one on top surely has a slightly different purpose. How can I verify if I did any damage?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
YouTube at about 3:52 into the video
Huawei P30 Pro Teardown! - How does a 'Periscope Camera' work?
This answers the age old question, "I mistakenly poked the mic hole with the ejector tool, did I damage the mic?"... The answer is no... I'm sure all phone manufacturers thought of this... on pretty much every phone, the actual mic is off to the side internally...
N M 156 said:
YouTube at about 3:52 into the video
Huawei P30 Pro Teardown! - How does a 'Periscope Camera' work?
This answers the age old question, "I mistakenly poked the mic hole with the ejector tool, did I damage the mic?"... The answer is no... I'm sure all phone manufacturers thought of this... on pretty much every phone, the actual mic is off to the side internally...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably toasted the water protection though.
redoregon said:
Probably toasted the water protection though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope... Watch the video... No waterproofing damage either...
So I did the same thing too!
While distracted, I used a sewing needle to try to open the sim card port and accidentally jammed it in the hole by the charging port!
Whoops!
So checking out this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHzmFPoZbCA&feature=youtu.be&t=293
It looks like I ran into a metal box looking thing on the mother board (I think that is what I was pressing depressingly firmly into trying to get the sim tray to open.) . IO think that is the mic chip, but not the opening? So did I bump that, but not damage waterproofing and not damage the mic?
I just do not know what I was stressing and if I should worry. I was using a sharp needle, but I do not think i punctured anything!

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