I chose Procion over Acid Dye due to being a little cheaper, and the specific Procion type I bought was Procion MX, a cold water dye, what I didn’t realise was a fixer/setter is also required in this case sodium carbonate (soda ash) as this added to the price.

Both items can be purchased from eBay seller prothree and including shipping cost $6 for the Procion (25g) and $5.50 for the Soda Ash (200g).  Acid dye (10g) can be purchased for $7.

The procedure to dye fabrics with Procion MX is fairly straight forward, what I planned to dye black was a pink top and grey skirt.

Procedure

1. First fill a container with about ten litres of water, add the Procion MX dye and stir to make sure everything is dissolved and mixed evenly.
2. Immense the cloths in the dye bath and stir for thirty minutes to make sure cloths are evenly dyed.
3. Add the soda ash and again stir for thirty minutes to make sure soda ash is dissolved and mixed evenly.
4. Remove cloths from dye bath and rinse with clean water to remove excess dye.
5. Once the majority of dye is removed, it can be machine washed to remove any traces.

Enjoy the newly coloured clothes.

• EOS Kiss Digital X
• EOS Digital Rebel XTi
• EOS 400D Digital

canon-service-manual-eos-kiss-digital-x-eos-digital-rebel-xti-eos-400d-digital.pdf (20mb)

Other manuals are available here.

The challenge is trying to get to this single screw, which involves the separation of the lens into over 10 components, and the removal of about 20 small screws. Hopefully this guide will make the disassembly job a whole lot easier.

First, a reminder of what the lens looks like.

Turn the lens on its side with the connection contacts closest to you. There are 2 tiny Philips screws to remove.

Balance the lens on its front with the metal lens screw lock ring visible. There are 4 small Philips screws to remove.

The metal ring can now be hinged apart. This next step is the most difficult. The inner black plastic ring is connected to the metal outer ring with 4 plastic clips in the inside. By pushing the clips towards the center, the black plastic ring can be removed from the top of the metal outer ring. Much care is needed due to the ribbon cable still being attached to the connection contacts allowing for a gap of roughly no more than 1cm.

Once the inner black plastic ring is removed, the outer metal screw lock ring can be removed, exposing the PCB protected by a black plastic housing.

Disconnect a single pressure ribbon cable attached to the inside of the black plastic housing which will then allow for its removal exposing the PCB.

Disconnect the 5 ribbon cables from the PCB. 2 are pressure connected, 2 with a hinged clip and 1 with a pressure clip. Unscrew a single Philips screw allowing the removal of the PCB.

Remove the 5 screws (circled in red) holding the outer black plastic ring allowing the remove of the black plastic ring. Then remove the 3 inner screws (circled in blue).

Turn the lens over and remove the rubber zoom grip. It can be removed by inserting a very thin screw driver under the rubber and working your way around.

With the rubber zoom grip removed, rotate the lens until you find a black rectangle sticker, peal this off to expose some contactors.

With a Philip driver, unscrew the contactors. I actually performed this when reassembling the lens and slightly damaged them. It is better to remove them at the start to prevent this.

There are 3 screws sitting on small metal tubes between a groove, finally remove these.

With these removed the inner lens portion can now be removed from the outer casing.

You now have access to the problem screw(s) that need tightening. Once tightened, add some Loctite or nail-polish to stop the screws becoming loose again.

Some do’s and don’ts

• don’t remove the front lens sticker or 3 screws behind it.
• don’t remove the zoom sticker with m/ft increments.
• don’t touch or disassemble any of the focusing ring!
• do keep your UV filter on the lens, you can still remove the rubber grip with it on.
• do make sure the focusing pin between the inner and outer len is in place.

References

• FixYa post by Gert Jan [fixa.com]
• Canon EF 20-35mm f/3.5-4.5 USM Lens Repair [photo.net]

The flex cable can be purchased from eBay for $7 US (including shipping), and the housing can be purchased for around $16 (including shipping). The flex cable is attached to the keypad circuit, which is automatically included in the purchase. When purchasing the housing, you need to make sure it is NOT a slip on case, skin, pouch, fascia, protector, etc, etc. The housing should include as a minimum the front, middle, back and battery cover. Keypad, hinge, pads, grommets, buttons may even be included, as well as TORX screwdrivers, make sure you buy all what you need. The included contents of my purchased housing were as follows.

To perform repairs on the phone, you require TORX T5 and T4 drivers, a small flat driver will come in handy as well, also at least 2 hours of spare time.

First a look at my broken phone, besides the obvious fact that it is broken into two separate halves, the hinge is broken and there is normal housing wear.

First remove the battery cover, battery and SIM card. Remove 2 TORX T5 screws under the battery cover circled in red. Separate the plastic case via two plastic clips as squared in red.

The antenna assembly can be removed by disconnection of the keyboard connector, squared in red. Remove the 4 TORX T4 screws, circled in red. These screws will be required for the new housing.

Now, if you need to preserve the keypad circuit; it is a little bit more involved. First, lift up the tabs of the metal keypad as circled in red and then pry of the metal keypad. Most likely the keypad circuit will be stuck to the plastic so extreme care is required when removing. It may be easier to reuse this whole part, as it seems all colour housing still have this same silver part.

Following is a photo of the new keypad circuit and the plastic keyboard housing.

Remove the backing of the keypad circuit and stick the circuit to the plastic housing. You will need to start from the bottom to allow the connectors to be threaded through the holes.

A photo of the completed keypad assembly.

Remove the antenna from the antenna assembly by first removing two black grommets and then unclipping the two plastic clips.

Once the circuit board is removed, remove all the following from the plastic housing as these are required in the new housing.

Insert all the old removed parts into the new housing as follows.

The change the screen housing, first remove the 4 rubber grommets as circled in red, and then the 4 TORX T5 screws behind.

Once the plastic screen housing is removed, the display circuit is visible. Carefully pry away the circuit from the plastic near all buttons and the backup battery as circled in red. The camera can be removed by lifting the brown tab as squared in red. Move the circuitry to the new housing and then connect the camera.

To connect the two clamshell halves, the hinge can be retracted in, the hinge is circled in red. This allows the two halves to combine; the hinge should then pop into place securing the two halves.

Finally, replace all the finishing touches such as labels, hinge caps and grommets. Photos of the new phone are below.

The following repair guide may be of further help
Motorola V3-Razr Repair Manual KS-042050-V1.2.pdf

The cheapest LCD I have found online is through The Foto Geeks for $55, however you can actually buy a cheaper whole (working) camera from eBay, and usually accessories are included with it. Note to make sure it is only the LCD which is cracked and not the backlight, in order to get the correct replacement parts.

My poor camera with cracked LCD screen:

Tools required:

• small Philips head screwdriver
• small flat head screwdriver

First remove the 6 Philips screws on the edges of the metal case, location defined by the arrows in the photo below:

Remove the front half of the metal case by starting at the camera’s base, at the top there is a metal clip which connects the front and back halves. Removing the front half free form this clip requires a bit of manipulating . The clip is circled in the photo below:

Once the front half of the metal housing is removed, the back half can be removed extremely easily. You will be presented with the LCD screen, remove the single Philips screw which holds the LCD in place as per the photo below:

Slide the LCD screen to the left, and this will release the screen from a little clip. Once the screen is free, remove a Philips screen holding the tripod mount is place:

Turn the camera over, and remove the front screw which holds the tripod mount. You can then remove the tripod mount which will allow the removal of the main LCD ribbon cable. The ribbon cable is disconnected by lifting up the brown tab on the connector:

Once the main ribbon cable is removed, the backlight’s ribbon cable can then be accessed easier. It is removed by simply pulling the cable away from the socket perpendicular to the PCB:

The LCD can now be removed from the camera. The below photo is the replacement LCD screen:

To connect the replacement LCD and reassemble the camera, perform the above instructions in reverse. It is a good idea to test the replacement LCD before assembling, to make sure everything works fine.