Joaquín de prada in Opensx70 3minutes

Acknowledgements (and some dongle porn)

Take a good look at this picture. What you see is a hand-etched openSX70 PCB!. For me is mind-blowing, since it involves some crazy-toxic chemicals, and besides, the main PCB is really tight in tolerances. It probably can’t be done by hand. But kudos, and admiration for effort! That is the work of Pan.

I keep saying that I’m just a guy, and, this for me is really difficult. I really dislike to hand build these PCB and spend quite a while doing them. And then, if they don’t work, you never know if it’s the camera, your work or even the design… So all I can say to Pan is welcome to the club! (and thanks for supporting the project)

Seeing these pictures reminds me of my own test setups!

I also want to thank Jun Yasue from Japan. He has been kind enough to gift me ten prisms for my tests! Thank you. He fixes cameras, so contact him if you are in Japan and need your camera fixed!

Speaking of prisms, I also got a few from Jayce Delker. For those who don’t know who he is, he runs Instant Legacy. He not only fixes and upgrades cameras, but also does cool custom sets. His work is amazing, and he also always trying to help fellow polaroiders in trouble. And yes, he owns a Delorean!

I don’t want to forget about Yepu he has gifted me a cool chinese SX70 screwdriver!

(it’s the one with the wooden handle)

I also want to thank Hannes AKA OptoFlow for taking the time to help with my PCB tester. It’s a crazy and challenging project, due to the different types of PCBs. But I have started to work with it! This is a picture of my working jig.

A while back I met Ali and his lovely wife in Haarlem. He runs polastand. He was so kind as to send one of the first polastand and now he has sent me his new product Polaglass. And it is awesome. I love it. I really think that the community should support this types of initiatives. Again Thank you!

Finally I want to thank all of you following my adventures, I can say that the latest hardware seems to work ok. I am concentrating on a working solution at this time, based on the TSL237T sensor. I am rewritting the software. It is still a crappy piece of code, but I keep trying and improving it. And of course PCBWAY for sponsoring the project

I have given much thought to the user interface trying to be as simple as possible, yet allowing that second level of functionality. Santi from AnalogueWorks is working really hard on the dongle. Please check out his amazing pinhole cameras, they are amazing. Thank you for your support and enthusiasm.

Here you can see the new version of the dongle. We have simplified the wheel, specified in shutter speeds at f.8. Even though this is not 100% accurate, we feel it simplifies the user interface.

Also note that one of the switches is for multiple exposures and now the second switch activates the self timer.

Even though these are renders, we hope to have soon a working prototype. All the electronics are ready!

And one more thing, all manual speeds below 1/60 and B and T sync with the flash. Dongle flash operation is always full F.8 without any modification to the camera. Flashbar, of course, engages distance compensation.

I hope you like it, as always, please comment down below!