CVS One Time Use Camcorder Hack 


Updated 10-10-05: Contains OS X software.

With a soldering iron, a dremel tool, and some sacrificial USB cable, the $30 CVS one time use digital camcorder becomes a multi-use digital camera. 

The idea for this hack came from articles circling the internet about a homemade cable that allows you to transfer data from your "one time use" CVS Digital Camcorder to computer, effectively making it a fully functional digital camcorder. Well, I decided to take a step further for a couple of reasons. One, I didn't own or have access to a Palm m100 or Palm III cable (and no store in town sells the outdated cables) that I could hack apart. Two, I didn't want to have to lug a butchered cable around with me if I wanted to connect my camera to my laptop or another computer. So, I decided to add a USB port to my CVS Cam.

For this project I decided to use a USB type A Female connector in my camera. Although using a female B connector is probably more practical because it is not only smaller, but also USB A-A male cables are much harder to find than the A-B cables that anyone who has a printer owns. In my case, I had an A-A male cable and an A female port, so the choice was made for me. These directions could be used for either A or B female ports.

The things you will need for this project are:
Soldering Iron
Solder
Dremel Tool (or grinding/cutting bits for a power drill)
A USB Cable Extension or USB coupler with female end
A Standard USB A-A (or A-B) Cable
Small Screwdrivers
Xacto/Utility Knife

First, remove the battery door, battery lock, and batteries from the camera. To do this, look at the bottom of the device. You should see a little slot by the FCC logo. Insert a pin or something thin into the slot and pull down on the switch inside, then slide off the battery door.


The battery slot is in the center by the FCC logo.


Camera with batteries removed.

Next, we have to open up the camcorder. The back of the camcorder is held on with 4 small screws. Two are in the top corners, one is left of the power button and one is right of the speaker. I used a utility knife to cut out the sticker covering the screw holes and then undid each screw. The piece should lift off fairly easily. If not, it's probably just being held up at the bottom by the battery storage area; gently tap it apart.


The camera with back plate removed.

Once the back plate is removed, you must remove two more screws that are holding the circuit board into place. They are located in black on the above picture just above where the bottom screws on the back plate would meet the circuit board. At this point in the construction take your USB extension cable (or whatever you're using to create the port on your camcorder) and cut it in half and strip the outer casing so that the red, black, green, and white USB wires are exposed. Then, test fit the connector and cables into the base of the camcorder.


Case with cable inserted.

My cable fit in perfectly horizontally, but I couldn't sit the circuit board flush on it. So, I used a utility knife to cut away at the molded plastic until it sat flush in the casing. The next step was to create a hole in the side of the casing. I marked the inside of the case with a marker and then cut it open with a Dremel tool and cleaned up the edges with a utility knife.


Top view of the case with USB cable and circuit board flush mounted.


Side view of the case with USB port hole and flush mounted circuit board.

After test fitting the circuit board and cables, lift the circuit board back out and look at the top of the camcorder case. At this point you should create a groove in the top piece of plastic to let the cables run through. I used the grinding bit of my Dremel to create a small channel, you could also just cut the soft plastic with a utility knife. I then applied a piece of 3M tape to hold the cables down and prevent them from getting in the way of the lens and routed through the channel I just created.


USB cable properly placed and routed through the new channel.

At this point I positioned the circuit board above the plastic on a table in a position so that I could just pivot it back into the case so that I could trim down the USB cable. Make sure to give yourself a little extra slack that you can stuff back into the case in the event you screw up. Strip down the ends of the wires and get ready to solder! Looking at the circuit board notice the J5 printed on it. We'll count the first pin as 1. On pin 6 tin and solder the red (+5V) wire, on pin 7 tin and solder the black (ground) wire, on pin 8 tin and solder the green (+) wire, and on pin 9 tin and solder the white (-) wire.


Camcorder with USB cable soldered on.

Now, all we need to do is reassemble the camcorder and install some drivers. There are many options for drivers out on the internet. I think the easiest to use is carpespasm's QuickInstaller. The QuickInstaller installs all of the needed drivers, the latest version of BillW's Ops, and adds shortcuts to both the desktop and start menu. As of now I don't know of a Mac version of these drivers. You can find QuickInstaller at the official repository or I keep a copy of the latest version I have installed locally. Once the drivers are installed, double click the Ops shortcut and plug in the camcorder. If done properly, the camera should be recognized by your computer and you can now unlock it, take off the movies, and reformat the hard drive using Ops. Ops has a great read me that explains the basic process.

Update: I have now found software that will allow you to download the videos taken from your CVS camera to a Mac. I've tested it on OS X Version 10.4.2 and it works flawlessly. You can find the software here.


Camcorder plugged in and powered by USB.

Thanks to the following for pioneering a lot of the work that made this hack possible:
Raymond Kawakami
i-hacked
camerahacks
maushammer  

Posted: Sat - September 10, 2005 at 01:49 PM           |

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