Hey everyone, I've created a short how-to for replacing the n900 camera. You might need to do this if your camera module has been damaged by things like the sun or a laser.

http://wiki.maemo.org/Replacing_n900_camera

Nice start,
but you need a picture of the socket to go with it
as there may be complications.

After dropping my test unit in the swamp I thought it would be best
to pull the camera module and check underneath for water intrusion
before firing it up again.

No JOY whatsoever.

the little finger clamps gripping the side of the module
really need a razor otherwise they bind up and the removal
becomes destructive, which hurt when I found it was bone dry
underneath the camera module. oh well...

Those little finger clamps are (fortunately)
expendable to some degree just know this if you rush in
to pull your module.

Here is a pic

Hi i bought the n98 camera module i could not find the n900 on removal of damaged old camera module (water dropped phone into lake whilst fishing shame it still worked but had heavy staining )crumbled whilst trying to removed a couple of these pins bent up as you described tried best to reshape into position but two may be slightly touching new camera module fitted , it now just says operation failed i`ve tried the errors check and still does the same .Do you think i need to flash n900 to orignal verision or is it because its the n98 and is sligthly different on pins to n900 module or do i need to alter anything in Xterm i`ve checked dmesg and all it says is cam shutter (GPI0 110) is now open please if possible give me some help would really like to get camera working again on this phone much appreciated

Also just checked flashlight app and gives me error message of unable to initialize flashlight camera in use by another application it not lit so not sure at all which other app is using it i`ve tried unistall all camera apps and flash light apps and problem is same

Not sure as I am still in the jungle
and haven't made it back to buy another module myself.

Are you sure you put it back into the socket correctly?
(I have already sealed my old unit up or I would look,
but if I remember correctly the two rows of contacts under the module
are the same and I can't remember if there was anything to prevent
the module being inserted 'backwards'.
If it is seated correctly then the only hope I can point to is
to remove it again and check the contacts.
It is entirely possible if you got it into water there may be
residue near the pins.

The 'shutter open' message sounds like there is communication occurring but it does not sound hopeful.
Keep in mind the module is driven by the motherboard and there
may be other damage you cannot see around/under the socket.

Be sure that when you power the device on that the back cover is on
so that it does not try to power up the camera while it is booting -
that could possibly cause some initialization errors.

Wish I could help more,
but until I get back to civilization all I can offer is best guesses.

Good luck

Thanks for the reply i have been checking the logs via dmesg and further back up the log seen this regarding et8ek8 which is the camera module but can`t understand it not sure if you know what it means

(9.393371) et8ek8 3-003e: wrote 0x30 to offset 0x1252 error -121
(9.393524) et8ek8 3-003e read from ofset 0x1263 error -121

any help would be great and i`ll take to bits again and double check thoses pins as they did bend