I have a Nikon 1 J1 camera, and it is broken.

Symptoms

After three years of sitting untouched on a shelf, I used my camera to take some photos, but they all turned out completely black. I noticed I could take a photo by manually setting the aperture all the way open, although the resulting photo was still too dark. Sample photo from broken camera

It seemed like a problem with the aperture in the lens not opening fully.

Diagnosis

A bit more research concluded that:

This is a known issue to Nikon USA, but they have ended their free warranty repairs.

From their website:

Please be advised that Nikon’s offer below of free repair service for affected Nikon 1 NIKKOR VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 lenses expired on January 15, 2021. Such repair service is now being handled in accordance with Nikon’s standard repair policies.

So I turned to my tried and true method: smacking the camera firmly on a table, which is recommended by some sources across the web ^{1 2}. I’ve successfully used it to repair an ancient handycam and a Canon A610 previously. I gave the camera a few solid smacks, but the aperture still stayed shut.

Disassembly

Next, I turned to disassembling the camera. I used YouTube to see what I was dealing with. Most of the videos turned out to be in Russian. I don’t know if this camera is crazy popular in Russia or if Russians are just more likely to record a repair their cameras. Either way, these were the two most helpful videos I found. In other news, most of my YouTube feed is now in Russian³.

After disassembly, I found the gear that controls the aperture. It had a small crack between the teeth that is practically invisible in the photos, which caused the gears to bind up. Unfortunately, the aperture is one of the deepest components in the camera and required near complete disassembly.

Problem gears, which control the aperture

Teeny tiny gear, which failed and broke my camera lens.

Order Parts

I went to eBay and luckily a few vendors sell an exact replacement gear. Unfortunately, they all ship directly from China, meaning I’d have to leave the camera disassembled for a few weeks. Camera parts sitting in cups, waiting for repair parts

Parts Arrive!

This week, the repair parts finally arrived from China!

It’s funny how much packaging is needed for such a small part. The small white speck is the gear.

I installed the new gear, which fit perfectly. Next, I had to reassemble the lens. The most difficult part was reinstalling the aperture blades. They are paper light and a heavy breath can send them flying. They need to be installed in the proper order and orientation. It’s kinda like the highest stakes game of operation ever. Here’s images for the proper order of the blades:

First two aperture pieces Aperture blades installed Aperture cover installed Last two aperture pieces Aperture mechanism lid clicked on

This process took more than 70% of my time overall on this project and involved a lot of careful breathing and steady hands. With the aperture repaired and reassembled, I checked if it was working by connecting the lens to the camera.

It lives! The aperture opens and closes normally

I finished reassembling the camera using the YouTube videos for guidance.

Pics!

With the camera fixed, I took some sample pictures to test it out.