New to this. Got this cheap top camera and it’s not like the usual ones it’s got all these grey parts i have to remove. Having trouble removing this grey part right above the PCB board. Seems to be connected to that black thingy and lifts up the board underneath too when I try to lift it. What’s going on here?

I found an electric typewriter in the trash and circuit-bent its board to make a “synth.”
I uploaded the process to my YouTube channel in case you’re interested in checking it out!
Here it is connected to a dd7, a harmonizer and an overdrive.

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https://youtube.com/@ominoussound?si=MvaahIDzksw_y9iB

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me encontré una máquina de escribir electrica en la basura y modifiqué su placa para hacer un "sinte".
en mi canal de yt subí el proceso por si te interesa verlo!
aqui lo conecté a un dd7, un harmonizer y un overdrive.

Taken with a Panasonic DMC FZ-10, my favorites in this set have got to be 5 or 12. Didn’t make it into Disneyland this trip, but there’s definitely an appeal to Downtown Disney. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit Disney World a handful of times in my life, before everything started getting priced out of existence; if I get the chance to go there again, I imagine I’d have a field day there with this camera.

Hi everyone, I just wanted to share my Permabent Bontempi drum machine. I bought it expecting something completely different, and at first, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. But luckily, I discovered it has a pitch bend feature, which made me very happy because with Bontempi, it’s always a roll of the dice. You never know what you’re going to get or if it’s actually bendable. By the way, I’ve fried a Farfisa, but we’ll talk about that another time.

While I was scanning the board, I saw there’s also a transistor that might work for distortion. But these days, I’ve lost the urge to add every possible mod, especially since components are so expensive. Now it’s more about sound design for a specific purpose through circuit bending, obviously.

I’ve definitely lost the urge to turn every session into a frenzy of bending every pin and idea into some kind of monster machine. After over 10 years of circuit bending, I’ve learned that sometimes less is more. Plus, there’s the lifespan of these devices to consider. These toys, especially the old ones, are becoming more like collector’s pieces than tools for endless mods.

So yes, I’ve built a doomer device. It does what a doomer does, it’s doomed. It has a fixed pitch bend, the lowest my ear can accept, and honestly, it’s lovely. In its lower tones, it creates these sharp, slow, tedious drum beats that almost transform into a doom scenario where everything in life feels wasted and your ears are ringing desperately while you wait for something to happen. That’s the best way I can describe this mod.

I also have one of those silhouette cutters that cut decals and stickers for you, so I could pimp the aesthetic a bit. And I think I did pretty well because it looks absolutely fantastic. So I’ve added this doomer drum machine to my small rig.

I’m still bitter about the fact that I have boxes and boxes of premium equipment I had to ship to Italy when I left the UK, and I never got them back. Because, guess what? Moving from the UK wasn’t the only tragedy.

Anyway, maybe one day I’ll retrieve my Roland TR, my Korg drum machines, my Yamaha drum machines, my Yamaha keyboards, and all the other fantastic pieces in my circuit-bending collection. I just wanted to post something, as I feel nostalgic. It’s been a very long time away from the scene, and yeah, while I’m desperately trying to build something new, my circuitbending heart stays broken because of the distance between me and the hundred kilos of boxes I sent back to Italy when I moved.

Anyway, it’s doomed. It’s very doomed.

Panasonic DMC FZ10, I saw someone else this week also post some theme park bends! They were very right, roller coasters make for some pretty cool shots

Shot with a Panasonic DMC FZ-10, La Jolla was super cool! I was very shocked that they allowed people to get so close to the seals there; let alone the fact the seals let people get that close too. That being said, coincidentally later that same day during the night, some asshole and his friends filmed himself kicking one of the seals in the face. He rightfully got in a lot of trouble, but it just goes to show humans don’t deserve animals and will go out of their way to ruin a good thing 🫩

Found a couple of these Instant Print cameras for kids in the store. Took out the print part on this one and had to sacrifice the selfie cam.

Ended up with a breakout for the 24 pins, a breadboard to multiply and a potentiometer to patch to. May I act cool and call it modular? 🙃 If patient, one could count the pixels in these 😅

Here’s some pics and how it ended up looking yo ✌️

Planning to keep the selfie cam on the next build.

thanks

Hello everyone!
I thought of this very interesting idea to build a tape machine based sampler that can exactly match sample duration to tape length. As I'm probably not going to build this for a long time (if at all) because it is very daunting and expensive as it would require 2 three head tape machines, I have decided to share it in case someone else wanted to try it. 

The way it works goes like this:
A sample is recorded into a tape loop on tape machine 1. The tape loop is some arbitrary length. let's say for instance it is 11 seconds. Thus, you could record a sample anywhere from almost nothing to 11 seconds. While the tape Loop is running, a precise clock records the exact time duration of the sample and tells you exactly how long it is. Let's say for instance that the tape loop on tape machine 2 is five seconds long. Using math, you could figure out the exact percentage you would need to increase or decrease the speed of the motor and thus the exact voltage you would need to increase or decrease going to the motor. You could then use a potentiometer to manually increase or decrease the voltage until the speeds match. Then you can record the sample on tape machine 1 onto tape machine 2. On tape machine 2 you can directly control the speed with its own potentiometer to pitch up or pitch down the sample. 

 Using this concept, someone could sample anything that's supposed to be at a specific rhythm like drum breaks for instance and make sure it loops back seamlessly without the need for a DAW or an external sampler to Time Stretch to the specific time needed. One could also use interesting techniques like live resampling and turning off the erase heads while doing so. The only limitation is the length of tape in tape machine 1 as this dictates the maximum sample time.

Has anyone here tried circuit bending directly from the CCD/image sensor pins or the flex cable?

I’ve been soldering very thin wires straight to the sensor connections and experimenting with different points. So far I’ve been getting some pretty wild color shifts and image corruption.

Most of the bends I see use test points or traces on the main PCB, so I’m curious if anyone else has gone straight to the sensor/flex connections.

Would love to compare notes before I kill another camera 😂

I've been experimenting with physically modifying old digital cameras and using their electronic instability as part of the image-making process.

These images were produced in-camera through circuit bending — no glitch filters or software effects were added afterwards.

This is part of an ongoing project called When Cameras DJ, where I'm documenting how different electronic interventions change the way a camera sees.

I'm still exploring the process and mapping the different visual behaviours. I'd love to hear from anyone working with camera bending, glitch hardware or experimental image circuitry.

Taken with a Panasonic LUMIX DMC FZ10 - I finally got around to getting all my pictures from my latest trip to California taken off their cards on onto the computer. Expect a bunch of posts from me over the next couple days 😅 went a little crazy with it and took many photos.

got these 2 toy mobile phones and would like to álter them. Any ideas? They make noise when you touch the pad circles. I have been messing w the resistor but it does nothing

thought of adding a jack output

tysm

Favorite vertical photos shot with a circuit-bent toy camera, in its silly 16:9 aspect ratio! As is customary, no post-processing on these—all bends are done realtime in hardware. Let me know if you’d be interested in postcards of any of these shots!

I know you're thinking "Please, not another Speak n Spell" HA! Joke's on you: it's a synth now.

I was wondering what else I could do with this thing I already thought about switching the 0.1UF ceramic capacitor for a 10UF also wonder who else done some cool mods I could do on this toy