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What plastic is the Nikon Coolpix camera body made up of (why did glue melt it?)

S

Spehro Pefhany

Jan 1, 1970
0
Thank you. I thought I was the sole remaining proponent of the proper
use of "begs the question."

Alas, the colloquial usage has already metastasized and entered at
least one dictionary:

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/beg the question

The above-linked definitions poorly describe the original meaning as
well.

Howl, ye prescriptivists, howl.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
 
P

Paul K. Dickman

Jan 1, 1970
0
I had the same problem.

I just tape it shut with duct tape.

Paul K. Dickman
 
C

cavelamb himself

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jeanette said:
Hey, you know, this might be the answer! Thanks. It did seem to only happen
in the beginning, while the epoxy mix was still wet. I think this is what
happened. At least it makes sense. Thanks!

I take it then that everything is ok now?
Not still soft or anyting like that?

If so, ya done good, troop...

Richard
 
R

Richard J Kinch

Jan 1, 1970
0
Lloyd said:
PVC is often used as a plasticizer in other more brittle plastics.

Do you have a reference to this? I can't find anything in the Kirk-Othmer
"plasticizer" entry.

Maybe you mean plasticized PVC is mixed with other plastics, not that PVC
is itself a plasticizer?
 
S

Spehro Pefhany

Jan 1, 1970
0
Do you have a reference to this? I can't find anything in the Kirk-Othmer
"plasticizer" entry.

Maybe you mean plasticized PVC is mixed with other plastics, not that PVC
is itself a plasticizer?

"neat" PVC is not very flexible. Much of the stuff people think of
when you say "Vinyl" or "PVC" is loaded with plasticizer, in some
cases quite a significant percentage of the total material:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalates

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
 
R

Richard J Kinch

Jan 1, 1970
0
Spehro said:
"neat" PVC is not very flexible. Much of the stuff people think of
when you say "Vinyl" or "PVC" is loaded with plasticizer,

Right, but what Lloyd said was that PVC is a plasticizer for other
plastics.
 
T

Tim Shoppa

Jan 1, 1970
0
Since the crazy glue fogged and pitted the body and since the epoxy melted
the body where it touched and stayed wet, I must have used the wrong glues.
The epoxy says not to use on polyethylene or polypropylene - but what is
the Nikon Coolpix 2100/3100 camera body made up of?

I don't think epoxy does anything bad to polyethylene or
polypropylene, it just doesn't stick to either worth crap.

All adhesives outgas as they dry (that's why they stink). Adhesives
around optics are a true disaster unless you know what you're doing.

Some of the lightweight high-strength plastics that have been
appearing in consumer products the last few years have interesting
foibles. I got a pair of prescription lenses in Ray-Ban frames a few
years gack. After putting the lenses in, they washed everything with
acetone (evidently a common optometric practice). Literally, in front
of my eyes, the frames began disintegrating and popping apart. It was
bizarre, like a special effect in a sci-fi movie. Needless to say,
they found another set of frames for me :).

Tim.
 
S

Spehro Pefhany

Jan 1, 1970
0
Right, but what Lloyd said was that PVC is a plasticizer for other
plastics.

I don't think that's exactly correct, but PVC can be *alloyed* with
more brittle plastics such as acrylic to yield better overall
mechanical characteristics.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
 
L

Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Jan 1, 1970
0
Richard J Kinch <[email protected]> fired this volley in

Maybe you mean plasticized PVC is mixed with other plastics, not that
PVC is iftself a plasticizer?

Plasticizer might not be the right word... that's more aptly reserved for
materials like the adipates I mentioned earlier.

However, when one must alter the properties of any plastic - to the more
or less brittle - other plastics are co-polymerized (or merely alloyed)
to effect the change. PVC has a degree of elasticity and toughness that
makes it well suited to that task.

I managed an injection line once. We had several mixed plastics modified
with PVC to improve toughness and impact resistance.

LLoyd
 
L

Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Jan 1, 1970
0
I don't think that's exactly correct, but PVC can be *alloyed* with
more brittle plastics such as acrylic to yield better overall
mechanical characteristics.

yep... whut I sed when I corrected myself above.

LLoyd
 
L

Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Jan 1, 1970
0
I don't think epoxy does anything bad to polyethylene or
polypropylene, it just doesn't stick to either worth crap.

All adhesives outgas as they dry (that's why they stink). Adhesives
around optics are a true disaster unless you know what you're doing.

Some of the lightweight high-strength plastics that have been
appearing in consumer products the last few years have interesting
foibles. I got a pair of prescription lenses in Ray-Ban frames a few
years gack. After putting the lenses in, they washed everything with
acetone (evidently a common optometric practice). Literally, in front
of my eyes, the frames began disintegrating and popping apart. It was
bizarre, like a special effect in a sci-fi movie. Needless to say,
they found another set of frames for me :).

Tim.

If you really want to have fun, wash any polycarbonate in any chlorinated
solvent, and watch the action.

(dont _EVEN_ ask how I know that one! <blush>)

LLoyd
 
T

Tom Bruhns

Jan 1, 1970
0
I don't think epoxy does anything bad to polyethylene or
polypropylene, it just doesn't stick to either worth crap.

All adhesives outgas as they dry (that's why they stink). Adhesives
around optics are a true disaster unless you know what you're doing.

Some of the lightweight high-strength plastics that have been
appearing in consumer products the last few years have interesting
foibles. I got a pair of prescription lenses in Ray-Ban frames a few
years gack. After putting the lenses in, they washed everything with
acetone (evidently a common optometric practice). Literally, in front
of my eyes, the frames began disintegrating and popping apart. It was
bizarre, like a special effect in a sci-fi movie. Needless to say,
they found another set of frames for me :).

Tim.

Wow, I'm amazed they used acetone! It's death on many plastics,
though usually it just dissolves them.

I've had somewhat similar problems with cyanoacrylate accelerator,
which I believe is an alcohol, getting on certain kinds of plastic. I
used some in the repair of a crack in a clear plastic meter face, and
the face, over the next few days, developed a whole mess of little
cracks. Ooops.

One of my favorites these days for repairing plastic and other broken
things is "Plas-T-Pair" from Rawn Corp. It can be a bit hard to find,
but it's been well worth the hunt for me. It's a two-part system,
powder and liquid. Unlike with cyanoacrylate adhesives, I haven't had
trouble with it outgassing and leaving residues all over the place,
though as Tim says, be careful around optics.

Cheers,
Tom
 
D

Don Klipstein

Jan 1, 1970
0
Tom said:
Wow, I'm amazed they used acetone! It's death on many plastics,
though usually it just dissolves them.

I actually tried dissolving some plastics in acetone. I think one
of my tries at this was on polystyrene. Guess what - I was generally
unable to make acetone-attacked plastics fully go into solution, even
after a couple weeks soaking in acetone, even with a small amount of
plastic in a large amount of acetone. Although fairly quickly the plastic
does become soft and gooey.

Now, I suspect MEK and ethyl acetate, or maybe better still some mixture
of these, will make a liquid solution of many plastics. I have read a few
plastic cement tubes and packages, and those have MEK and ethyl acetate.

- Don Klipstein ([email protected])
 
L

Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Jan 1, 1970
0
Wow, I'm amazed they used acetone! It's death on many plastics,
though usually it just dissolves them.

I've had somewhat similar problems with cyanoacrylate accelerator,
which I believe is an alcohol, getting on certain kinds of plastic. I
used some in the repair of a crack in a clear plastic meter face, and
the face, over the next few days, developed a whole mess of little
cracks. Ooops.

One of my favorites these days for repairing plastic and other broken
things is "Plas-T-Pair" from Rawn Corp. It can be a bit hard to find,
but it's been well worth the hunt for me. It's a two-part system,
powder and liquid. Unlike with cyanoacrylate adhesives, I haven't had
trouble with it outgassing and leaving residues all over the place,
though as Tim says, be careful around optics.

Cheers,
Tom

Plas-T-Pair has been around since the mid-sixties. It was originally
marketed to TV repairmen to rebuild broken tuning knobs.

LLoyd
 
D

Doug White

Jan 1, 1970
0
Keywords:
On Oct 15, 1:52 pm, Tim Shoppa <[email protected]> wrote:
I've had somewhat similar problems with cyanoacrylate accelerator,
which I believe is an alcohol, getting on certain kinds of plastic. I
used some in the repair of a crack in a clear plastic meter face, and
the face, over the next few days, developed a whole mess of little
cracks. Ooops.

We had a big crunch going on with a project and needed some large Lexan
plates fastened together for a low frequency antenna. They were supposed
to be screwed to a plate, with the screws going through the plate and
into the edges of the Lexan. For some reason the technician building
them up decided to "help" by adding Loctite to the process. The Lexan
proceded to swell & split, so the machine shop had to crank out a new set
on overtime.

Doug White
 
J

Jeanette Guire

Jan 1, 1970
0
Why in the world didn't you just send it back to Nikon. They would have
probably chucked that one and sent you another. And another. And another.

For the record, I had called Nikon Service Relations at 800-645-6678 and
they basically said that many people have the problem with the Nikon
Coolpix series battery latch door breaking and that it wasn't something
they cared about.
 
J

Jeanette Guire

Jan 1, 1970
0
I take it then that everything is ok now?
Not still soft or anyting like that?
If so, ya done good, troop...

Thanks Richard,
The melting seemed to be from the heat of the epoxy setting (I'm guessing)
because everything is hard now.

The crazy glue and the epoxy seem to be holding tightly.
Wish me luck!

Thanks for all the advice!
I hope other people try this and post THEIR pictures for all of us to learn
from (especially Nikon).
 
J

Jeanette Guire

Jan 1, 1970
0
plastic is clearly too weak for that loop.
I'd repair it with paperclip wire melted into place. zig zag the wire
for better grip on the plastic, then glue. GC Bond (used in electronics
repair) would be fine and doesn't hurt most plastics.

That's EXACTLY the kind of advice we'd want in the record for the NEXT
person who has a Nikon Coolpix camera with a broken battery door latch!

The "glue" (I don't know what "epoxy" means vs "glue" so I use the word
glue loosly here) would have to hold the metal paperclip to the plastic
camera body without pulling out from the stress of the latch.

Thanks for the advice
 
J

Jeanette Guire

Jan 1, 1970
0
I had the same problem.

I just tape it shut with duct tape.

Almost everyone with a Nikon Coolpix camera has this problem so I'm not
surprised. I had taped this camera with scotch tape for the longest time.

Now, with the paper clip, it's all better.

It would be great if you could post a picture or two of your duct-taped
coolpix for others to see.
 
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