Jesse's Hunting > Game Cams > Homebrew Cams > How to Modify the Olympus Infinity

How to Modify the Olympus Infinity

TOOLS/MATERIALS NEEDED

WIRING THE CAMERA

The Olympus Infinity Jr. Date 35mm camera can be modified for use with our home made game cameras. This camera does not go to sleep (shut down) after long periods of turn on and no use. It also has no delay when the shutter is triggered which can be a big plus in certain cam setups.

First remove the batteries in the camera. Remove the 4 case screws and you'll have to watch out for the spring on the film door latch, it will want to play Superman and fly across the room when you split the back of the camera off.

Make a note before you take the screws out where that film door latch spring is and how it lays in the little channel, (see pic below). Put you hand over it when you take the case apart so you don't lose it when it goes "SPROING".

Once you get the camera apart watch out for the flash capacitor contacts. Cover them with tape if you don't want to remember what the song "You Light Up My Life" was all about. On the right top of the camera you'll see the gold shutter contact with a screw holding it in place. Under the gold contact is the AF (autofocus) and shutter contacts. The gold contact is the common contact.

Solder one wire to the gold contact which is the common contact. For some reason you have to leave the screw in, I tried to remove the whole gold contact piece and solder to the screw itself but the gold piece provides tension for some circuitry below so leave it in. Thanks to Archilochus who finally figured out my problem on this. There are several places to solder the other two wires, see pic. I would not recommend soldering to the flex trace circuit under the gold contact, it's very fragile and sensitive to heat and once you burn it it's a major pain to repair.

Solder your other two wires (shutter and auto focus), to the contacts marked on the circuit board with the white circle. You can cut a hole in the camera case to bring the wires out of the case or you can remove the shutter button and run the wires out the top where the button was. If you want to retain complete camera operation that is independant of your game camera, use a stereo plug for the three wires from the camera. On the wires that go to the PIR relay, use a stereo jack and short the AF and shutter wires together.

TESTING THE CAMERA

Once you get your wires soldered in, put the batteries back in and test your camera by opening the shutter to turn it on and set the the flash to "Fill In" and then touch all 3 wires together. Your camera should flash. The pic number indicator will not advance until you put in film.

Hot glue or silicone your wires in place so they don't pull out and then you can reassemble the camera. Have fun with the silly film door latch spring.

TROUBLESHOOTING.

In order to take a pic: the auto focus and shutter contacts must be shorted together and then they must make cotnact with the common contact. If you are experiencing problems, look very closely at your soldering where you connected the wires to make sure you haven't shorted the contacts together or have loose contacts or wiring.

HOOKING THE CAMERA UP TO THE SENSOR

Now you are ready to connect camera to the relay. You can solder in a 1/8" mono phono jack and plug connector between the wires from the PIR sensor relay to the camera to make it easier to change out the camera if there is a problem and you have a spare or want to take pics independently of the unit. See pic above for what the 1/8" phono jack looks like. When you wire these 2 wires to a sensor relay contacts, there is no polarity on these wires, they are just shorted together by the relay to make the camera take a pic, just like if you pushed the shutter button. There is no voltage present on these wires, the wires are basically a switch circuit with the relay being the switch. When your PIR sensor detects movement it sends the relay coil a small DC voltage, the relay coil energizes and the normally open contacts close which connects the camera shutter contacts you wired up and a pic is then taken.

If your camera took a pic when you shorted your wiring together but doesn't with the connectors installed, you probably have a bad connector or shorted wires inside the conector. To make sure, take the connector off on the camera side and short the wires together to test the camera, just like you did above when you first wired the camera. If the camera works okay without the connector, the camera is fine and you have connector problems.

Olympus Infinity Jr. Date Camera Specs

• Lens: 35 mm f3.5.

• Power Source: 2 AAA alkaline batteries or 3 vdc lithium for rewind, flash.

• Date/Time Memory: 3 vdc Lithium cell.

• Auto: Load, wind and rewind.

• Flash Range: 4.5 m with 100-ASA film and 9 m with 400-ASA film.

• Battery Life: 20 rolls of 36-exposure film, assuming the flash operates on approximately half the pictures.

• Flash Modes: Auto, Off and Fill In.

• Focus Range: 0.7 m to infinity. Focus lock enables accurate focus even when the subject of the photo is off-center.

• Self-timer: Yes.

• Date Stamp: 5 date print options of: day/time, no date, month/date/year, day/month/year, year/month/day.

• Tripod mount: Yes, on bottom 1/4 x 20 US coarse thread.

• Size: 4 11/16" w x 2 9/16" h x 2 1/8"d.

• Weight: Unknown. If you know the weight please email us at