On Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:51:09 -0400, Scott Schuckert wrote:

The battery doors are uniformly fragile on almost all digital cameras;
the Nikons you mention are perhaps a little bit worse than average. I
have experience with the 3100; with careful use it can be made to hold
up. But as you mention, the stupidity is that the door is not designed
to be easily replaced.

I found this wonderful thread while looking up how to fix my son's Nikon
Coolpix 3100 battery latch door camera body broken problem.

I latched onto the paperclip idea but nobody said which glue to use. I
bought Locktite superglue and Locktite epoxy but I think one or both of
those glues melted the camera body a bit. The camera body plastic is pitted
slightly and indented where the glue was wet but now has dried.

Does anyone know what the camera body plastic is made up of? The package
insert says not to use the Locktite Quick Set Epoxy on "polyethylene" or
"polypropylene".

Also, the articles didn't say WHAT SIZE drill bit to use so I used a #55
(0.052 inh) drill bit which seemed to work to drill the holes in the ribs
in the inside of the Nikon Coolpix camera body to hold the long legs of the
paperclip.

In addition, nobody said which dremel bit to use, and I munged up the
camera body by using one that was too large and unwieldy.

You can see a dozen step-by-step photos of my operation to recycle my son's
Nikon Coolpix 3100 camera at http://usera.imagecave.com/coolpixfixer/