Like so many of us Coolpix 950 owners have noted - the battery door design is very poor. If you make a google-search on "950 battery door" you'll see what I'm talking about. The doors are breaking everytwhere.
Well, the door on my 950 first broke only partly so I didn't worry about it - but recently even the last small bit of plastic in the "claws" that hold the door closed finally gave up. So the door didn't stay closed. After a week or two with tape ect. keeping it closed I finally decided to buy a new door or fix it. A search in the net showed no fixing instructions what so ever and a contact in Nikon told me that the spare part costs around 35-40 euros...That's far too much. So I calmly sat down and thought about it - and the next day I repaired the door myself. It took me around 10-15 minutes and the costs: zero, nada, nothing. So I decided to share it with my fellow Nikon-users.

What you need:

• a candle or a cigarette lighter
  
• a small paper clip or a needle
• three very small screws, roughly the same size as in the cover of CP 950
  

First - you don't need to open anythin. The only thing you are risking is the cover - but hey, it's broken anyway, right?

So, I don't know if a small drill would work as fine, but I prefer fire. I could say that melting the holes on the door was my choice because I didn't want to risk cracking the door - but I would be lying. The real reason is that I didn't have a small enough drill. But the melting thing worked for me, so I'm recommending to do it like this:

-First bend the paper clip partly straight. Then light up the candle and start heating the end of the paperclip in the fire.

-When the clip turns red, simply push it thru the side of the battery door from the place where the broken pieces were. It's easiest to do from the inside. If it doesn't go thru the first time, just heat it up a little more.

-When you have three holes, make sure they are the right size for your screws. I took my screws from a old broken warhorse, my F-801 that now serves as a spare part supply. You could use any small screws. I had to enlarge the holes a bit just by simply heating the paperclip again, pushing it in the hole and just moving it from side to side. The holes should be small enough for the screws to "bite" the plastic, but big enough so that the plastic doesn't brake. If they are too big, you can probably get away by using a bit of syanoacrylate or similiar (superglue, loctite) in the holes.

-Depending on the screws you also have to modify the counter parts a little, my screws were a bit too long, so I had to melt holes in the counterparts for the modified door to slide into it's place.

-Just to avoid further problems I also pushed the spring plates in the battery compartment down a bit with a wrong end of a pencil. 'Cause that's where the problem originates from - the battery springs are too strong so the battery door is under constant strain from the sprins. Just a small push on every spring and the problem was solved. Be carefull - you don't want to push too much 'cause that means loose batteries!!

-That's it. Problem solved and if I may say so myself - doesn't look too bad, does it?

J.Suokas - 2005

Disclaimer
I'm not taking any responsability for these instructions or the damage they might cause.
        Eveything is, however, tested and used by me regularly.

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