Getting Back In The Groove: The Freedom Enterprises Circuit Bent Toy Camera

January 18, 2026

Getting Back In The Groove: The Freedom Enterprises Circuit Bent Toy Camera

I've been in a bit of a funk since bricking that Kodak Charmera a couple of weeks ago. It doesn't help that the weather has been dismal for much of January, and looking at the forecast it looks like this will continue for a couple of weeks to come. Yes, I went out and 'tested' a new (to me) Olympus Pen E-PL3, but the combination of factors has left me a bit dispirited. That's not to say I haven't got things planned, On Blogger, I keep a 'running tally' of projects that I have in mind and there are about 16 items on this list already.

Anyhow, I was chatting with some people on BlueSky about what makes a shitty camera, and I happened to mention that what I'm after is a circuit bent Shitty-compliant camera. I'm always on about circuit bending, and getting 'generic' cameras from CEX to circuit bend, but I always end up not being able to bring myself to potentially ruin a perfectly good camera. I did it once with an old Canon Powershot that I tried to make full spectrum, and most recently with the Charmera, and it does leave a psychological mark.

But I do have a circuit bent camera. A couple of years ago, I picked up a circuit bent toy camera from Freedom Enterprises. This camera contains one of the simplest forms of circuit bending, where connections in the camera sensor have been soldered together. There's only one type of result from the toy camera, but it's a fun glitch and the filters in the camera give it a lot of variety. So I charged up the glitched camera and took it out on a short walk when it wasn't raining. I've also ordered a couple of G6 thumb cameras (the Kodak Charmera clone), and I hope to circuit bend at least one of those.

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#CircuitBending, #FreedomEnterprise, #Digicam, #Glitch, #GlitchArt, #Glitchy, #Retro, #Experimental, #LoFi, #ToyCamera,