debayering raspberry pi camera (monochrome mod)

monochrome camera basically has higher resolution more sensitivity
really higher resolution??? that sounds weird
think about it like that

if you have 1 mega pixel RGB camera with ratio of .25 red .25 blue and .50 green of the pixels
and you photographing a green field - that means that you getting roughly .50 of the camera pixels

bayer filter

i wanted to try this mod for a while - just cause raspberry pi don't offer them yet ;)
and today i had some free time :)

since i upgraded all my raspi cameras to the newer version and had nothing to do with the old modules i thought why not trying to debayering them
so ill start by saying it is not easy nor quick task and require steady hands and lots of patients
the difference between the noir camera and the regular one
left one is noir and the right one is the regular one

4 X raspi cameras died during this experiment (5  by the end of this post)

2 X died during the opening of the lens socket (it is glued with a thin layer of epoxy)

the trick is to carefully release one corner and use it to dispatch the board from the lens socket

2 X died during debayering attempts

apparently (a microscope could have probably save most of those cameras lives but i was too lazy to drive to TAMI our local hackerspace and do it there) there is some very fine wires (pictures were taken with my cellphone from a mantis vision microscope which i bought later)

running at the top edge of the bayer filter touching them was probably not a good thing as it probably caused them to short so it is well advise to first do it under the microscope and second to leave those wires alone with some extra space just in case
after i destroied the first 4 cameras the 5th one i actually debayered while it was working so i could find what am i doing wrong and it worked (you can see it in the attached video at the bottom)

looks like there is some extra layer of coating under the bayer filter that seems like ar coating but i might be wrong
another tip is applying as less pressure as possible as the cmos can move and brake some of the bonded wires at its edges

this is not the end its just a short rest at the heat of the battle
i will try to use different solvent for debayering as it clearly much better approach 

during the focusing of the lens i expediently done something that destroy the camera so that bring the casualty count to 5
here is a short video of the debayering process using cutting knife

update: new diagnostic looks like it might be a problem of applying too much force to scrub the bayer filter i apparently accidentally moved the cmos? and ripped apart some wires that was connected  to it

sorry for not publishing any photos of the finished result
when i was adjusting the focus of the lens i accidentally ripped the hot glue that i used to fix the lens socket to the board and again ripped apart some cmos wires.
had some time to do it all again and here is the end result

focus slightly off


p.s
i tried several solvents with ultrasonic cleaner without success but looks like it would be a much better way to achieve the goal

later p.s
photoresist  remover then using cleaning solvent worked without damaging the sensor