Sensor cleaning Polaroid X530 Foveon

My X530 had a nasty dust spot that was very annoying. Cloning was possible, but since the spot was really big, not always the cloning ended happily. If it were a DSLR or an EVIL with interchangeable lenses, this would'nt have been a trouble, but being a compact camera, the issue is quite different: to get to the sensor, the whole cam has to be disassembled.

Since it's an excellent cam with a Foveon sensor, I was really disappointed having it at the "hospital" box for long time. So I decided to open it this morning and try to clean its insides. Most of the compact cams are similar, so this can be a rough guide on how to do it. However I don't recommend it to anyone without some deep electrical/electronical/mechanical skills. It's better to send the cam to the customer service. They have tools and procedures that can guarantee the success. So my disclosure: This is just informative, and I will not accept any responsiblilities if someone decides to open his/her cam and ends with a camera corpse...

The first step is take out the battery and let the cam rest for one day to allow the capacitors to discharge and avoid any accidental damage by a short-circuit. Then start disassemblying it from the top and the bottom. Finally, remove the back.

Once opened, carefully disconnect all the cables and wires, writing  down all the details and shooting enough pictures to have a guide in case of doubts.

The sensor is located inside the camera body (in the picture top-left side) and fixed by four chromed flat head screws.

To reach the sensor is mandatory to take out those four screws:

So you can access the sensor and its housing:

At this point only remains to blow over the sensor and the housing to remove the dust, and assemble it back in reverse order.

And finally, test the succes of the operation by shooting a white area:

Hope this can be of interest for somebody.