K100D Infrared Converted! - Page 2

pentkon52 · 07-30-2008, 05:28 AM

Dust is your enemy

Dave

Avantphoto · 07-30-2008, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by pentkon52

Dust is your enemy

Dave

Aye, fixed that already, just a couple puffs from my blower

DavidC · 07-31-2008, 07:59 PM

Well we put the camera back together today - but sadly it does not turn on...
(sigh)

It starts to turn on, and then shuts down - so it looks like we might have accidentally broken the internal sensor that detects if the memory card door is open (when we took the camera back off).

Hopefully we will be able to figure out some way of rigging the sensor - since to send the cam off to be fixed will probably be expensive...

frank · 07-31-2008, 09:12 PM

Originally Posted by DavidC

Well we put the camera back together today - but sadly it does not turn on...
(sigh)

It starts to turn on, and then shuts down - so it looks like we might have accidentally broken the internal sensor that detects if the memory card door is open (when we took the camera back off).

Hopefully we will be able to figure out some way off rigging the sensor - since to send the cam off to be fixed will probably be expensive...

Hmm, really sorry to hear that. Hope you could get the problem fixed soon. My friend also broke a Canon 350 and a Pentax *istD during conversion. But now he can convert a K100D in about 30min

BTW, David. Just talked to my friend about your case. He suggests you to shortcut the sensor switch. There is a small switch on the main board near the SD card slot. Just use a wire to shortcut the switch so you can fool the camera (makes it think the SD door is always closed). After this, of course the camera won't switch off automatically when you open up the SD card cover. Not a big deal I guess. My friend had exactly the same problem before ...

Please let me know if you think I can be any help

Good luck.

DavidC · 07-31-2008, 09:40 PM

Many thanks for the advice, Frank.
We will give it a try this evening.

Moo · 08-01-2008, 04:59 AM

Originally Posted by frank

He suggests you to shortcut the sensor switch. There is a small switch on the main board near the SD card slot. Just use a wire to shortcut the switch so you can fool the camera (makes it think the SD door is always closed). After this, of course the camera won't switch off automatically when you open up the SD card cover.

No need.... Go into the service menu and set CARDDOOR OPEN (or similar on your camera) to EN, then press OK... The camera should then ignore the door being open and work normally.

Von Ryan · 08-01-2008, 09:07 AM

After reading this thread I went out and purchased a IR filter. Here's my first attempt.

frank · 08-01-2008, 10:28 AM

Originally Posted by Moo

No need.... Go into the service menu and set CARDDOOR OPEN (or similar on your camera) to EN, then press OK... The camera should then ignore the door being open and work normally.

Thanks. That's a cool finding. I bet there are quite some other settings we might be able to mess around in the service menu ...

DavidC · 08-01-2008, 06:34 PM

Originally Posted by Moo

No need.... Go into the service menu and set CARDDOOR OPEN (or similar on your camera) to EN, then press OK... The camera should then ignore the door being open and work normally.

Interesting - and it certainly would have been good to have set this option beforehand, if we had known about it...

And I suppose we will make this setting as well once we have coped with the broken switch - but first we have to physically disable the switch to get the camera to turn on, before we can make any menu changes...

*LeoTaylor* · 08-02-2008, 11:53 AM

Originally Posted by Moo

No need.... Go into the service menu and set CARDDOOR OPEN (or similar on your camera) to EN, then press OK... The camera should then ignore the door being open and work normally.

Wow, I wish I knew about the hidden features before I sent my filterless K110D back for repair. Cost $212 for a new PC board because I broke the switch off. Then again, as davidC wrote, I would have needed to set the Service menu option before breaking the camera.

The foils on the circuit board are very tiny, I tried without success to short across the contacts (and nothing else!).

None of my other cameras shuts down when the door is open, it seems this is an overly cautious option. Failure of the switch is fatal and it looks pretty failure prone to me. Slight misalignment between the board, the metal frame, and the plastic case kills the camera.

DavidC · 08-03-2008, 01:56 AM

It's a long and winding road we have embarked on...

Still not having great luck - we tried shorting the door sensor switch, but had trouble getting such a fiddly bit of soldering done properly without taking the main board off again (which we were trying to avoid).

After failing to successfully bypass the switch, we did however manage to use the service menu feature Moo mentioned - since in the brief second before the camera turns off when it fails to sense the card door, we managed to get into debug mode and turn on the CARDDOOR OPEN setting.

The camera then started ok - but we still had to spend hours more fiddling, since the LCD ribbon cables would just not stay in anymore when we closed the back...

We finally managed to get the camera turning on and working, and thought we were out of the woods at last!

But have now been stymied yet again... sigh.

It won't write to memory cards - will read them, but it reckons any card put in the door is locked
(that is, we get a "Memory card locked" or "Memory card error" message every time).

So, not sure if this is part of the same problem as before (the card door sensor switch broken off), or whether we have accidentally broken something else to do with the memory card slot...

I suppose we will have to try shorting the switch again, and see if that helps - though I am not keen on taking it apart yet again!

Anybody know of any other way around a "Memory card locked" error??

Nico · 08-03-2008, 03:52 AM

I hope you can get it going without reopening/soldering. I am not sure what you are dealing with but if you have to solder I can give you some tips (email me). Rework over the lead free solder requires little more attention.

Moo · 08-03-2008, 05:37 AM

Originally Posted by LeoTaylor

Then again, as davidC wrote, I would have needed to set the Service menu option before breaking the camera.

You should be able to get into the service menu even if the door is open..

Moo · 08-03-2008, 05:59 AM

Originally Posted by DavidC

So, not sure if this is part of the same problem as before (the card door sensor switch broken off), or whether we have accidentally broken something else to do with the memory card slot...

I suppose we will have to try shorting the switch again, and see if that helps - though I am not keen on taking it apart yet again!

There will be a tiny "switch" built in to the side of the card socket, to read the (mechanical) write-protect "switch" on the cards.. If you do open the camera up again, look for a problem there..
If you don't open it up.. you could try blowing into the card slot.. May just work..

DavidC · 08-03-2008, 08:16 AM

Thanks for the advice so far, everyone - though it looks like we will have to try and open it up yet again, and see if there is some obvious problem with the main board.

It will read images off a memory card and display them on the LCD, but will not write to the card at all - in fact, it may be even a general fault of not being able to write from the image buffer at all - since I could get Pentax Remote Assistant to fully control the cam, but when I took a shot using the remote menu it would not download the image to the software - just showed it on the LCD before giving a little 'write error' graphic and losing the image as usual...

This *&^# camera will drive my daughter, Josie, and I totally insane the way things are going!

David C.