[transam879]

Just received the correct 50-135 (SDM issues, 1st one they shipped had a loose internal element - no SDM issues) that I won (or maybe another they had) along with a 16-50 (described as untested) from the same seller and upon initially testing them out, no AF, as expected. As I came close to converting them to screwdrive, and having played around with MF, they both came to life. SDM on both work flawlessly, for now. Guess they didn't want to be converted just yet. I don't have much confidence that the SDM will always work, but the conversion should be an easy process in the future should or when they need it as I finally figured out how to get the expanded debug menu to make the conversion.

[Trigger Happy]

Got mine a few days ago and I'm a happy camper... now the only problem is I can't find anyone in this town (pop 80,000) with an older body that can do the screw drive conversion! Would hate to have to buy a K10D or something just for that purpose, but I'd still be way ahead of the game if I did I guess.

[UncleVanya]

Yikes. Maybe a fellow Pentaxian will come through.

[K57XR]

Got mine a few days ago and I'm a happy camper... now the only problem is I can't find anyone in this town (pop 80,000) with an older body that can do the screw drive conversion! Would hate to have to buy a K10D or something just for that purpose, but I'd still be way ahead of the game if I did I guess.

If you're willing to try the conversion yourself, I added the file you need to enter debug mode on a K30, K50 and K3. I don't have these bodies to try but the non-English site I got them from had the K5 correctly. I followed the steps below and successfully converted my 16-50 to screw drive using a K5. Hope this helps!

Credit to forum member pjm1.
1. Use PKTether to set camera to Debug Mode
2. Use the memory card "boot file" trick to force the camera to open the full debug menu
3. Copy current lens config from EEPROM to memory card
4. Backup original config file on computer and make required edits in Notepad++
5. Copy new lens config from memory card to EEPROM & test lens works in screwdrive mode
6. Use PKTether to turn off debug mode
7. Tidy up memory card by removing "boot files"

So, here's the detail (a fair bit of copying & pasting from other sources, but worth having it all in the one place)...

1. Use PKTether to set camera to Debug Mode
a. Download the great PKTether tool and run the exe file (likely inside the zip file downloaded)
b. Turn your camera on and then connect your camera via USB to the computer
c. PKTether should show that the camera is now connected and the camera should show "PC-5" or similar message in the top LCD
d. Choose "Camera Debug Mode On" from the Debug mode menu
Done!

2. Use the memory card "boot file" trick to force the camera to open the full debug menu
a. Create a blank (empty) file on your computer called develop.mod
b. Create a second blank (empty) file on your computer in notepad. It should have one and only one line in it:
[OPEN_DEBUG_MENU]
I pressed return after typing the above, which meant there appeared to be two lines in my first - the first one above and a blank second one. That worked fine.
c. Save it and close notepad/notepad++ and rename to:
For K30 the file should be renamed to 00077650.524
For K50 the file should be renamed to 00077750.545
For K3 the file should be renamed to 00077760.502
For K5 the file should be renamed to: 00077430.505 (these are all numbers, not 's' or 'o') - I have tested this and can confirm it works
For K5-ii the file should be renamed to: 00077680.536 (have not confirmed this as I don't have this camera)
For K5-iis the file should be renamed to: 00077681.541 (have not confirmed this as I don't have this camera)
Note: both of these files must be named exactly as listed and MUSTN'T have .txt (or any other) suffixes - be careful that Notepad and other apps sometimes automatically append them. Also be careful to check you are displaying the suffixes otherwise this just won't work.
d. Copy both of these files (the blank develop.mod and your second file containing the open_debug_menu command) to the root (top most) directory of your memory card
e. Put the memory card into your camera (while off) and turn the camera on. Some reports suggest leaving the card door open but I found it didn't matter
f. Your camera should now show the full 5 page (or so) debug menu
g. Do not touch any options except what's below - you could brick your camera, lens etc.

3. Copy current lens config from EEPROM to memory card
a. On the penultimate page of the full debug menu, you should find an option "LENS ROM CAMERA=>SD" or similar - basically copies the settings from the camera (or lens) to the SD card. This is what we want to do - to get a copy of the current and default configuration
b. Once completed, turn the camera off, take the card out and put it in your computer. You should see a new file called LENSEEP.LNS make a backup copy of this and keep it safe.

4. Backup original config file on computer and make required edits in Notepad++ (rather than simple Notepad as you need to see the row and column headings)
a. Having backed up the file, edit LENSEEP.LNS using Notepad++. You should see something like the following excerpt, which is one "block" of data. Depending on which DA* lens you have, you might have 4 or 8 of such blocks (starting at 0000, 0100, 0200, 0300 etc. etc):

Code:

"; -----------------------------------------------------------------------------"
"; 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F"
"; -----------------------------------------------------------------------------"
":0000", "28","D6","50","8A","63","84","92","6D","71","68","68","38","03","31","93","1B"
":0010", "FF","FF","FF","F1","29","63","83","90","00","76","06","51","03","0D","00","00"
":0020", "00","00","F1","C0","00","04","28","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00"
":0030", "00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00"
":0040", "28","D6","50","9A","63","84","93","6D","69","68","68","34","03","31","8B","1B"
":0050", "FF","FF","FF","F1","29","63","83","91","00","76","06","51","03","0E","00","00"
":0060", "00","00","F1","C0","00","10","24","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00"
":0070", "00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00"
":0080", "28","D6","50","7A","63","84","92","6D","79","68","68","38","03","31","9B","1B"
":0090", "FF","FF","FF","F1","29","63","83","90","00","76","06","51","03","0D","00","00"
":00A0", "00","00","F1","C0","00","82","2C","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00"
":00B0", "00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00"
":00C0", "28","D6","50","6A","63","84","91","6D","81","68","68","38","03","31","A3","1B"
":00D0", "FF","FF","FF","F1","29","64","83","8F","00","86","06","51","03","0D","00","00"
":00E0", "00","00","F1","C0","00","86","2E","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00"
":00F0", "00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00","00"

Note: I have highlighted the entries above, which are the four data points you need to amend in that block, and each subsequent block. For each block, it is rows xx20, xx60, xxA0 and xxE0. And for each row it will be column 03 (i.e. the forth as "00" is the first column). For each block then, you have four amendments and they're all identical - changing the C0 to 80. And that's it.

For my DA*50-135 lens there were 8 blocks with four amendments in each, so that was 32 changes, all C0 to 80. I used the Insert key to switch to overwrite mode and simply overwrote the C with an 8.

b. Confirm you've made the right changes and save the file back to the memory card (I kept a copy on my computer).
c. Take the memory card out and put back in your camera, turn it on (keep the card door open if you like) - you should be back to the full debug menu

5. Copy new lens config from memory card to EEPROM & test lens works in screwdrive mode
a. On the penultimate page again, there should be another option "LENS ROM SD=>CAMERA" - basically does the opposite of step 3a and copies your new datafile back to the EEPROM inside the camera/lens. It will say "VERIFYING" and go through the rows in the LENSEEP file until it's happy.
b. Press the menu key to exit the debug menu and check autofocus works and you can hear the screwdrive operating (easy to check with my lens as the SDM was dead - so activity meant success!)
Note: if you haven't edited the file properly, you probably won't find this step working... in my case, I had followed instructions for the DA*16-50 which only has 4 blocks rather than 8 to edit... I went back to my computer and made the other 16 edits and then it worked. So don't panic and take your time.

6. Use PKTether to turn off Debug Mode
a. Leaving your camera on, connect it via USB to the computer
b. PKTether should show that the camera is now connected and the camera should show "PC-5" or similar message in the top LCD
c. Choose "Camera Debug Mode Off" from the Debug mode menu
Done!

7. Tidy up memory card by removing "boot files"
As a final step, I deleted the "boot files" from the root directory of my memory card... I didn't want to leave them lying around just in case.

[Trigger Happy]

Thanks... yes I have been soaking up all the info I can possibly find on the conversion procedure. Unfortunately my K-30 won't read the lens EEPROM. The implementation is stubbed out in the firmware, according to another post on this forum. The menu option to dump the lens ROM is there in the debug menu (I was able to get that far without much trouble) but does nothing. Supposedly it's the same for the K-50 and K-3 though I can't verify that (I only have the one digital body).

Edit: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/6-pentax-dslr-discussion/250555-resurrect...ml#post2756940

So I'm in the process of begging in groups on Facebook to try and find someone local with an older camera I can use for 10 minutes... :P