[UncleVanya]

Recently I tried to help a couple of folks in their quest to get a failing SDM lens "demoted" to screw drive. The problem is that everyone always points to a thread or two that contain a lot but not all of the info needed. I would love to compile in ONE place all the info needed. Ideally I would get someone to volunteer to write or help write an article for the site that took all of the different materials and united it in one place.

Here's what I think is needed:

1) Which cameras can be used for the conversion - including BIOS versions!
a) with SD card method
b) with PKTether method

2) Which lens modes are KNOWN to have been successfully converted?
a) 16-50 & 50-135 are well known to work
b) 60-250 is mentioned as tried but failed a few times but doesn't seem conclusive
c) any others?

3) What doesn't work:
a) bodies that don't
b) bios versions that don't
c) lenses that don't seem to work with the process yet

Sample files. Links to various threads for additional discussion etc.


As an example, everyone thinks the K100D Super works a certain way but today I tried what was failing for another user and could not get any further. The problem is that while enabling the K100D Super for basic AF adjustment debug works, the method listed out there for starting the debug menu doesn't appear to work at all. The keystroke / button press options of the K100D also do not work. The K50 can be set in debug but despite being able to write logs to disk and DSP adjustments to disk I cannot get lens roms to write to SD card.

The point is rather than read a giant thread that's years old and get sidetracked finding the bios version is wrong or the camera model is wrong or xyz is wrong it would be nice to have this all collected and summarized.

Any thoughts welcome - links and contributions welcome but please read what has been collected before reposting the same info.

LINKS:
16-50, 50-135 disable thread. Focused on K20D I think or K10D with older firmware: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/10-pentax-slr-lens-discussion/208353-how-...ml#post2203064

Mass confusion over what bodies can and can't disable as shown by this thread: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/10-pentax-slr-lens-discussion/241761-chea...m-disable.html

Frustration threads like this showing that people don't know what works and doesn't work: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/172-pentax-k-3/288713-has-anyone-been-abl...ing-k-3-a.html

[Driline]

We need just a couple of pages at most with all pertinent information and place it on a "sticky" somewhere so the thread doesn't bloat to 100 pages or more. It also needs to be extremely easy to understand in a step by step fashion so your Grandma could do it.

[UncleVanya]

We need just a couple of pages at most with all pertinent information and place it on a "sticky" somewhere so the thread doesn't bloat to 100 pages or more. It also needs to be extremely easy to understand in a step by step fashion so your Grandma could do it.

Article or sticky whatever ends up working is good. Want to help?

[RossCo]

I posted a PDF a little while ago with the procedure laid out for a K7 and a 16-50.

[Trigger Happy]

I can verify that my K-30, running firmware 1.06, is not able to dump the lens EEPROM on a 50-135. The menu option is there but it does not write anything to the SD card.

[clackers]

I can verify that my K-30, running firmware 1.06, is not able to dump the lens EEPROM on a 50-135. The menu option is there but it does not write anything to the SD card.

Already known. I used my K-x instead of my K-30.

[Driline]

Since I have not done the conversion I am not qualified to write out this procedure. We need several people who have converted their lenses with different cameras and the like to step up.

[clackers]

It's all there in the thread, guys, including red herrings and dead ends. And apparently someone's made a YouTube video in Dutch. :-)

[UncleVanya]

It's all there in the thread, guys, including red herrings and dead ends. And apparently someone's made a YouTube video in Dutch. :-)

Which isn't very helpful. That's why I would like to take that info and distill it into a smaller more readable version and provide it as an article or a closed sticky of some sort. For example, it was said it was known the K30 didn't work. Where would we find that info and how would we search for it?

---------- Post added 02-24-15 at 09:11 AM ----------

I posted a PDF a little while ago with the procedure laid out for a K7 and a 16-50.

OK - where is that located?

[clackers]

Which isn't very helpful. That's why I would like to take that info and distill it into a smaller more readable version and provide it as an article or a closed sticky of some sort. For example, it was said it was known the K30 didn't work. Where would we find that info and how would we search for it?

---------- Post added 02-24-15 at 09:11 AM ----------



OK - where is that located?

UV, if you're to do that, I'd suggest read the thread from start to finish. There are twists and turns, including a couple of complete step-by-step writeups.

[K57XR]

OK - where is that located?

Here, I believe..
Link: Page 29, Post #428

[UncleVanya]

Here, I believe..
Link: Page 29, Post #428

Thank you. That was helpful.

---------- Post added 02-24-15 at 09:33 AM ----------

UV, if you're to do that, I'd suggest read the thread from start to finish. There are twists and turns, including a couple of complete step-by-step writeups.

That's great - but it would be better to have someone already familiar with the twists and turns giving pointers like, "Don't go down that path - it was a dead end". I have read the thread a few times actually and it's almost indecipherable. It's impossible to know what is and is not out of date and the assumptions made are vast. But if I must slog through again I will try. It would be a lot more helpful to have posts that say I was successful with this combination and this process with a link to which one it was.

[UncleVanya]

Confirmed DA* 300 conversion using K100D.
Debug Menu Method: Button Press for Debug Menu (specific to K100D)
Lens File Edited with Notepad++ same method as DA* 16-50 (replacing values in the file)

Details: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/10-pentax-slr-lens-discussion/289060-da-3...ml#post3171057
See last page.

[Jason 407]

I can confirm that the text-file-on-the-SD-card method worked for me:

• K10D
• Firmware version 1.30
• DA* 16-50
• Hold down menu (I think... whatever button the instructions said) when turning the camera on.

Pretty boring combination (probably the most common one?), but I did have a problem to overcome that I didn't see mentioned anywhere else. The camera firmware expects the files on the card to be DOS/Windows formatted, and I had to insert a new blank line after the commands in square brackets []. What was tripping me up, and causing the camera to ignore the MODSET files was that I was doing the file edits on a Mac, which has a BSD (Unix) underpinning. I had to convert my Unix text file to a DOS file before the camera would recognize the commands and comply.


I'll give a bit of technical background on the issue. All plain text files use unprintable characters to signify the end of a line. The two that are typically used are the newline character (usually represented by the two characters \n whenever the writer wants to be clear that a newline is to be used) and the carriage return character (typically represented by \r when it needs to be shown). DOS uses a combination of newline and carriage return to indicate that the line is to end and a new one is to begin (\n\r). Unix systems use only a newline (\n) for the same thing. Whenever I created a MODSET file with a set of commands in it on my Mac, it used only the newline. The camera, not seeing the \n\r set just assumed that the file was malformed and ignored it. One I fixed this issue, everything went as expected.


If you are using Windows to follow the process, you should never run into this problem. To fix it, I opened the file in vim (MacVim to be exact) and just set the fileformat variable to dos (use the command :set ff=dos), then saved the file. Problem solved.

[clackers]

If you are using Windows to follow the process, you should never run into this problem.

Pretty sure this was mentioned in the thread, Jason.

That's why I urge anyone considering the process to read every post, because of the variation in everyone's circumstances.