[photogem]

The "resistor" and other 'electronics" are the result of mention in servicing reports by professionals.

I will continue to mention them until you explain exactly how metering can be correct for LCD - but bad for OVF - as a result of a bad solenoid*

Repeating nonsense doesn't make it become true, you could even start praying if you wish.

There is no resistor, so if any servicing report mentions a fried resistor, it is either a lie, an invention (same as a lie) or it is some kind of error written by a person which misunderstood something (which I hope and think was just the case)! Period!

"Other electronics" is wishy washy and it wasn't a professional report but a guess, because the K70 wasn't open yet!**
The only "other electronics" would then be the motherboard itself because:


The solenoid is directly controlled by a socalled "plunger-driver" which is an integrated circuit (IC)!


So this report from Slovenia was just a guess, nothing more.... the price reflects the usual exchange of the solenoid with the same green China version. Anyway, Slovenia doesn't have an official Ricoh-repairshop!


*You* have never inspected any K30 or similar in real life, your information is collected data.
Guess work, and in this case very bad guesswork.
Period!

*Similar to adding zeros: Remains Zero

*Well, I actually have explained this VERY EXACTLY, it would/should be your task to remember or research
but... I shall explain it again:

- LCD Liveview: The solenoid acts/switches TWICE and thus it gets released ... at least for a time.
- OVF: The solenoid acts/switches ONCE ONLY and remains stuck

If you set a DSLR to Liveview (goes for those with motors instead of solenoid as well!), the aperture is opened right away to f4,0!
This is because now the camera sends the "view" "live" to the LCD-screen, you can see what the camera sees.

But a camera with a bad solenoid won't open the aperture to f4,0 but keeps it closed because the solenoid is stuck.
And yet it fires and often works because the solenoid acts twice. But the mirror is already open, there is mor umpf
available (mA, i.e. power). Once to measure and once to take the picture.
Sometimes the first action of the solenoid won't happen so measuring goes wrong but then it acts for the (wrong measured)
aperture. So you get a picture but not the best.

But then after a while the solenoid remains stuck in LW as well and pictures are dark as well
---------------------------------


** Update: The "other electronics" turned out to be just the solenoid, the repair-place in Slovenia exchanged the complete "diaphragm-control-unit" on the failed K-70. The invoice did not mention anymore "other electronics" and particular not any (imaginary) resistor!

---

Last edited by photogem; 12-11-2019 at 02:01 AM.

[nocturnal]

Repeating nonsense doesn't make it become true, you can even start praying if you wish.

There is no resistor, so if any servicing report mentions a fried resistor, it is a lie! Period!

"Other electronics" is wishy washy and came from anything but a professional report!

It was a guess. Nothing more. And a nonsense guess! Period!

You have never inspected any K30 or similar in real life, so your information is collected data.
Guess work, and in this case very bad guesswork.
Period!

So called professional reports don't mean a damn thing, trusting these shows gullibility due to having no electronics experience. Blaming a resistor shows a complete lack of electronics knowledge and especially if it isn't even there.

How many so called professionals in many fields tell lies or don't really know or best guess what a problem is caused by?

How professional is it to put a crappy green solenoid back in? Where are these service centres getting their green solenoids from? Who says they are professional? Yes they make a living from it but it doesn't mean they are good at it.

[photogem]

Once there where ethical and moral standards:


The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skills necessary to perform their specific role within that profession. In addition, most professionals are subject to strict codes of conduct, enshrining rigorous
ethical and moral obligations (sourced from Wikipedia


Not even hospitals and doctors are subject to such codes of conduct anymore.

Often enslaved into new codes of conduct, the codes of economics and greed.

[Brohim]

I registered to express my gratitude for the advice on this forum (and elsewhere), and outline my experience repairing a K-50 (today).

Broadly following

You Tube

You Tube

I counted a total of 25 screws (inlcuding solenoid) - all tiny but in many different sizes. To hold this diverse population of screws in place on a sketch, little globs of blu-tac worked perfectly with no fuss. I wouldn't want to mix these screws.

The solenoid itself, its fixing screw and the wires attached are tiny, and weren't easy to see clearly. This advice was invaluable: Aperture block failure: solenoid repair success poll - PentaxForums.com ie: unsolder the pink/purple wires before unscrewing the old solenoid, add a little solder to the pins of the replacement solenoid, screw the new one into place. Then a quick touch of the iron is all it needed to resolder the wires back in place. I've done the occasional solder repair but this was the trickiest/most intricate soldering I've done. Having the part screwed into position saved me needing a third hand, and holding the wire with heatsink tweezers made the task pretty straightforward.

It took me an hour and a half, and the K-50 is working perfectly now. It smells like...victory!

[nocturnal]

I registered to express my gratitude for the advice on this forum (and elsewhere), and outline my experience repairing a K-50 (today).

Broadly following How to fix Pentax K-50 (K-30) aperture - YouTube I counted a total of 25 screws (inlcuding solenoid) - all tiny but in many different sizes. To hold this diverse population of screws in place on a sketch, little globs of blu-tac worked perfectly with no fuss. I wouldn't want to mix these screws.

The solenoid itself, its fixing screw and the wires attached are tiny, and weren't easy to see clearly. This advice was invaluable: Aperture block failure: solenoid repair success poll - PentaxForums.com ie: unsolder the pink/purple wires before unscrewing the old solenoid, add a little solder to the pins of the replacement solenoid, screw the new one into place. Then a quick touch of the iron is all it needed to resolder the wires back in place. I've done the occasional solder repair but this was the trickiest/most intricate soldering I've done. Having the part screwed into position saved me needing a third hand, and holding the wire with heatsink tweezers made the task pretty straightforward.

It took me an hour and a half, and the K-50 is working perfectly now. It smells like...victory!

Well done! I need to do mine within a week so my mother can take a K-30 on an exotic holiday with her, just using a 18-55 kit lens on auto settings. I even got a Sandisk Extreme Pro 128GB card for her so she can use RAW and I can edit the images.

The blobs of blu tack are a good idea, mixing up screws is a no no and simple methodical methods like this eliminate the danger.

[nocturnal]

Fixed my K-30 today with a white solenoid from a *ist DL2 donor camera. I spent as much time getting the two white solenoids out of the donor and felt the need to put it back together for some reason?

I counted 27 screws excluding solenoid screw.

It is so easy to unsolder and solder the wires whilst the solenoids are attached to the camera, don't bother soldering wires then heat shrink etc. there is no need.

I used hot melt glue on the reattached white solenoid screw as insurance and on the pink/purple wires to hold them neatly in the original position where sticky tape held the wires.

Weird the green one failed, it seems to have the same pulling apart force as the white solenoid. There was no rust on the plunger, it looked in great condition and the solenoid was parallel also.

There is loads of play in the white solenoid also but the white PTFE definitely has less friction when you pull out the plunger at an angle.

Now I have a spare white solenoid should my K-70 ever go bad, you get 2 of them in *ist DL2

The resistance of the white solenoid read 29.8 ohms and I read 28.6 ohms from the failed green unit I removed.

[cdurfor]

The aperture block?

Let me know

Chuck

[ekip]

Is the second solenoid from the flash?

[nocturnal]

Is the second solenoid from the flash?

I think you are asking me? Well yes it is from the flash. On the *ist DL2 the camera needed to be powered on to pop up the flash, it seems like a bit of over design but hey I have it for a spare in my electronics box

---------- Post added 09-01-20 at 22:42 ----------

The aperture block?

Let me know

Chuck

Sorry to hear this happened mate, such a tiny component when you see it also.

[K50lives]

Is the flash solenoid in the Kx usable in the aperture of the K-50? I was given a bricked Kx from which I took the aperture solenoid for my K-50 but I didn't check which was used for the flash in that one. My very very slightly corner sanded green solenoid was working perfectly but since I was given the Kx I decided to do the swap anyway.

[photogem]

The flash-solenoid in the Kx is the same as in the aperture-block! So you can use it.
All flash-solenoids (if white coloured) and all aperture-block solenoids of the following DSLR Pentax bodies can be used:

*ist-D/DS/DL
K100D, K110D, K100DSuper, K200D, K2000 (Km), Kx, Kr, Samsung GX1, GX1L

All aperture-block solenoids can be used out of:
K10D, K20D, Samsung GX10, GX20 (Their flash is opened manually as with the K7/5/3 and K30/50/500/-S1/-S2 and K-70!

This is why those Pentax bodies with a solenoid in the flash circuit one can only open the flash with batteries inserted and switched on!
This also means that the flash capacitor is charged and can give you an unpleasant shock, powerful enough to hurt people with medical issues and strong enough
that one might drop the camera!

[nocturnal]

Photogem, for those cameras that use a solenoid in the flash requiring batteries and power...

You can slide in a thin piece of plastic under the flash to operate the lever and pop up the flash. I had to do this as my donor *ist DL2 didn't power on and I had no batteries anyhow to put in it. You need to pop up the flash in order to take the camera apart to retrieve the white solenoids for transplanting.
This method is also safer as you can leave out the batteries to allow the capacitor to slowly discharge before you open the camera.

[photogem]

I am well aware of this. Except for my vintage still working K100D I always used damaged Pentax DSLR's for donor solenoids, then it didn't matter: There I used a scalpel.
I also know how to discharge the capacitor and wrote about it:
How to discharge the photo-flash capacitor of a DSLR (here K-30/K-50/K-500) - PentaxForums.com

It is best that people know where to find this lever which locks the pop-up-flash:



and then one still might have to discharge the condensor inside those Pentax bodies which Pentax suggested to do this way:


I still prefer to do it with a light bulb directly on the condensor because then I don't need to test the voltage anymore, the light bulb either illiminates for a second or ... if it doesn't, it is save anyway (if I know my light bulb is alright and I know the contacts of course)

[K50lives]

Thanks guys - I will pull the other solenoid out before I recycle/sell the rest of the body. Cheers!

[cfrpcopy]

I just bought a "for parts" *ist D S as a donor camera to replace the failing solenoid on my K-S2. I took it apart and found one white solenoid for the flash lock, and one gray one for the aperture. I'm planning to use the white one in the transplant, both beacuse I figure the flash was used less than the aperture, and the listing for the source camera mentioned specifically that the aperture wasn't working. But I'm still wondering what this gray solenoid is.

I realize this isn't the K-S2 thread, but it is the most active solenoid discussion. Just for info, the failure started around 9300 actuations and 4 years.