K-3 mirror flutter - REPLY FROM RICOH

gosman · 05-23-2014, 08:56 PM

They respond to people that go through their website and proper channels. They don't respond to people that berate them over the forums!

Rite · 05-24-2014, 02:25 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by PALADIN85020

I complained about the mirror flutter problem on my K-3 (it's happened twice since Nov. of last year) by e-mail to Ricoh customer service. FYI, here is their reply.

John

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We have had a few customer reports of a possible issue with their K-3s.

--------------------------------------------------------

What took you so long Ricoh?

With over 22,000 hits on this one item waiting this long to address it is somewhat laughable, don't you think?

K3 Crazy Mirror Sickness (Mirror Flapping Lockup) - Report Yours Here!

JasonWayne · 05-24-2014, 03:08 AM

You might want to also mention the SD card you are using, and file type (jpeg, raw, or both).

When this happened to me the last DNG file on the card was 0 bytes, which usually indicates a crash during the file write.

RonHendriks1966 · 05-24-2014, 03:15 AM

Thanks for informing us. Looking for solutions on a technical problem is always a difficult task I think.

awaldram · 05-24-2014, 06:36 AM

Originally posted by Rite

--------------------------------------------------------

What took you so long Ricoh?

With over 22,000 hits on this one item waiting this long to address it is somewhat laughable, don't you think?

K3 Crazy Mirror Sickness (Mirror Flapping Lockup) - Report Yours Here!

I sugest you read Gosmans post above yours and try and understand what that means !!!

jhmos · 05-24-2014, 09:42 AM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by gosman

They respond to people that go through their website and proper channels. They don't respond to people that berate them over the forums!

I tried reporting via their web form in March, but got no response.

WaveDancer · 05-24-2014, 12:15 PM

Originally posted by gaweidert

Good response from Ricoh. I have been reading all the posts regarding this problem on the K3, My reasons for not getting a K3 are more financial than this problem, but I hope they get a handle on it soon. I do field service for a living. I service laser imaging devices that image aluminum printing plates. I ran into a problem where one of them was giving weird error messages and preventing the system from making plates. This is not unlike what is happening here. Something is telling the camera to move the shutter. Mine was giving false errors. It took me 20 hours of troubleshooting to finally trace the cause. It was a voltage drop in the logic circuit. There were several cable connections and the unit was 5 years old. I found that at each cable connection there was a very slight voltage drop due to corrosion between the connector pins. Finally at the board that had the most cable connections between it and the power supply the voltage dropped below the point where the logic operated properly. It then started acting up and the firmware on that particular board started sending out all sorts of error messages. The difference between good and bad was 4.70Vdc was bad. 4.75Vdc was good. The voltage should have been 5 Vdc at the board in question.

My guess is that there is a voltage drop somewhere in the logic circuit of the camera. It would not surprise me if some cameras are experiencing the same issue. The logic voltage drops just a little bit and circuits are triggered that should not be. It would be interesting to find a camera that has this problem and addjust the logic voltage circuit up a few tenths of a volt to see if the problem is resolved. I'm thinking it is an issue with the internal voltage regulation circuit.

My second guess would be noise related. Lots of buttons, motors moving etc. Has anyone has experienced the issue when using manual focus lenses?

Makes much sense... only it is not just the K3 or K5II, it happens also with the K20 and this since 2008 according to a German DSLR Forum. They also suggested a problem in the voltage circuit). Either Pentax/Ricoh ignored the proplem since then or they could not solve it and this is a pritty long time. (The Pentax DSLR's get produced in Cebu, Philippines (I live there) and the lenses in Vietnam).

Last edited by WaveDancer; 05-24-2014 at 12:34 PM.

Rite · 05-25-2014, 09:45 AM

Originally posted by WaveDancer

Makes much sense... only it is not just the K3 or K5II, it happens also with the K20 and this since 2008 according to a German DSLR Forum. They also suggested a problem in the voltage circuit). Either Pentax/Ricoh ignored the proplem since then or they could not solve it and this is a pritty long time. (The Pentax DSLR's get produced in Cebu, Philippines (I live there) and the lenses in Vietnam).

-------------------------------------

The 'voltage drop' theory is probably the closest thing that has surfaced yet to explaining the shutter panic.

It has never occurred even once on the K-10D, Kx, Kr, or K30 bodies I use. Not once.

Its looking more and more like Ricoh released the K3 prematurely. The early K3 silver editions were notorious for it.

Jean Poitiers · 05-25-2014, 10:24 AM

Not quite sure about all this ... at least a response is a step forward.

BTW, my good ol' trusty K110D decided to do a wild mirror flopping event on me three weeks ago ... never happened before and have owned it since new. Pulled out the 4 AA's and reinserted ... and it did it again a few minutes later. Thus, re-pulled/re-inserted and all went back to normal. Was shooting with an Adaptall-2/PKA combo ... Curious. Never a problem with the old K-7, nor the K-r or the K-5.

awaldram · 05-26-2014, 08:44 AM

Originally posted by Jean Poitiers

Not quite sure about all this ... at least a response is a step forward.

BTW, my good ol' trusty K110D decided to do a wild mirror flopping event on me three weeks ago ... never happened before and have owned it since new. Pulled out the 4 AA's and reinserted ... and it did it again a few minutes later. Thus, re-pulled/re-inserted and all went back to normal. Was shooting with an Adaptall-2/PKA combo ... Curious. Never a problem with the old K-7, nor the K-r or the K-5.

The earlier single motor Pentax's mirror flop when mirror and shutter get out of sync, In a older fuctioning camera it an indictaion the mirror box is worn out.

My k5 had it's mirror box replaced @93,000 actuations it started flopping and locking and got progresivley worse.
Unfortenatley the k3 has twin motors so is not suffering the same 'issue' the k5 did.

WestCoastGuy · 06-07-2014, 10:20 AM

I own a K20D, have had it since Jan 2008. Many, many images taken. Winter, Summer - very hot (45c+), very cold (-35c+), and everything in between. Time lapse shots, sports scenes, general "snaps", many different lens, etc.

Never had this issue arise.

adelante · 06-07-2014, 04:04 PM

It's only happened to me once, I'm pretty sure it was a low battery that caused it as it hasn't happened since and I'm pretty careful with having fully charged batteries. You get quite a fright when it happens but now I know what it is and how infrequently it happens I'm not overly concerned. The camera has way too many good features to be bummed out by this.

totsmuyco · 06-08-2014, 05:38 AM

I would say Karro's right. A link to DRabbit's thread must be forwarded to Ricoh. Thank's DRabbit for doing something about the problem. I hope Ricoh will address the issue on the K-3 and prevent this from happening to future Pentax DSLRs.

**DRabbit** · 06-08-2014, 08:04 AM

Adelante - we've all pretty much determined it's not a low battery that causes it. It can be an infrequent problem for a lot of people. How often it happens seems to rely on the amount of use your camera gets (assumably).

Totsmuyco - Thanks. There's been some movement by Ricoh/Pentax so it seems. Friday, I sent an email off to the contacts I have to see if they can confirm some of the messages from other members; Emails and communications that seem to indicate Ricoh may have a fix for the problem. More info is in the "Report Here" thread.

awaldram · 06-09-2014, 01:42 AM

Originally posted by DRabbit

Adelante - we've all pretty much determined it's not a low battery that causes it. It can be an infrequent problem for a lot of people. How often it happens seems to rely on the amount of use your camera gets (assumably).

Totsmuyco - Thanks. There's been some movement by Ricoh/Pentax so it seems. Friday, I sent an email off to the contacts I have to see if they can confirm some of the messages from other members; Emails and communications that seem to indicate Ricoh may have a fix for the problem. More info is in the "Report Here" thread.

K3 @ 19,500 actuation no flaps, no lockups nothing so I'm pretty convinced it's not a global issue.

It seems more predominant in USA models which was also the country that appeared to have the grip removed from sale for a short period at release.

Given this I suspect it is battery related though not low battery rather 'brown out' under load from some weaker batteries.

It look like Pentax/Ricoh may have a 'fix' for those affected but it requires return of camera for a service update, I woudl guess the addition of a smoothing circuit or FW to lower max load (which may lower max performance)

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05-23-2014, 08:56 PM	#16
gosman Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Texas Posts: 263	They respond to people that go through their website and proper channels. They don't respond to people that berate them over the forums!

05-24-2014, 02:25 AM - 1 Like	#17
Rite Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Photos: Albums Posts: 337	Originally posted by PALADIN85020 I complained about the mirror flutter problem on my K-3 (it's happened twice since Nov. of last year) by e-mail to Ricoh customer service. FYI, here is their reply. John ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We have had a few customer reports of a possible issue with their K-3s. -------------------------------------------------------- What took you so long Ricoh? With over 22,000 hits on this one item waiting this long to address it is somewhat laughable, don't you think? K3 Crazy Mirror Sickness (Mirror Flapping Lockup) - Report Yours Here!

05-24-2014, 03:08 AM	#18
JasonWayne New Member Join Date: May 2014 Posts: 1	You might want to also mention the SD card you are using, and file type (jpeg, raw, or both). When this happened to me the last DNG file on the card was 0 bytes, which usually indicates a crash during the file write.

05-24-2014, 03:15 AM	#19
RonHendriks1966 Banned Join Date: Jan 2009 Photos: Gallery Posts: 9,675	Thanks for informing us. Looking for solutions on a technical problem is always a difficult task I think.

05-24-2014, 06:36 AM	#20
awaldram Veteran Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: Hampshire Photos: Gallery Posts: 732	Originally posted by Rite -------------------------------------------------------- What took you so long Ricoh? With over 22,000 hits on this one item waiting this long to address it is somewhat laughable, don't you think? K3 Crazy Mirror Sickness (Mirror Flapping Lockup) - Report Yours Here! I sugest you read Gosmans post above yours and try and understand what that means !!!

05-24-2014, 09:42 AM - 1 Like	#21
jhmos Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Melbourne Posts: 111	Originally posted by gosman They respond to people that go through their website and proper channels. They don't respond to people that berate them over the forums! I tried reporting via their web form in March, but got no response.

05-24-2014, 12:15 PM	#22
WaveDancer Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2013 Posts: 45	Originally posted by gaweidert Good response from Ricoh. I have been reading all the posts regarding this problem on the K3, My reasons for not getting a K3 are more financial than this problem, but I hope they get a handle on it soon. I do field service for a living. I service laser imaging devices that image aluminum printing plates. I ran into a problem where one of them was giving weird error messages and preventing the system from making plates. This is not unlike what is happening here. Something is telling the camera to move the shutter. Mine was giving false errors. It took me 20 hours of troubleshooting to finally trace the cause. It was a voltage drop in the logic circuit. There were several cable connections and the unit was 5 years old. I found that at each cable connection there was a very slight voltage drop due to corrosion between the connector pins. Finally at the board that had the most cable connections between it and the power supply the voltage dropped below the point where the logic operated properly. It then started acting up and the firmware on that particular board started sending out all sorts of error messages. The difference between good and bad was 4.70Vdc was bad. 4.75Vdc was good. The voltage should have been 5 Vdc at the board in question. My guess is that there is a voltage drop somewhere in the logic circuit of the camera. It would not surprise me if some cameras are experiencing the same issue. The logic voltage drops just a little bit and circuits are triggered that should not be. It would be interesting to find a camera that has this problem and addjust the logic voltage circuit up a few tenths of a volt to see if the problem is resolved. I'm thinking it is an issue with the internal voltage regulation circuit. My second guess would be noise related. Lots of buttons, motors moving etc. Has anyone has experienced the issue when using manual focus lenses? Makes much sense... only it is not just the K3 or K5II, it happens also with the K20 and this since 2008 according to a German DSLR Forum. They also suggested a problem in the voltage circuit). Either Pentax/Ricoh ignored the proplem since then or they could not solve it and this is a pritty long time. (The Pentax DSLR's get produced in Cebu, Philippines (I live there) and the lenses in Vietnam). Last edited by WaveDancer; 05-24-2014 at 12:34 PM.

05-25-2014, 09:45 AM	#23
Rite Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Photos: Albums Posts: 337	Originally posted by WaveDancer Makes much sense... only it is not just the K3 or K5II, it happens also with the K20 and this since 2008 according to a German DSLR Forum. They also suggested a problem in the voltage circuit). Either Pentax/Ricoh ignored the proplem since then or they could not solve it and this is a pritty long time. (The Pentax DSLR's get produced in Cebu, Philippines (I live there) and the lenses in Vietnam). ------------------------------------- The 'voltage drop' theory is probably the closest thing that has surfaced yet to explaining the shutter panic. It has never occurred even once on the K-10D, Kx, Kr, or K30 bodies I use. Not once. Its looking more and more like Ricoh released the K3 prematurely. The early K3 silver editions were notorious for it.

05-25-2014, 10:24 AM	#24
Jean Poitiers Pentaxian Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Lost in translation ... Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 18,076	Not quite sure about all this ... at least a response is a step forward. BTW, my good ol' trusty K110D decided to do a wild mirror flopping event on me three weeks ago ... never happened before and have owned it since new. Pulled out the 4 AA's and reinserted ... and it did it again a few minutes later. Thus, re-pulled/re-inserted and all went back to normal. Was shooting with an Adaptall-2/PKA combo ... Curious. Never a problem with the old K-7, nor the K-r or the K-5.

05-26-2014, 08:44 AM	#25
awaldram Veteran Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: Hampshire Photos: Gallery Posts: 732	Originally posted by Jean Poitiers Not quite sure about all this ... at least a response is a step forward. BTW, my good ol' trusty K110D decided to do a wild mirror flopping event on me three weeks ago ... never happened before and have owned it since new. Pulled out the 4 AA's and reinserted ... and it did it again a few minutes later. Thus, re-pulled/re-inserted and all went back to normal. Was shooting with an Adaptall-2/PKA combo ... Curious. Never a problem with the old K-7, nor the K-r or the K-5. The earlier single motor Pentax's mirror flop when mirror and shutter get out of sync, In a older fuctioning camera it an indictaion the mirror box is worn out. My k5 had it's mirror box replaced @93,000 actuations it started flopping and locking and got progresivley worse. Unfortenatley the k3 has twin motors so is not suffering the same 'issue' the k5 did.

06-07-2014, 10:20 AM	#26
WestCoastGuy New Member Join Date: May 2014 Location: Victoria, BC Posts: 22	I own a K20D, have had it since Jan 2008. Many, many images taken. Winter, Summer - very hot (45c+), very cold (-35c+), and everything in between. Time lapse shots, sports scenes, general "snaps", many different lens, etc. Never had this issue arise.

06-07-2014, 04:04 PM	#27
adelante Inactive Account Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Morayfield Queensland Posts: 15	It's only happened to me once, I'm pretty sure it was a low battery that caused it as it hasn't happened since and I'm pretty careful with having fully charged batteries. You get quite a fright when it happens but now I know what it is and how infrequently it happens I'm not overly concerned. The camera has way too many good features to be bummed out by this.

06-08-2014, 05:38 AM	#28
totsmuyco Pentaxian Join Date: Aug 2013 Location: Iloilo City Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,276	I would say Karro's right. A link to DRabbit's thread must be forwarded to Ricoh. Thank's DRabbit for doing something about the problem. I hope Ricoh will address the issue on the K-3 and prevent this from happening to future Pentax DSLRs.

06-08-2014, 08:04 AM	#29
DRabbit Site Supporter Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Long Island, NY Photos: Gallery Posts: 593	Adelante - we've all pretty much determined it's not a low battery that causes it. It can be an infrequent problem for a lot of people. How often it happens seems to rely on the amount of use your camera gets (assumably). Totsmuyco - Thanks. There's been some movement by Ricoh/Pentax so it seems. Friday, I sent an email off to the contacts I have to see if they can confirm some of the messages from other members; Emails and communications that seem to indicate Ricoh may have a fix for the problem. More info is in the "Report Here" thread.

06-09-2014, 01:42 AM	#30
awaldram Veteran Member Join Date: May 2008 Location: Hampshire Photos: Gallery Posts: 732	Originally posted by DRabbit Adelante - we've all pretty much determined it's not a low battery that causes it. It can be an infrequent problem for a lot of people. How often it happens seems to rely on the amount of use your camera gets (assumably). Totsmuyco - Thanks. There's been some movement by Ricoh/Pentax so it seems. Friday, I sent an email off to the contacts I have to see if they can confirm some of the messages from other members; Emails and communications that seem to indicate Ricoh may have a fix for the problem. More info is in the "Report Here" thread. K3 @ 19,500 actuation no flaps, no lockups nothing so I'm pretty convinced it's not a global issue. It seems more predominant in USA models which was also the country that appeared to have the grip removed from sale for a short period at release. Given this I suspect it is battery related though not low battery rather 'brown out' under load from some weaker batteries. It look like Pentax/Ricoh may have a 'fix' for those affected but it requires return of camera for a service update, I woudl guess the addition of a smoothing circuit or FW to lower max load (which may lower max performance)