[photogem]

To answer photogem, I'm curious because I have one that was manufactured 11/15/2018, and I'm wondering how worried I should be. Thanks.

Ah, now I get it.
There is no white Japan solenoid in any Pentax since the K30 because it is no longer manufactured.
Read:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/53-pentax-dslr-camera-articles/389194-li...x-cameras.html
but not to worry with a 2018 K70, those have an even better solenoid now, still green and still made in China, that can't be reverted back to Japan
manufacture, those times are gone.

[mblanc]

Great news. Thank you very much.

[Breakfastographer]

Nice piece of sleuthing.



Yes, probably in part. The review in question has been posted to K-70 listings at B&H with a negative review from the same author also posted to Adorama. There is a similar anonymous review at Amazon (the home of sketchy reviews) as well. The review at Adorama explicitly states that the reviewer owned a K-50, not a K-70. I have huge sympathy for those K-30/K-50 owners whose cameras languished on a shelf except for holidays and vacations and which showed symptoms of failure at well under 10,000 shutter cycles and, usually, long after the warranty had expired. The reported cost to fix at an authorized service place ($130-$170 USD) has been modest by camera repair standards, but sentiments on the part of many remain that Ricoh should have done a full recall of all K-30/K-50/K-500 bodies. There are some bitter owners out there.


Steve

When you see an actual figure like that - $130-$170, you wonder how that compares to their actual profit margins on those models.

And when was the last time that an electronics manufacturer recalled items not yet affected by a problem? It sadly seems to be par for the course now that recalls only apply to items that fail within a certain time, even when it's known that every item will ultimately be affected by the fault in question. I don't think it should be applauded in any way, but until it's litigated or legislated against, it probably won't change.

[BigMackCam]

When you see an actual figure like that - $130-$170, you wonder how that compares to their actual profit margins on those models.

And when was the last time that an electronics manufacturer recalled items not yet affected by a problem? It sadly seems to be par for the course now that recalls only apply to items that fail within a certain time, even when it's known that every item will ultimately be affected by the fault in question. I don't think it should be applauded in any way, but until it's litigated or legislated against, it probably won't change.

I seem to recall someone in the US was trying to set up a class action law suit against Ricoh for the aperture block failure... or maybe it was the SDM AF motor issue; I can't be certain. I wonder if that happened (or is still progressing)?

I'm a fan of Ricoh Imaging, the Pentax brand and of course the wonderful cameras and lenses bearing the Pentax name, and I wish the company nothing but the best and continued success... but I feel it should have extended an offer to fix affected cameras - K-30, K-50, K-S1 and K-S2 - even after warranty had expired, given that it's clearly an inherent component problem and fairly widespread. In lieu of that, I'm not entirely unsupportive of legal recourse in the circumstances. If I'd owned one of these cameras and it had failed after just a few thousand shutter actuations, and only months after warranty expiration, I'd be pretty disillusioned with the brand

[stevebrot]

When you see an actual figure like that - $130-$170, you wonder how that compares to their actual profit margins on those models.

Probably about the same or more, though I don't get your point. As digital camera repairs go, anything under $200 is a steal (my point).


Steve

[stevebrot]

I wonder if that happened (or is still progressing)?

It was the aperture control failure. If there has been any progress, such has not been reported. FWIW, they sued the copy machine company, not Ricoh Imaging, so I would not expect any settlement.

I feel it should have extended an offer to fix affected cameras - K-30, K-50, K-S1 and K-S2 - even after warranty had expired

Ricoh did fix multiple cameras for users here that were out of warranty, but not where the camera had been in sitting in a sock drawer for several years. Sadly, that is the general profile for this issue, low shutter count with the problem cropping up a year or more after purchase. Many of the more bitter posts on this site have been from people who discovered the problem when the camera was fished out of storage for wedding, graduation, or reunion photos and where the images were spoiled. I agree that Ricoh should have offered something like credit toward a new camera, but how that would work without verification of the problem is hard to say.

Added: What has amazed me is the number of users here who have been happily shooting with K-30/K-50 with zero problems and the number of new members who are new owners. I would have thought that all copies would have succumbed by this late date.


Steve

[Breakfastographer]

I seem to recall someone in the US was trying to set up a class action law suit against Ricoh for the aperture block failure... or maybe it was the SDM AF motor issue; I can't be certain. I wonder if that happened (or is still progressing)?

I seem to recall someone posting that the lawyers got a boatload of money and the affected owners got a few bucks. But unless I'm mistaken, if your camera had not yet been affected at the time the lawsuit concluded, you wouldn't even get a free repair or replacement. That's what I'm getting at - Apple has done the same thing, they issued a free repair program for computers known to be affected by a design flaw, but if your computer failed with the same design flaw after the program had concluded, you got nothing.

There was a small movement (I hope it starts back up after COVID) saying consumers and small businesses have a right to purchase repair parts at reasonable prices, and for devices to be constructed in such a way that they aren't unrepairable by design. And I think we have a fairly DIY mentality on this forum, so I'm guessing we would benefit from such a legal requirement.

---------- Post added 11-04-20 at 04:08 AM ----------

Probably about the same or more, though I don't get your point. As digital camera repairs go, anything under $200 is a steal (my point).

My point is, from the point of a company like Ricoh, if your margin on a camera body is $80 and you're being asked to pay (let's say they have more economy of scale, possible tax benefits, and let's say there's a Ricoh margin on the repair that we can drop) not $130 to $170, but maybe $90 in repairs on every camera body out there, plus $10 shipping costs (discounted down from $15 due to volume, say), and let's say this applies to cameras, not just from the current year, but also from about 5 years prior (K-30 was released in 2012, so more like eight years now), you may have to make serious adjustments to your budget for the year in which you decide that, yes, you will repair some or all cameras. In fact, if you have models in production that have the fault, you should at that point halt production to avoid incurring further losses that may come from having to pay for repairs exceeding your margin later on.

So in addition to the build-up of faulty product from previous years, the balance of product margin vs. repair cost could come in as a big deciding factor of whether, and in what way, to respond to a consumer problem or not.

Does that make sense?

[slartibartfast01]

It was the aperture control failure. If there has been any progress, such has not been reported. FWIW, they sued the copy machine company, not Ricoh Imaging, so I would not expect any settlement.



Ricoh did fix multiple cameras for users here that were out of warranty, but not where the camera had been in sitting in a sock drawer for several years. Sadly, that is the general profile for this issue, low shutter count with the problem cropping up a year or more after purchase. Many of the more bitter posts on this site have been from people who discovered the problem when the camera was fished out of storage for wedding, graduation, or reunion photos and where the images were spoiled. I agree that Ricoh should have offered something like credit toward a new camera, but how that would work without verification of the problem is hard to say.

Added: What has amazed me is the number of users here who have been happily shooting with K-30/K-50 with zero problems and the number of new members who are new owners. I would have thought that all copies would have succumbed by this late date.


Steve

Well I accidentally left my K-50 at a friend's house in September 2019 and still haven't got it back. When I finally do I hope it still works

[BigMackCam]

What has amazed me is the number of users here who have been happily shooting with K-30/K-50 with zero problems and the number of new members who are new owners. I would have thought that all copies would have succumbed by this late date.

It makes me wonder if there was some variation in the material composition, windings and/or other manufacturing aspects of the Chinese solenoid...

There was a small movement (I hope it starts back up after COVID) saying consumers and small businesses have a right to purchase repair parts at reasonable prices, and for devices to be constructed in such a way that they aren't unrepairable by design.

I think there's more than one movement pushing for this. I believe iFixIt is one of the bigger ones, at least so far as owner repairs are concerned... and they've cleverly commercialised it by supplying good quality tools for amateur and independent professional repairers. I have one of their multi-bit screwdriver sets and it's fantastic.

[photogem]

It makes me wonder if there was some variation in the material composition, windings and/or other manufacturing aspects of the Chinese solenoid...

That could well be the case.

Of course I have only been able to check on those solenoids which failed and I exchanged plus a handfull of new China-solenoids as sold on ebay which are different and were designed for Lenovo DVD-burnes.

- The windings hardly, if they would fail, then only by means of interuption (burnt). I never came across that problem ever.
- Impedance of the windings: could even be +/-15%, the datas and the curve showing the characteristic shows that here deviations would not mean much,
but again, I measured between 29 and 31 ohms/DC, so well within low tolerance. Winding machines are very precise
- bad quality of copper: I have experienced this with many other chinese parts but not here

Culprits:

1. (Main culprit): The permanent magnet is always that bit to strong, i.e. too strong holding force!

2. PET instead of PTFE (Japan-solenoid): Lower melting point (the contacts, when soldered that tiny bit to long, can melt the PET and thus could cause other problems
but this would be noticed in end-control, I never came across that either
BUT: PET weakens more quickly! PTFE is far superior.

3. precision of manufacturing: - ridges in the surface (I have seen some), identations on the surface (when the solenoid is stuck and then released all the sudden, the plunger slams with more force into the main body against metal)

4. composition of materials: Could well be, i.e. the alloy of the plunger might be more or less magnetised.

But: None of those factors ever had been a problem with the Japanese solenoid!


Ahhh... I almost forgot:
5. Magic: Some Pentax bodies (K-70) seem to have a very well hidden (invisible?) resistor-chip (me and now a few others could not detect it but we could detect a diode which looks like a resistor, this socalled snubber-diode is there for protection against too high current but.... I never ever came across that diode being defective)

The problem is, that even if there would be something like such a chip-resistor (correct name), nobody would even think about unsoldering such a tiny component from that type of mainboard which the K-70 uses. You'd risk to much damage and it would be terribly embarrassing if later any good engineer would find out such amateurisch repair work! One would exchange the mainboard and nothing else! On the K-S1, K-S2 and K70 even a defective SD-cardslot means swapping mainboards! Same risk!

[stevebrot]

Does that make sense?

No, but I am OK with that.


Steve

[Kevin B123]

- The windings hardly, if they would fail, then only by means of interuption (burnt). I never came across that problem ever.

I think there may be other contributing causes.
The enamel on the copper can break down or just be porous and cause shorts across a portion of the coil.
The winding can be too tight, set up incorrectly and neck or nick the wire at some point that leads to an intermittent failure. These are commercial parts and will have minimal quality control.

Where people have had success with the filing method, I think that is just because they have disturbed the coil in removal and it later reverts.

Whatever, the part is too cheap to warrant a massive investigation from the user base, just replace it and move on.

The thing is, replacing the solenoid always cures the problem which is good news.

[photogem]

I think there may be other contributing causes.
The enamel on the copper can break down or just be porous and cause shorts across a portion of the coil.
The winding can be too tight, set up incorrectly and neck or nick the wire at some point that leads to an intermittent failure. These are commercial parts and will have minimal quality control.

As I wrote before, I never came across the coils having caused problems with the green China-solenoid.

If the enamel would cause problems, one would have a short circuit and would measure anothe impedance.

Winding these days is done with winding-machines which work very presice, again, I never noticed any problems there

Where people have had success with the filing method, I think that is just because they have disturbed the coil in removal and it later reverts.

What do you mean with this, it does not make any sense to me?

The filing method reduces the holding-force.

Whatever, the part is too cheap to warrant a massive investigation from the user base, just replace it and move on.
The thing is, replacing the solenoid always cures the problem which is good news.

That is true but replacing it with the Japan-Solenoid only!

[photogem]

What has amazed me is the number of users here who have been happily shooting with K-30/K-50 with zero problems and the number of new members who are new owners. I would have thought that all copies would have succumbed by this late date.

A survey in the German Pentaxians-forum where only registered members can vote (with serial number, date of purchase, shuttercount etc.) the voting result is as follows:


K30 users:
139 x solenoid stuck (40%)
69 x camera fine (20%)

K50 users:
66 x solenoid stuck (19%)
72 x camera fine (21%)

Quite a few users also confirmed that after the official repair the problem came back.

A shop in the German town "Aachen" is the sponsor of that forum. The person responsible/specialized for Pentax wrote there, that the K30 was the most sold Pentax in Germany which might explain why there are higher figures with the K30 than with the K50.

No poll for the other Pentax bodies

There is only a handfull of new members in the poll and they all give very precise datas, none of them trolling or so!
Nevertheless: New members are hardly new owners!

This survey is quite useful because it is not over a limited time but still open to vote. Since 2019 only 2 entries, showing that with members this poll was possibly also saturated and yet, more messages of new members just reporting/asking about "dark images", some go further, repair or get it repaired,
but none of them noticed the poll. So those new members just being surprised by dark photos would otherwise not have registered.


So I guess that many owners do not register in any forum but are just frustrated and will forget about their Pentax, throw it away, some sell it to professional buyers which offer very little of course, some sell it on known platforms.

On eBay Germany one can find weekly K30/50/500's appearing with the dark image syndrom, even more on other platforms.
I don't check anymore on ebay US but I guess it might be similar.


The K30 and then the K50 belong to the peak of defective cameras selling and sold on eBay Germany.

Compared to their marketshare that makes them remarkeable "winners"!


Nobody will know the real figures. And yet, somehow it repeats a little bit still with the K70 and other cameras after Dec. 2015, although remarkeably less.

I came across 4 x K70 and 1 x K-S2:

A K-S2 repaired just a few days ago with stuck solenoid:

[Kevin B123]

Originally posted by Kevin B123*
Where people have had success with the filing method, I think that is just because they have disturbed the coil in removal and it later reverts.
What do you mean with this, it does not make any sense to me?

I mean that you perform several operations to achieve filing method, including dis-assembly and re-assembly and that will have a contributing effect just as the filing itself does. I believe some people have tried the filing method and it did not work for them.