[germar]

Okay.... very interesting.

I decided to try the suggestion from Wheatfield regarding "waking up" a unresponsive DA*16-50. The suggestion was that a "groggy" DA* with a non-responsive SDM motor might benefit from mounting the lens, turning on the camera for a length of time and seeing if the lens starts to respond on it's own.

I have just such a lens ... a DA* 16-50 that I call "groggy." If left in storage untouched for a while it will NOT autofocus once remounted on my K-7. I usually twist the focus ring through it's range a few times, bring it back close to focus on some subject, and the lens motor will wake up and start working, often perfectly for many days when I use it fairly often.

This morning, I took my 16-50 off the shelf after about 10 days being of being stored unmounted. I mounted it, powered on the camera, made sure I was in AF-S, and then tried to autofocus ...no other manipulation of the lens. I found the lens to be unresponsive for about 5-8 seconds as I repeatedly pressed the shutter half way. Then it kicked in on it's own and started working! No jiggling or physical encouragement. It was like the lens seemed to need to "charge" a bit or somehow energize and then it started working again on it's own.

I wound up shooting with the lens all day, so I won't be able to duplicate the technique to see if it's repeatable. Perhaps someone else with a groggy lens might try and see if they can make it happen as described.

Is there some sort of capacitor or something like that in the SDM motor that needs to build a charge?

I find it very interesting that this charging "treatment" seemed to work on my lens and I wonder if this little nugget might suggest a fix for less afflicted DA* lenses.

germar

[Wheatfield]

Wheatfield, I don't disagree with any of that.

But, wouldn't spending a little more time and money on QC be offset by the reduced failure rate and not having to spend as much on after market repairs?

IMO, it cost a lot more to fix something than it does to make sure it's right to begin with.

And......

How much extra would a perfect K5 be worth? To a professional who doesn't want to deal with downtime, a good bit more. To John Q Consumer, the K5 is probably already overpriced. Even if we don't think so.

It's a damned of you do, or damned if you don't deal.

It comes down to what resources the company has to spend, and what they think they can amortize.
Canon and Nikon can spend a pile more money on R&D and extensive testing, since they can absorb that cost into many more unit sales than a smaller player like Pentax will make.
I truly believe that if we want Pentax to be "problem free", then we will need to be willing to pony up quite a bit more money per unit.

Unfortunately, if you put a K5 at 2K beside a D7000 at 1.5K, the K5 is not going to sell. It needs to be near the same price (note how many people complain that the K5 is slightly more expensive than the D7k).
So, they have to get this stuff to market, and they have to hope that design and construction quality will make up for any other lacks in the process.

Unfortunately, this isn't always the case, and a buggy product sometimes hits the market.
Sure, it would ultimately cost them less to make sure that a camera like the K5 comes out with no flaws, but would it sell for several hundred more than present pricing?
If the answer is no (and I think it is), then it doesn't matter how good it is.

[Wheatfield]

Okay.... very interesting.

I decided to try the suggestion from Wheatfield regarding "waking up" a unresponsive DA*16-50. The suggestion was that a "groggy" DA* with a non-responsive SDM motor might benefit from mounting the lens, turning on the camera for a length of time and seeing if the lens starts to respond on it's own.

I have just such a lens ... a DA* 16-50 that I call "groggy." If left in storage untouched for a while it will NOT autofocus once remounted on my K-7. I usually twist the focus ring through it's range a few times, bring it back close to focus on some subject, and the lens motor will wake up and start working, often perfectly for many days when I use it fairly often.

This morning, I took my 16-50 off the shelf after about 10 days being of being stored unmounted. I mounted it, powered on the camera, made sure I was in AF-S, and then tried to autofocus ...no other manipulation of the lens. I found the lens to be unresponsive for about 5-8 seconds as I repeatedly pressed the shutter half way. Then it kicked in on it's own and started working! No jiggling or physical encouragement. It was like the lens seemed to need to "charge" a bit or somehow energize and then it started working again on it's own.

I wound up shooting with the lens all day, so I won't be able to duplicate the technique to see if it's repeatable. Perhaps someone else with a groggy lens might try and see if they can make it happen as described.

Is there some sort of capacitor or something like that in the SDM motor that needs to build a charge?

I find it very interesting that this charging "treatment" seemed to work on my lens and I wonder if this little nugget might suggest a fix for less afflicted DA* lenses.

germar

Interesting. If it happens again, could you try just putting the camera down for 5 or 10 minutes (turned on, auto off disabled) and see what happens? This wouldn't be the first time that a Pentax product goes flakey on the shelf but works pretty much flawlessly if used often. The LX was such a beast.

[dadipentak]

FWIW, the HSM on my Sigma 70-200mm went unreliable on me a while back and I sent it in (gotta love the Sigma warranty!) It's fine now (and sharper than ever, btw.) If it goes out again I may try the fix described here.

[joakimfors]

So when does the HSM petition get started?

[dadipentak]

So when does the HSM petition get started?