Originally posted by ramseybuckeye 
Very cool!, glad you fixed it. I just recently had my K-50 repaired because that little latch had broken, they strangely call it a battery hook. Mine was repaired under the extended warranty. By the way, it still powered up just fine when I closed the battery door, however I decided to send it in for repair since that was extra pressure on the door and I did not want that to pop open. I used it a couple of times before sending it in with a little piece of tape on the door just in case. They also replaced the diaphragm (aperture) block (which did not exhibit any problems), test and recalibrate the autofocus, and clean inside and out.
It ceased powering up when the plastic post to prevent the battery interrupt switch from making contact when the door is closed. This most likely broke when I was poking around before removing the front cover that exposes the interrupt switch. The annoying thing is that I will have to live with the malfunctioning battery hook unless I wish to pay a minimum $212.5 to Precision Camera to replace the entire battery box assembly because Ricoh/Pentax won't supply a piece part that can't cost but pennies to manufacture. If I begin to have the diaphragm solenoid issue maybe I'll reconsider. However, after a conversation with Advance Camera in Portland I probably won't send it to Precision. Advanced has 1 year warranty vs Precision's 90 day and charges for time and materials not flat fee plus like Precision. BTW, the Precision person says that Ricoh sets the flat fee amount and when I asked if Ricoh gets any of that fee she says I'm "not allowed" to answer. IMO, my impression of Ricoh is that they have less interest in customer satisfaction than they have in profits.
I go back nearly fifty years of owning Pentax cameras starting with an LX and ME Super which I shot film on for a great many of those years. When the istD was announced I bought one as I didn't want to sacrifice all the lenses I had accumulated (28mm, 50mm, 100mm, 200mm, 50-250 Tamron zoom and 650 mirror lens) by switching brands. I would miss the features of the LX like removable viewfinder, changeable focusing screens etc but it was obvious to me that film was becoming obsolete and not having a permanent darkroom was a pain. Since then I have progressed to a K10D which is a decent still camera and then to the K-30 I have now which I bought for the video capability.
I started in photography in 1964 and accumulated 18 semester hours of black and white and color in various colleges in California. While I have never worked as a photographer my education has been very helpful throughout my working career in several fields of electronics engineering (RF, Medical, Telecommunications, Semiconductor along with holding engineering management positions.
I retired a few years ago and frankly can no longer afford today's cameras so the K-30 is probably the end of the line for me, except for my LG V20 Smartphone which to be honest is a pretty good replacement for my occasional Disneyland, etc. trips. The videos shot with the V20 and viewed on my HDTV are pretty damn good. The V20 has two lenses (wide angle and not so wide angle) and manual control of exposure with stereo sound. Given all the other stuff the phone will do it is an amazing piece of technology.
Post #1 by theoldcougar
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