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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
05-17-2017, 04:53 PM
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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.
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
05-16-2017, 06:04 PM
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Haven't read all the posts but this is a well known problem with K-30, K-50 and possibly other models. The problem is the solenoid inside the camera that controls the iris diaphragm. It apparently gets sticky and doesn't actuate the iris diaphragm correctly. Search the web for K-30/K-50 exposure problem and you find numerous youtube videos and related posts. Search PentaxCameraRepair fo a guy that will fix it for $100. Good Luck
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Forum: Troubleshooting and Beginner Help
05-16-2017, 05:52 PM
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Several months ago the plastic battery latch that keeps the battery from flying out when you open the battery compartment broke on my K-30 camera. I lust lived with the inconvenience until last week when I decided to see if a part was available to fix it. Nope. Ricoh refers all repair issues to Precision Camera, period. For that referral Precision Camera quotes a flat fee, never less, could be more and no they don't sell parts. Meanwhile, I had been reading about the sticky solenoid issue causing iris diaphragm to malfunction causing under exposed photos. I decided to check this although have never experienced the problem. I put the camera in continuous exposure mode and pressed the shutter release several time while observing the diaphragm. No problem until after the forth burst the camera ceased to power up period. Damn. Now I'm faced with a big buck repair instead of just an inconvenience. After calling the three or four repair facilities left I came to the conclusion that I would retire the K-30 (originally bought for video capability) and use my LG smartphone which is adequate for my needs. So being a retired electronics engineer I thought I would open up the camera and see if there was something obvious and after poking around I found the issue. It was related to the battery latch breaking. The latch is dual purpose, one to prevent the battery from flying and, two to power down the camera to prevent removal of the battery when the camera is on. The contact is held open by another piece of plastic that had broken, most likely by my poking around. A little judicious bending and the problem is resolved. Saved me scraping, repairing or replacing the camera. So iif your K-30 (and K_50) suddenly won't power up this is a possibility. You will need to take the covers off to get at the latch mechanism. My guess a repair shop will want to replace the entire battery box and you're looking at 2-3 hundred which makes repair debatable. Might be time for an upgrade.
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