RiceHigh's Pentax Blog: Disassemble a K-5

Monday, April 09, 2012

Disassemble a K-5

A K-5 user at the Xitek forum suffered long from the mirror jumping disorder issue of his K-5 and one day he finally decided to fully disassemble his K-5 to see what had been going wrong!

http://forum.xitek.com/thread-993602-1-1-1.html
(in Chinese)

Whilst I am uncertain that if he could really find the source of problem but what we can now see is the inside of the K-5, here are some selected pictures:-

The full set of all pictures can be viewed in the following:-

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v313/RiceHigh/K-5/Inside/?start=all

Comments (23)

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Warpig · 674 weeks ago

Wow :-O

2 replies · active 674 weeks ago

+2 Vote up Vote down

RiceHigh 110p · 674 weeks ago

I think that guy was reckless. He stated that he had used and suffered from the problem for six months and he should have requested warranty service instead of waiting longer and then destroying his camera,. I don't think he could ultimately find solution to the problem after all, neither.

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Ying · 674 weeks ago

Did you read the comment? Apparently he is an old hand at doing this - He did K-10 etc before, and has found a suspected design fault (something to do with a mechanical part's tight tolerance not returning to center position after rapid firing).

+1 Vote up Vote down

Dave's clichés · 674 weeks ago

What the hell are all those terrible solder joints! Those resoldered joints all cristalised and melted wires!(see the complete series) This looks like the work of someone who would have been well advised to leave well alone. Besides the jumping mirror problem is surely related to electronics and is unlikely to be visible.
However it gave us the opportunity to see what's inside,

Dave's clichés

3 replies · active 674 weeks ago

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Simon · 674 weeks ago

RoHS forced the manufactures to use leadless solder, the leadless crap has many disadvantages, cold, bad joints, whiskers.
(Xbox 360, Dell Notebooks, etc. BGA joints fail.)

+3 Vote up Vote down

RiceHigh 110p · 674 weeks ago

I think it is more about poor workmanship and inferior quality control rather than the types of materials used.

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Simon · 674 weeks ago

I had to send my D90 and D7000 in for service, because of (well known) back focus issue.

+2 Vote up Vote down

Mage · 674 weeks ago

Looks quite untidy to me. I expected to see higher standards that what the photos are showing.

8 replies · active 673 weeks ago

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RiceHigh 110p · 674 weeks ago

Yes, from the other posted photos of the inside of C and N bodies, they look more orderly.

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frco · 674 weeks ago

I agree, now that I have seen the inside, I have no desire to buy a k5

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Simon · 674 weeks ago

Sorry, but this is not true! A Nikon camera looks nearly the same inside.

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Alex · 674 weeks ago

Not the higher-end stuff, I'd say.
Which means: Pentax should move up-market. Just my 2 cents.

-1 Vote up Vote down

Michael A. · 673 weeks ago

Orderly or not, K-5 doesn't leak light into its body as the new EOS 5D Mark III...OOOPS.. :o)) You better put off your potential purchase till Canon makes a non-light-leaking top LCD illumination what appears to effect the metering sensor...

+1 Vote up Vote down

RiceHigh 110p · 673 weeks ago

Yes, I will not buy the 5D3 for the time being until the problem is fixed. Besides, there is no stock for the body-only offer in HK neither. So, I have to wait.

Indeed, I want to wait till September to see if there will be a Pentax FF by that time (and the price of the 5D3 should come down a bit also, possibly).

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Michael A. · 673 weeks ago

Pentax FF is on my list as well, if they decide to finally make it. Good luck to us...patient waiting crowd...

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RiceHigh 110p · 673 weeks ago

We should have our lens lineups ready already, but new comers would not. Pentax needs to re-introduce new FF lenses.

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Ivan · 674 weeks ago

Yeah a lot of hand soldered wires, looks like 80 early 90 design :-) But i'm curious what the AA+IR cut filters assembly looks like.
Thats cheap assembly so hope for more price drop before new model.

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VladimirYo · 674 weeks ago

Take the pictures, people!

2 replies · active 674 weeks ago

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RiceHigh 110p · 674 weeks ago

Yes, a lot of pics have been taken! ;-)

+1 Vote up Vote down

RiceHigh 110p · 674 weeks ago

Yes, a lot of pics have been taken! ;-)

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Ying · 674 weeks ago

Indeed a very untidy design with sires flying everywhere (flat connection ribbons with ZIF connectors should be the standard these days, it looks like Pentax lack behind in PCB design.

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Steve · 654 weeks ago

If you think ribbon connectors are more reliable than soldered wires then you may be correct, but I can tell you they still fail a lot. Usually horrible intermittent faults where the copper has cracked.

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ANH DUY · 503 weeks ago

CAN YOU SHOW ME STEP BY STEP TO DISASSEMBLY MY PENTAX K5? I"VE GOT AN OLD K5, I FOUND DUST ON LCD SCREEN. I TRIED TO OPEN LCD PANEL, BUT FAIL. OMG! I JUST WANT TO CLEAN THE DUST.

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Monday, April 09, 2012

Disassemble a K-5

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