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Asahi Photo - Solenoid Repair

Do you own a camera suffering from aperture block failure? Help is at hand Asahi Photo can bring your camera back to life.

Posted: 29/10/2024 - 08:24

Why would I need my solenoid repairing?

Unfortunately out of the blue, users suddenly discover their camera is no longer exposing correctly and producing near black images. This symptom may initially be intermittent however eventually it'll almost certainly lead to total failure. So what's happening? If you remove the lens from your camera you'll see on the rear of the lens is an aperture control lever, if you carefully manually control this you'll see that the aperture blades within your lens change.

Now looking inside the mount of your Pentax camera to the left there's a vertical linear tab that juts out slightly, it's this mechanism that engages with the lever on the back of your lens. Inside the body of the camera (not visible from inside the mount) is the solenoid that controls this tab, when the solenoid fails, the mechanism no longer moves leaving the lens on its smallest aperture, depending on what lens you’re using this will be something like f/22.

The good news is this isn’t every single Pentax DSLR, it’s cameras fitted with the prone to failure green solenoid (opposed to the stable white solenoid). The affected models are K-S1, K-S2, K-30, K-50, K-500 and K-70 up to January 2021.

The Fix

Making the repair yourself requires initially sourcing a new solenoid, then disassembly of the camera’s body to get inside the solenoid housing, a project best left to the professionals.

Thankfully help is at hand, Asahi Photo can conduct the repair for you. With a fixed priced of £110+VAT which also includes a FREE cleaning of your sensor too, Asahi Photo will repair your existing solenoid which has proven to be the most reliable and best solution.

Please get in touch with Asahi Photo to discuss and arrange your solenoid repair.

Asahi Photo

1stEverPentax
Posted 29/10/2024 - 09:34 Link
Does that include postage and packing ?

What is the typical turnaround time?

Thanks

Karlo
rick
Posted 29/10/2024 - 16:00 Link
Reply on the behalf of Asahi Photo:

The price doesn't include return postage, our typical turnaround time is 5-7 working days.

Visit Asahi Photo
Pentax KP / HD 20-40mm
1stEverPentax
Posted 29/10/2024 - 16:32 Link
Thanks Rick.
AndyUK
Posted 30/11/2024 - 11:52 Link
I've just had both of my K50's repaired as they were suffering from the solenoid problem.

Both took a week which included from the time I got them to the post office to it being returned to me. Communication with Asahi was great, emails were responded to promptly and tracking information on the camera was provided.

For me personally I found it to be an excellent service and glad to have both my K'50's restored to working order.

Would have no hesitation in using Asahi again.

Andy
rick
Posted 01/12/2024 - 07:18 Link
Thanks Andy for taking the time to post your experience on Pentax User and great to hear it was a positive one, great news that you now have two restored and usable cameras again
Pentax KP / HD 20-40mm
Edited by rick: 01/12/2024 - 07:19

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