K70 aperture block

My K70 now has the dreaded aperture block - It has got going after a couple of shots until now, when it needs a long burst.

Can someone here on the Forum suggest who is best to send it to for repair, please?

For statisticians - it was manufactured in December 2016, I bought it in March 2017 and there's about 8850 on the shutter count.

TBH, you are "late to the party" because what you really need is a "white" solenoid (and a reliable repair shop!) but they are now very difficult to find - the "best" way to get one of those is by buying an old film-era Pentax SLR that has at least one of those solenoids, and then get it to a "reliable repairer" to fix your K-70.

Both my K-70 and K-30 were fitted with "white" solenoids by Asahi Photo in Brentford (West London) before they suffered ABF.

OTOH, in both cases, I bought the solenoids from the USA myself because Asahi Photo might not have been able to source those themselves.

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K-3 II, K-3 and a K-70 from SRS (having now relegated the K-30 /"K-50" to a backup body), & some Sigma and Pentax lenses (and a lot of old 35mm gear!)

Sad to see this failure on a camera that has fewer than 9000 shutter actuations. I imagine that older DSLRs (pre-K30, which I think was the first model to suffer this problem) which have perhaps failed for another reason will also have a white solenoid that they can donate so that another may live.

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Pentax hybrid user - Digital K3, film 645 and 35mm SLR and Pentax (&other) lenses adapted to Fuji X and Panasonic L digital
Fan of DA limited and old manual lenses

I may be wrong but there seems to be quite a few suitable solenoids for sale on ebay. Some are brand new, many from USA or China. However these are refurbished and from the UK.link

Good to see that there do appear to be a number of those now available - about a year ago, they were like hens' teeth.

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K-3 II, K-3 and a K-70 from SRS (having now relegated the K-30 /"K-50" to a backup body), & some Sigma and Pentax lenses (and a lot of old 35mm gear!)

Hi My K-70 started to show the dreaded dark image problem exactly 3years to the day after I purchased it. I have sent it off to John Pye Technical and here is the estimated repair work needed to get it back.

Fault Comments:
Dark images

Resolution Comments:
Repair Shutter Mechanism
Check and Clean Viewfinder Assembly
Repair Mirror Mechanism
Check and Clean CCD
Replace Mechanical Assembly

So I'm not sure if the problem has been the solenoid or something else. However although really disappointed that after 11000 actuations it got the symptoms of a known fault (shame on Pentax). I suppose the cost of the repair which includes cleaning etc & warranty on the repair is actually quite reasonable. I'm not great with my hands when it comes to precision screwdrivers and tiny screws so I'm hoping it comes back fixed and saved me a lot of blue language and frustrating hours. If it lasts another 3 years just over 100 quid for a mini service and repair I think is not too bad.

Does not sound that bad at all. Good luck

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Peter



My Flickr page

What I can say for definite is that the service was done quickly and my K-70 was returned today and working like new ,so really happy with the service and the comms From John Pye Technical.

From what I read they have the warranty contract in the UK for Pentax and the engineers are the same ones who worked for the previous company who had the contract which no longer exists.

Brilliant turn around too I sent it off on the 18th and it arrived back yesterday.

I hope it's good for at least another 3 years, by which time I will probably have traded up.

At this point though I will highly recommend John Pye for work in the UK.