[meehailam]

A weekend 'doctor' operating on a Nikkor 18-70mm

Symtoms: Knotted colon (jammed zoom) at 18mm and micro-organisma contamination (dust specs ) between elements
Risk assessment: Live a full life, overworked and retired with an expired life insurance (warranty).
Options: Life saving operation, organ donor or RIP.







Outcome: Life saving operation successfully completed in 5 hours. Colon's smoothed out. Micro-organisma cleaned. Looked spanking new.
Costs: Precision operating tools £13, wound joining (superglue) £2, smoothing gel (silica grease) £4. Consumables £5.

[Grissom]

Ouch, looks painful !

Hope the patient makes a swift recovery

[meehailam]

Originally Posted by Grissom

Ouch, looks painful !

Hope the patient makes a swift recovery

Patient is making fantastic recovery - like given a new life! Will take her out this weekend for some 'fresh air'

[ImpInaBox]

A brave move there! I've never ventured inside a lens before.

[meehailam]

Originally Posted by ImpInaBox

A brave move there! I've never ventured inside a lens before.

It is kind of intimidating at 1st, but with some reading around forums and Google as friend, it become a little easier. Well with that at least it gave a new lease of life to the once forced to 'retire' lens which almost cost 1/3 the price of the lens if it was to send to authorised service centre to fix.

Anyone know what kind of chemical to use for cleaning fungus infected lens? Read about people using Acetone (sound toxic to me) and some use pure alcohol. Anyone done that before?

[Grissom]

Some tales on this page that may give you some ideas

http://www.chem.helsinki.fi/~toomas/photo/fungus/

[Bunderson]

That's an outstanding piece of work. Well executed!

[HarryMac]

With really nothing to loose, a great outcome achieved.

So when are you starting your repairs business?

[livestrong]

i tried sorting out a Tamaron 18-200 once... it didn't go so well... To be fair the lens was pretty much had it before I had a go but still nothing lost in the venture as sending it off for a clean etc was simply not economical... Still I wouldn't go near the inners of my new L series lenses.

[meehailam]

Originally Posted by HarryMac

With really nothing to loose, a great outcome achieved.

So when are you starting your repairs business?

Yeah...it is either RIP, which is already it's doing, or bring back to live.
I don't think I'm that good to start a repairs business. The major problem will be spare parts, especially those high-tech parts which only available to authorised repair centers. Though on the Nikon's website said it does provide spare parts at cost but in reality when you request those parts they will ask you to send the items in for their inspection and estimates, as they put it, it involves highly trained skills to do the repairs.

But if you ask me, I think I'm confident enough to work with the Nikon 18-70mm anytime now. I can do service like cleaning of dust specs in between elements, jammed zoom, or changing of parts (provided parts are supplied). Maybe I should look at ebay for cheap faulty lens to practice my skills
Anyone wanna donate their write off lens for my practice??

[meehailam]

Originally Posted by livestrong

i tried sorting out a Tamaron 18-200 once... it didn't go so well... To be fair the lens was pretty much had it before I had a go but still nothing lost in the venture as sending it off for a clean etc was simply not economical... Still I wouldn't go near the inners of my new L series lenses.

Exactly..if it is not economical to sent off for repair, then might as well DIY. No, no... I won't touch the Pro series or in Canon case L series lens..too expansive to try it DIY, unless you know what you're doing

Those long zoom with VR/IS and silence wave motor will be more complicated and not worth messing around.