Repair a broken digicam lens mechanism (Panasonic FZ10) - a failed attempt.

Step 5 Put it all back together!.. Well, I failed.

Now we'll clean all the parts, lubricate the important points and put it back together (previous steps in reverse order).

Well, now the unlucky part for me, it turns out that the grease on the lens zoom rail was a special one. Substituting it with regular grease didn't work. There was too much friction for the tiny step motor to move the little lens group. I tried all kinds of grease, a lithium one, a Teflon one, a blue one, nope none of them helped. It turns out that Panasonic uses a special lo-friction light grease for that part, and I cannot get it anywhere (VKF1829)...

Anyway. It was a good exercise. I tried various grease types throughout 3 weeks. :-) At the end I decided that it was not worth working on it anymore, and the camera went back to ebay for other guys' parts needs. End of story.

So, lesson learned: do not wipe the original grease on mechanical parts, as you may not be able to replace them.

I hope this helps someone. :-)

thearchitect

Comments

[lancem79]

thank you for your instruction. do you have any advice for a lumix fz10 that was working well until i tried to charge it. there was an unprotected power surge and now the camera is as dead as a doormouse thanks lance

[thearchitect]

OMG, same thing happened to me once. I had to find a replacement board and fix it that way. I got the board off ebay. I'll send a private message to you, I may help you. K.

[wangisme]

Appreciate if you could provide us the method. Thanks.

[thearchitect]

Well, you search for a broken camera on ebay (or a replacement board), and fit it in the camera. Read this instructable above on how it is done. K.