Introduction: Pentax K10D Battery Grip to Samsung GX10

By Marshon
About: Untidy, disorganised and a bit silly. I am a photographer, artist, body artist, sculptor, prosthetic maker, model engineer, and general idiot who likes making stuff and messing about. I give hands on workshops…

Here's a quick little Ible that will be of interest to very few people, unless they own a Samsung GX10 and want to know how to convert a Pentax battery grip to fit it :-)

I own a number of DSLR cameras, almost all Pentax since I started with an MX 35 mm as an apprentice in the late 1970's. However I bought a Samsung GX10 for a song a few years back, it's basically a clone of the Pentax K10D and all the lenses, accessories and after market products will work with both (or so I thought).

At the time of release Samsung did sell an aftermarket battery grip which extends working time and offers a second shutter release button for portrait mode shooting. The Samsung model number was SBG-D1V battery grip, but try as I might I couldn't find one anywhere except on specialist sites and they cost a small fortune. It seems Samsung didn't manufacture many of these units. I kept an eye on the auction sites, but they came up very infrequently and went for far more than I wanted to pay.

Because I use battery grips on my other cameras for field work, and I didn't have one for the Samsung, it tended to be left behind and little used.

The Pentax K10D and K20D shared a battery grip (the D-BG2) and these were (are) much more readily available. Furthermore far eastern clones of the BG2 are regularly seen on the auction sites.

The main problem with them is that they are not an 'exact' fit to the GX10 and needed to be 'butchered' to fit. In the end I got one for a song (I paid £12.00) and thought I'd have a go at getting it to fit.

Step 1: Identifying the Problems

The actual far eastern grip I got has a designated model number of PK10D and just has the extra battery slot and the second shutter release. I believe that the actual Pentax model may carry extra functions.

In the first image is the GX10 and the new battery grip.

On inspection the three mounting pillars (the silver metal locating pillars) are in the correct positions and the electrical contact socket and plug are also in correct alignment. What became immediately apparent was the fact that the edge moulding of the grip has raised areas to fit the K10D body, but the GX10 does not have these so the edge of the battery grip fouls the body of the camera. Luckily the bottom of the camera is flat.

After lots of offering up and checking, it seems that these raised areas are the only thing preventing the grip from fitting. Since the battery grip body is ABS plastic it should be fairly simple to make the corrections. In the second and third images you can see these raised edges quite clearly, they simply need to be removed so that the edges follow a flat level pattern.

Step 2: Making the Corrections

You could just trim back the edges using a craft knife, sander, sandpaper, whatever, but I wanted to make it as accurate as possible so it didn't look like a bodge job. Leave the contact cover on so you don't damage the contacts.

Using my Dremel with a drum sander and flexi-shaft, I mounted the shaft into my homemade stand (see my other Instructables for how the make one). Then using a depth gauge and a little trial and error I set the drum to correspond with the lowest edge. This proved to be the corner nearest the shutter release in my case.

The Dremel made very light work of sanding off the raised edges. The ABS sort of sand / melts and once cooled the excess plastic simply pulls away to leave a clean edge. It took less than a minute to remove the excess plastic.

In the third image you can see all the raise edge material has gone. You may want to take off any sharp edges with a quick wipe over with some wet and dry paper.

Step 3: Completed!

Once fitted, the body alignment is surprisingly good, certainly no worse than other far eastern after market grips 'dedicated' to certain cameras. All the functions (AF, shutter release etc) work as they should and the camera feel good in the hands.

At £12.00 a complete bargain.