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Archive 2006 · No new Contax N news?

herion
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p.1 #1 · No new Contax N news?

Any updates from Conurus?

Edited by herion on Oct 06, 2006 at 01:26 PM GMT

Oct 03, 2006 at 08:27 PM

cyberstudio
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p.1 #2 · No new Contax N news?

Honestly, the 17-35 is in jeopardy. I need a lens connector, but Sigma informed me that for the quantity I ordered (100 pcs), they are concerned that I might be using them for a purpose other than servicing Sigma lenses. They let me buy 5 without questioning what I am doing with them, but I still need to wait for 2 weeks.

Is it okay if I sell only the circuit board and the machined parts, and each of you order your own lens connector directly from Sigma?

Making a insertion-molded, gold-plated lens connector involves significant capital investment. It is not economical unless the quantity is large. We do not have that kind of volume, so I do not see any other way out.

The Sigma part number is 9270038. It is from a Sigma 28-80/3.5-5.6 in Canon mount. It is called a "Electric Contact Case" in their computer. Of course you may also extract that part from broken Sigma lenses. If you wish, you may start ordering that part from your local Sigma parts department.

If you have a long-term solution, such as you know of a manufacturer willing to make custom electrical connectors at a small quantity at a reasonable price, please help me out.

Oct 05, 2006 at 03:36 PM

pascal03
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p.1 #3 · No new Contax N news?

How much was sigma asking for these connectors....

I have a couple of Sigma lenses I would not think twice about breaking apart to save a zeiss lens

Oct 05, 2006 at 04:10 PM

Doug Morgan
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p.1 #4 · No new Contax N news?

Have you checked digikey for a similar item? They usually have measurements in the catalog or on line.

Alternatively if you posted a picture of both sides of the connection as well as a couple rough measurements I could take a look for you.

Doug

Oct 05, 2006 at 05:08 PM

cyberstudio
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p.1 #5 · No new Contax N news?

No, I tried Digikey but they do not have it.

Sigma is just adhering to standard industry practice. Stocking parts in a service department is an expensive operation. To the big manufacturers, that doesn't make any money, it's just a necessary evil. Ordering a large quantity does disrupt the balance of their operations. However, if anyone has connections with them, and we ask politely, they may assist us.

As it now is, I can only supply the circuit board and the machined parts. There are tons of old Sigma lenses with the infamous "Err 99" problem. If I remember correctly, some can be rechipped, but some others are not serviceable. We pollute the Earth less by gutting them and using their most useful parts.

Or, you can directly order from Sigma. I am pretty sure it is less than 10 bucks a piece. If the quantity is small, they will not get suspicious.

Oct 05, 2006 at 05:49 PM

Doug Morgan
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p.1 #6 · No new Contax N news?

I was wondering if there is something available that can be made to fit -- do you have a picture (or a link to a picture) of the connector available?

Doug

Oct 05, 2006 at 06:06 PM

cyberstudio
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p.1 #7 · No new Contax N news?

In the following picture, the Sigma connector is the black connector at the top. The green circuit board at the bottom is my circuit board for supporting VS17-35/2.8 and Planar 85/1.4.

Oct 05, 2006 at 06:11 PM

Doug Morgan
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p.1 #8 · No new Contax N news?

Ah, I see. Have you tried just making a connector out of PCB -- maybe laminating one board to another to get the step up? Though not as durable as "real" gold plating the silver solutions are fairly tough.

Probably too labour intensive though.....
Doug

Oct 05, 2006 at 06:14 PM

hubsand
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p.1 #9 · No new Contax N news?

Does it have to be a Sigma lens? I don't think the conversion would be overly jeopardised if you specified a particular (cheap) donor lens that had to be cannibalised for parts along with the supplied board and bits.

Oct 05, 2006 at 07:13 PM

herion
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p.1 #10 · No new Contax N news?

Have you tried asking TSMV (the AF chip wizard from Germany) about where he gets his stuff? He's got quite a following here on FM and would probably be able to point you in the right direction...

Oct 05, 2006 at 07:20 PM

Lotusm50
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p.1 #11 · No new Contax N news?

hubsand wrote

oes it have to be a Sigma lens? I don't think the conversion would be overly jeopardised if you specified a particular (cheap) donor lens that had to be cannibalised for parts along with the supplied board and bits.

The problem is, I beleive, that each manufacturer uses a somewhat different connector. Conurus has to fabricate their mount to match a particular connector, in order to produce these economically they have to be the same. Having each mount made to match the connector you might have would be cost prohibitive. At the same time, finding 100 donor Sigma lenses with the right connector might be difficult and probably a lot more expensive than just sourcing the right part directly.

Ultimately, Conurus has to contact Sigma on a coporate level to source the part, rather than dealing with the flunkies behind the service counter. I can have a native japanese speaker call Sigma in Japan for you about this, but she's out of the country until the the 25th.

Oct 05, 2006 at 07:50 PM

cyberstudio
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p.1 #12 · No new Contax N news?

Hi Doug and herion,

TSMV and all AF chip vendors use connector-on-PCB construction. The Canon connector has 5 pins raised higher than the other 3. The AF chip is made by laminating two PCB's together. One of them makes contact with the 5 raised pins and contains the actual IC. The other makes contact with the lower pins. The two circuit boards do not need to communicate with each other at all, and can be simply laminated together by epoxy glue.

I have never purchased any AF chip from any vendor. The above is derived from the numerous pictures I saw on this board and elsewhere, and of course from my knowledge of the pin-outs. This is a good construction technique. You can order a small number of PCBs (e.g. 100 pcs) economically.

I cannot directly use the same construction, but for the first version of conurus, I used a single PCB, and directly soldered tiny little custom CNC machined, 24k gold-plated solid brass connector pins onto the PCB, and form the shape of the raised connector by black 2-part epoxy resin. For all practical purposes, this is still a connector-directly-on-PCB construction. However, this first attempt was not as reliable as it should. For some customers, the PCB did not reliably make contact with the camera and the camera showed 0.0 as if no lens was attached. As a result, I have decided to pull the product off the market since mid-September. A traditional lens connector makes a much more reliable connection. Once bitten, twice shy.

Oct 05, 2006 at 08:21 PM

pascal03
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p.1 #13 · No new Contax N news?

So if one has a couple of Sigma or Tokina or Tamron lenses that show "err 99" on EOS digital bodies, would the connectors from these work for the conversion.

Oct 06, 2006 at 04:38 PM

cyberstudio
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p.1 #14 · No new Contax N news?

Yep, Sigma connectors would work. I tried two connectors from two different vintages (28-70/3.5-4.5 and 28-80/3.5-5.6 aspherical) and they both fitted.

I have never heard Err 99 reports from Tamron or Tokina. Also I have not tried if their connectors would fit.

A Cosina connector has the screw pattern off by just a tiny little. It will still make contact, but it won't be perfectly aligned.

Sorry but I have to go this route. Please acquire your own lens connector. It is better to release the product more quickly without the connector, than to wait for I don't know how long.

Oct 06, 2006 at 05:25 PM

Cinstance
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p.1 #15 · No new Contax N news?

I have just bought two "as is" sigma 28-105 2.8-4 aspherical from KEH. Is it easy to install them by myself if I get you mounts without the pin connectors.

Oct 06, 2006 at 06:07 PM

cyberstudio
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p.1 #16 · No new Contax N news?

I will update my installation guide this weekend with new installation instructions. You would need to have good soldering skills, have the proper soldering equipment and be very careful not to break the flex cable. I really wonder if we should take the risk by DIY, instead of paying a repairman/repairwoman to do it. The flex cable is one integral piece with all the electronics of the lens. This is modern electronic assembly. The entire lens has only one flex circuit board, and ICs, connectors, components are all directly soldered onto that, and you bend or fold the flex circuit and fit it inside the lens. This means if the flex circuit breaks, we have to replace the whole thing (expensive) and it is difficult to replace (because it goes to everywhere inside the lens barrel).

Oct 06, 2006 at 06:30 PM

Lotusm50
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p.1 #17 · No new Contax N news?

cyberstudio wrote:
I will update my installation guide this weekend with new installation instructions. You would need to have good soldering skills, have the proper soldering equipment and be very careful not to break the flex cable. I really wonder if we should take the risk by DIY, instead of paying a repairman/repairwoman to do it.

Because it can be difficult to find a repairman who is willing to do it. The only repair shop I know of in the Washington DC area (big and nationally known) won't touch the Contax N lenses. The situation is probably worse in smaller metropolitan areas. I couldn't even get them to do a cleaning. They said, "too expensive, we don't want to be responsible." If they won't do a cleaning, they aren't going to do a major modification/lens mount change. With all the effort that it would take to find someone somewhere who I could trust to do this, I might as well do it myself. The VS 24-85 conversion was dirt simple. It's really not rocket science. Make sure you have the right soldering equipment and know how to use it, take your time and be careful, you should be able to do it.

Oct 06, 2006 at 07:37 PM

Cinstance
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p.1 #18 · No new Contax N news?

cyberstudio wrote:
I will update my installation guide this weekend with new installation instructions. You would need to have good soldering skills, have the proper soldering equipment and be very careful not to break the flex cable. I really wonder if we should take the risk by DIY, instead of paying a repairman/repairwoman to do it. The flex cable is one integral piece with all the electronics of the lens. This is modern electronic assembly. The entire lens has only one flex circuit board, and ICs, connectors, components are all directly soldered onto that, and you bend or fold the flex circuit and fit it inside the lens. This means if the flex circuit breaks, we have to replace the whole thing (expensive) and it is difficult to replace (because it goes to everywhere inside the lens barrel).

I think a better idea is just sending the connecter to you and then you send us the assembled adapter, otherwise I would image a whole boat of problems.

Oct 06, 2006 at 09:14 PM

Andi Dietrich
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p.1 #19 · No new Contax N news?

Cyberstudio, I think you need to offer a complete solution to adapt a N lens to EOS. Somewhere people can send in a Contax N lens (and a old Sigma lens or connector) and get back a Zeiss AF lens for Canon.
Certainly there are a lot of people who hope you can adapt their N lenses, others who would like to have one, would need to get a N lens first, which is not so easy. Then you get a Sigma lens, get the adapter from you, search a camerarepair shop who is willing to do the convertion and understands what he has to do and has experience with this kind of soldering. There is still a danger that he is messing up something with an expenisve lens. This is quite a complicated way to go and needs to throw money a bit in each direction!
Thats just getting very very complicated and will shake off a lot of your potential customers. Please think about.

Oct 06, 2006 at 11:02 PM

BeeMan458
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p.1 #20 · No new Contax N news?

What's a conversion running these days? Is this a $2k venture or a two hundred dollar venture? I have a Planar T* 85/1.4 and some cheap A$$ adapter that scares heck out of me. I wish to use the 85/1.4 on a 10D or when I pick one up, a FF like a 5D.

Oct 08, 2006 at 07:34 PM

Lotusm50
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p.1 #21 · No new Contax N news?

BeeMan458 wrote:
What's a conversion running these days? Is this a $2k venture or a two hundred dollar venture? I have a Planar T* 85/1.4 and some cheap A$$ adapter that scares heck out of me. I wish to use the 85/1.4 on a 10D or when I pick one up, a FF like a 5D.

It sounds like you have the wrong 85mm Planar . Is it the autofocus Zeiss 85mm "N-Planar" that fit the Contax N1? This is the lens that the conversion is for, and it is not the same as the older manual focus Zeiss 85mm Planar that fit the RTS. Which do you have?

Oct 09, 2006 at 02:51 AM

BeeMan458
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p.1 #22 · No new Contax N news?

It's a Yashica/Contax mount, manual focus.

Oct 10, 2006 at 04:37 AM

losloslos
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p.1 #23 · No new Contax N news?

Why not contact this gentleman...he could at least be considered for the assembly, he makes ALL KINDS of custom stuff for the large-format crowd, his work speaks for itself:

http://skgrimes.com/index.htm

The contact block could be machined out of Lexan, and, some contact fingers from something else can reach over and down the side, and soldered into holes in the PCB.

Also...I'd call a bunch of camera shops that do repairs, retailers, the catalog guys, and, put WTB's out on FM here and DPR too and I bet you'll find your lenses quick-o-matic.

G.

Oct 10, 2006 at 09:50 AM

Lotusm50
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p.1 #24 · No new Contax N news?

BeeMan458 wrote:It's a Yashica/Contax mount, manual focus.

This conversion, then, is not for you. An adapter is the only way for you.

losloslos wrote:
Why not contact this gentleman...he could at least be considered for the assembly, he makes ALL KINDS of custom stuff for the large-format crowd, his work speaks for itself:

http://skgrimes.com/index.htm

The contact block could be machined out of Lexan, and, some contact fingers from something else can reach over and down the side, and soldered into holes in the PCB.

Grimes is good where machining and purely mechanical aspects of lenses, adapters and cameras are involved. They don't do much electrical stuff at all

Further, making the cobntact block out of Lexan as you suggest is all well and good, but on a small volume custom basis would be very expensive -- well over $100. The off-the-shelf Sigma part costs about $10 at retail from your service center. (In the volume that Sigma uses, it probably costs Sigma only about $1 to make.)

Oct 10, 2006 at 12:08 PM

BeeMan458
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p.1 #25 · No new Contax N news?

"An adapter is the only way for you."

Thanks!

Oct 10, 2006 at 12:29 PM


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