Lens Conversions

[jethro]

Does anyone know of a sydney based person that does non AI lens conversions.
Cheers
Jethro

[Glen]

Jethro,

a few years ago Jack Merry 02 9416 1985 or 0402 404 847 was doing them, he was talking of retiring at the time, don't know if he has already

[jethro]

Thanks Glenn, Ill give him a call

[losfp]

jethro, if you get hold of someone, could you post here? I'd be quite interested myself

cheers

[davidkelly]

If we can find out how the lens electronics works, some of might be able to design replacement electronics and share the information (even put it on this web site. If we find out how it works for Canon, at least it gives a clue how it works for Nikon. When I go digital, I'll experiment on my old Nikon body to figure out how it works.
But there is still mechanical work to do.
Dave Kelly.

[sirhc55]

Interesting: http://www.aiconversions.com/compatibilitytable.htm

[jethro]

This is one do it yourself Iv'e come across. Seems difficult. There are guys in the states that do them but I'm still looking here.

http://www.zi.ku.dk/personal/lhhansen/p ... /aimod.htm

jethro

[davidkelly]

There is some information around about what signals are on the Nikon AF mount pins and it appears to be a synchronous serial data format (the end pins are power and ground). But I haven't found anything yet on the format of the data.
Even Nikon service manuals don't seem to say what the format is.
The newest cameras have extra signals and pins.

[Glen]

David, maybe this group from Jethro's post above may be able to help?

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/NikonRepair/

[davidkelly]

Thanks for your tips Glen and Jethro. The Nikon Repair site is worth watching.
Many people have investigated this manual lens conversion problem, and some people are annoyed that the new Nikon DSLRs don't work properly with manual lenses.
Someone suggested the info is in the Nikon patents, but I haven't searched for these yet, and they may be cryptic.
A 4 channel digital oscilloscope is enough to debug the signals (a logic analyzer isn't really necessary).

Dave Kelly

[davidkelly]

All necessary information about lens electronics is available in the Nikon patents, in particular
US4896181.
It is a simple matter to program a small microcontroller chip to generate the required messages about the lens. I would use a Motorola or Freescale 6808 device.
It is harder if converting a zoom lens, since a rotary encoder is needed to encode zoom setting.
The patent is dated 1990, so it doesnt cover improvements made to the lens mount since then.
Fitting the contacts and chip into a non-CPU lens is a challenge however.