DA* 16-50mm SDM failure.... finally happened to me..

Russell Evans wrote:

I've always thought the issue was corrosion in the motor, not the power of the motor. A few hot to cold transitions and there probably will be enough condensation in the lens to cause issues, or maybe it is just inventory handling at the factory that exposes the motors to some type of humidity, storage, transport, ... The gap in the motor is pretty small, the way the lenses were able to blow out the SDM circuit in the K20D, the way you can sometimes coax the lenses back to life, the slowing and final failure, just doesn't sound like a motor power issue to me. Gut feeling and nothing to back it up other than what I noted here.

With the lens firmware hack you can turn the SDM off and use the screw driven AF. Keep a couple of SD cards with the modified and unmodified firmware and just turn the SDM off and on as needed. Do you always need a silent lens?

Thank you
Russell