K100D pop up flash fails to charge

I am trying to find out if other owners of the Pentax K100D have had trouble with the pop up flash. I have a K100D that I purchased in August and the flash stopped charging. The K100D will not allow the shutter to release unless the flash is charged when it is in the up position. There is, however, an option in the custom setting to allow the shutter to release while the flash charges. I studied the owner book in depth and Googled till I was blue to try and determine if there was something wrong with the camera or if it was a setting that got inadvertently changed and caused the problem. I also upgraded the firmware thinking it may be a software problem but no help there. I called Pentax and they advised me to return the camera for repair. Has anyone else had this problem? If so, what did you do to resolve it? Does Pentax usually repair a 2-month-old camera or do they often replace them? I shipped my camera off to Pentax last week so we will see what happens.

Any thoughts will be appreciated.

Kenny
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I had the exact same problem with my k100d. I posted a message here a few days ago but didn't get much respond. Lucky for me I only had it for 3 weeks so I sent it back a few days ago for an exchange.

This could be just bad luck in our cases but I'm starting to feel uneasy about Pentax quality after hearing about your problem. It seems like they are concentrating on quantity instead of quality, i.e. the number of 6MP version of DSLR that they have, why so many?

But then again I've had my Pentax film SLR camera for 10 years and everything still works great. Hope my replacement K100d will not have any issues in the future. I still want to stick with Pentax.

It's probably a failed flash storage capacitor. It's a highly stressed component and a certain small percentage will fail, especially if cheap components are used.

Seems not uncommon with any Pentax DSLR models. Just have it repaired will do.
--
Alan Chan
http://www.pbase.com/wlachan

yes I did. but I assumed it was because the setting was "allow shooting while charging". Which of course is what I want as a default. I asume also that if I say "dont allow shooting while charging" will stop the shutter from working. I will check when I get my camera back from hospital. They may have fixed that at the same time as my "dropping the camera" damage.

'Love' is God.

Searching through the forum about this exact problem. I think I'm having the same problem. Sucks because this is the third k100d that I have had since October!

It would be interesting to see some stats for similarities when the built-in-flash (BIF) of your K100D died.

With my original K100D the BIF failed after taking about 400+ pictures and about 50% of those were using the BIF. The batteries used are rechargeable panasonic NiMh and Firmware is 1.01. I've gotten a replacement K100D since then.

I've only taken about 300+ of pictures with my replacement K100D of those about 25% are with the BIF. Using the same type of rechargeable batteries and firware version as mention above. I'm starting to worry because I'm just about at the same picture counts as my first K100D.

hmm, I'll check how many shots I've taken. But I know I haven't taken that many w/ the flash. I am using rechargeable batteries though. I was taking quite a few shots w/ the flash when it happened.

I started another thread about the problem, the burning smell is very worrying!