Hi welcome to a hopefully short teardown of this Sony E-mount lens here. this is from my next 5t camera. I've been having issues with it as you can probably see in there it's got a little bit of sand and crud and all sorts of stuff. I've been actually getting an error message on the screen when it boots up saying it can't actually talk to the lens and of course through the Sony e-mount system here.

and but I don't think that's the problem because it feels, trust me, this is not feel a vision but that feels pretty crusty I think it's I've been to the beach one too many times and been to one too many canyons and other things and it's just yeah I think it's stuck and that's what's causing the error message. so I thought we'd actually yeah, tear apart one of these things and have a look inside I don't think I might would bother Moloko probably maybe clean it out and lube it up perhaps and put it back into condition but these things are a reasonably cheap and um so yeah. I'm not sure if I'd I'd bother. It's not spectacular lens by the way, but it is very like in terms of performance.

but it is a very compact and when you mount it on the Sony Nex-5 T camera it you know it really is a nice little package. and I've shot quite a few field videos using that camera you've seen on the blog using this lens so it really is a quite a jazzy little thing. So yeah it's got a it's got power and comms of course to talk to the camera and it's multi element and all that sort of jazz. but I've never taken apart a lens before so I thought it might be interesting I know you lens aficionados out there know exactly what's inside these things.

but I have never taken one apart so there's four screws and well I'm going to give it a go. not sure how easy it does I extend out of course and that's the thing that gets jammed. So I believe it actually gets jammed up because there's sand and all sorts of crud in there and and then it throws up an error message. It says it can't talk to the lens rather than you know it, lens jam or something.

but I have been able to like pull it back out manually while the powers on and it you know and get it to work occasionally. But yeah, I've had now one too many times where I've taken this somewhere and it just simply refuses to work. So yes, it's I've lost all trust in a bit. Anyway, let's take it apart and the lens we're looking at is the cell P 1650.

It's like the kit lens which comes with a lot of art nex-5 T and other model cameras with the email. so not exactly sure what the pinout in interface is here I haven't looked, but I might have a quick google on that before when I edit this thing and I'll put it up at some sort of, you know, maybe I squid see serial interface or something. It's just got a you know it doesn't have to transfer a lot of data so just be some interface like that. or maybe a spy bus or something perhaps.

but not sure how easily these come apart or how they repel repairable they are I Guess you know you wouldn't bother repairing this lens. You can get these pretty cheap, but you know more expensive lenses you can get. them are serviced and that sort of jazz. I believe So it's time.

Oh, we're in like Flynn We're in like Flynn look at Oh straight in Beauty. So let's take a look at some stuff here. We've got a flat flex for the E-mount Pogo pins in there. Well, no, they're not pogo pins there.

Yeah, pogo pins on the camera, but little contacts on there so that's going to flat flex. going over to the board here. we've got two large flat flex, large pin count flat flex headed off here. so I'm not sure what that's what.

that's obviously going to all the other sensors and mate there. Any further motors in there or as they're only the one motor on the top here. Anyway, let's have a look. Um, don't know what that puppy is offhand.

I'll have to look that up, could be some sort of custom job. This thing is interesting. This little ceramic package here I'm not sure what that's doing. Ah, it's not me.

and I First thought: oh, it's an oscillator. but no, no, there's our oscillator down in there. But that's interesting. Let's take a look at the oscillator.

Okay, can someone please explain to me why we need a 54 megahertz oscillator in here? It's a bloody lens. What does it? how to do? Just controls the elements in a deal. Its lowers a wet week at that. So what The 54? Meg cheese? and I Google that number on the top and I get a renesis part.

So yeah, Renesis Micro. Something like that. You know, renumber something peculiar I made in Japan Of course renesis stuff is made in Japan so that makes sense. So yes, some sort of probably Joe Bloggs Renesis Micro can see some more screws around here.

so I think this is going to actually come out in several modules that should come out quite nicely. But anyway, here's the first of our motor here, which looks like it maybe drives this cog around here. Of course, the whole thing. as I said, the whole thing extends out so there's going to be some sort of like a worm.

you know, a small counter worm drive on the inner mechanism in there, which are for want of a better term I Don't know my lens terminology and things like that so after please forgive me. But yeah, anyway, there's probably another - another motor in there somewhere? perhaps? Anyway, we'll find out and you can clearly see the pinout on here. These two thick traces here. obviously the power I don't know what is it? 5 volts or 3.3 or something like that I going over and then the rest are just signal wise I got the board out.

there's another chipping on that so I will have a squiz at that and we can see the flat flex here. That big multi trace one with that I don't know account the number of traces on that puppy in HD if you want. and that's just stuff that folds back under like that really is quite complicated. They've gone to a lot of effort so it might be going.

They might be splitting that off into multiple lengths and levels, going down into different part on different sensors, down in different parts of the lenses. The lens f50 to 108 I have no idea what that puppy is. Maybe another micro perhaps why they need -. I'm a bit surprised to find two large BGA devices in here.

Anyway, that one's me running a much more sensible 12 megahertz, but still. Jeez, what does this thing have to do? And there's that motor assembly. It's got a cog on the bottom of there, so some sort of reduction drive gearing there, and then that obviously goes down into there and it drives our ring. And just as I was wondering how this all comes out, it sort of slid out on its own.

like that. You can see these guides in there like that there's one there, there's one down there and there's one down there as well and but it doesn't pop out any further than that. That's it. So not sure what the go is.

Ah, okay, what I'm gonna do is probe its ass. Here we go. this little motor in here. I'm do I've just put in a can, two screws back in there just to hold that the whole thing from sliding in place and I'm just going to because the board's out, we can apply voltage to the motor I have no idea about the polarity of no idea what it's going to do I presume it's going to try and move the whole thing out.

extend the lens so let's give it a go. Um I'm assuming like three volts is going to be like 100 voltage motor. So I've got yeah I got about three volts set on the supply so let's give it a bill and see what she does. Here we go.

Oh there we go. Yeah look hey whoa whoo Yay! let's go back. there we go. Wow Terrific.

Now you saw there how it was like a multi-step thing. You know this starts extending out, then the other, then the inner one comes back and at all. That's how they get the real complex. the compact lens configuration like this.

Oh, there we go. Super quick. Okay I haven't put all the screws back in I Think it's a bit loosey-goosey but you can see how it certainly extends that whole lot. It's really interesting because I didn't this outer part here? I didn't actually see any worm driving the outer plastic this part here.

I Mean obviously there's nothing in here because otherwise you'd be able to see it. so it's obviously doing that from the inside. some sort of inner ring in there which is doing the business that pulls that one in and out because there's nothing on the surface of this and there's nothing on the inner surface of this one here. to actually drive this site must be coming from this center part.

the center part down in the lense here. and yep, I can really see it and feel it here. Now when I try and move this back into place like this to line up these screw holes here, pull that out and that just spins around like that. So Wow Fascinating.

Imagine designing this thing. Absolutely incredible amount of engineering has gone into making these. sort of. Well, they're not pancake lenses, but very narrow compact lenses like that.

I'm sure it's order of magnitude more difficult to make these that sort of fold in on themselves rather than just you know, your more traditional lens which just goes from one stop to the you know, one end stop to the next. I Think now. it's getting to the point where if you don't know the exact disassembly procedure for this or assembly procedure which you could reverse, then you could come a gutter here real easy. it's getting.

It's getting quite tricky real fast anyway. I don't consider this I'm not. you know, fast if I actually can't get this back together. So yep, it says it might be a sacrificial tear down and yeah, recommend you don't go playing around with that motor because I've had to put it back in the fully retracted position that internal barrel there before.

I Now take the screws back out and drop it back out and figure out how to separate the two. So from what I can see, as I said before, there's three of these guides down here in this needs to be little Clips or you know, like sort of pins or something holding those in. So I've got to somehow get those out and maybe you just like lift, get under here and lift or something like that. perhaps? let me try that.

Oh yeah, there you go. I got one of them out. Yep, there we go. I Think that's the trick.

You just have to get them out. Maybe mm, maybe not one to tie, maybe all three at once. I Need multiple hands? Tada? that's easy once you know how? Yeah and you missed it. but I I Just operated the motor and oops, it's come apart.

but that's obviously how it does it. See, there you go. there's the internal. as I suspected they'd be something like a not a worm drive, but there's actually a complicated arrangement and that actually is what does the multiple you know, zooming and compacting of the lens.

so that's really quite fascinating. But yeah, if the motor went really quick and it just accelerated and went pop and came off whoa. Now yeah, it's coming off in multiple parts. Now you've got multiple stages here.

Very very interesting. As you saw, there's nothing on the inside of that barrel. it's just, you know, really an outer retaining clip which just holds the back here. And this is the this is the whole part which extends out.

Okay, so we have there we go. There's the the front lens so it's just a fixed. It's just a fixed lens. doesn't do anything at all.

Looks like a fair bit of glass in there actually looks pretty thick. Um, that's it's hard to see on the camera and it's hard to get a feel for it unless you've got as you're looking at it in 3d like I am. But yeah, that's a thick bit of glass and then this is behind it. So here's the next part.

You can see little motor in there so it draws that inner What? There's the inner play. There's the inner part. We're really coming apart Now there we go. Look at that and this is as we saw before as I suspected, it looks like this is the one.

a piece of flat flex. Which then that's why they had so many connections on it because it went to multiple levels of the lens as I expected see. So it went, goes through there and then pops out the other side here. So this is why this one had so many connections on it.

Counter is because they snake their way off and this is why this one has to be bent. Of course, because it's compliant. So when the lens zooms, lens zooms in and out and so it's got to break off to motor down in here. So there's motor at the top which dries the whole lot.

Looks like there's a second one is there down in there. It's a second one down in there. Yep, Oh, is second something down in there? There's definitely a third. Looks like a third motor over on that side there.

So Wow complicate a beast. Unbelievable multistage mechanism. Out you design this. Wow Hats off to the designers Really, that is awesome.

Actually, it wasn't a hundred percent correct on the flat flex going all the way with LBJ There it so you can see that this rotate. This inner barrel here rotates alright. so that one rotates a little bit. We can see there's another flood flex connector down in there, so that so the one that comes from the top board actually comes down here and just terminates to another board down in here.

I Guess that makes sense because this is going to be a whole assembly. You know Mentum is going to be a whole manufacturing step just for this first or second lens assembly here. So, but that can obviously travel back and forth in there. Hmm.

and I Had completely forgotten that this lens actually has image stabilization. So of course here we go look Here it is. We can see this mountain here. This is the Sony steady shot and this is what this flat flex goes over here for.

So there's no at what that tiny little vibe Motors there and there which drives the XY plane on that lens there. There we go like at high frequency. so that's that's what all the processing is doing. That's why they need all the Grannie processor of course.

I didn't realize they're doing that in the lens. They're not doing that in the the main processor in the camera. That image stabilization must be happening in the lens. they are.

You know, the actual processing of it and the correction. This is all high frequency. This, You know, these things operate at Kilohertz or something like that. They're You know, they're really quite quite high frequency in terms of you know, being able to position this lens so you know at least hundreds of Hertz and I'd Love to be able to demo that.

But yeah, like hooking all into there and you know you'd really actually have to. You know, power the entire lens up really in its you know, disassembled state like this and and plug it into the you know the in front of the camera and everything else and actually have it and have it actually control that cuz I don't think it's enough just to apply power to the thing Anyway, that's fun. Do that. Okay so now we can see the lens system in order.

We have our front lens here which is just a fixed thick bit of glass and then that goes into another fixed one here. and then on the back of that we have the Sony SteadyShot lens that actually corrects for stabilization and then up under here the output of that you can see it fall away. Hang on. If? Yep.

I Can't push it back, but hang on and let it fall under gravity and you can see that it's all the way out here. Here you go, it's all the way out and what should drop in? Watch it drop in, watch it drop. There we go. It drops in and there is the there is the magnet in there that it slides a lot and then finally on the backside of that is the final fixed-lens and that's the last one and that's the one that focuses on the Aps-c size sensor inside the camera so that there is a real interesting slider arrangement.

Look at that that really is quite neat. like a linear slider so that that is not a motor. as such. They're going to position that based on that permanent magnet right in there.

and there it is. You can see it as the magnet down in there. that's obviously the drive and it looks like they have some sort of positional sense of feedback in there to know exactly where it is. That's interesting now.

I was a little bit medieval before driving that up main lens zoom motor. just you know. whacking it up to the 3.3 volts power supply. That was a bit rude.

So I've now got a 1 Hertz sine wave coming from my function Jen and I'm going to what probe the motor on this thing, see if it does anything. Let's have a go once again. I Have no idea what this is going to do? Hang on. I'm presuming it's the motor, so let's give it a bill.

Alright, here we go. Got it set to 2 Hertz Let's give this a go. Sorry, it's tricky to get these bloody probes on it. Here we go.

It's 2 volts RMS at 2 Hertz sine wave and you can see it just oscillate in there. Nice. There you go. You can really see the coil in there on top of this fixed permanent magnet so you can see that the coil can go Woohoo! Do that.

That's fun. So yeah, they've obviously got coil inside there like that. Moldy turns. You know what is it? They're like I don't know.

20 30 turns on there or something and that is good enough to actually position this thing across there. Oh and I forgot to show you. In addition to the zoom guide mechanism out here, you can see how it sort of. You know the pin in that can go in there and then ride that slot so you can see how can go back and then forward and then back again have that particular pattern? Well there's also one on the inside here as well just to allow.

Yep, there we go. It just rotates that. There's a little on the inner side right in there in the ring. There's a little similar sort of, but not as complex guide as that one.

You should be able to see that snake in its way around in there and that has a guide pin on it on the top there. so that goes into there like hang on, where does it go into it goes into the going to. That's like yeah, it goes into that slot and then rotates in like that. Beautiful.

and here it is all assembled back on the camera. Well kinda. I've attached. had to screw the ring back in there so I could get some rotational force to actually lock it into the metal clamping ring, the E-mount ring around the outside there.

and I'm going to falsely pair it up. Unfortunately, out, like the control here on the outer ring is not hooked up so I'm hoping so that's the encoder for there. plus that ring. I'm hoping that that's not needed and it will actually do something when it powers up.

But yeah, I don't know. Will we see the lens? The optical steadyshot thing work. Will we see this? come? In and out? I Don't know. Let's pair it up.

Alright, here we go. Let's get in here. and here we go. We're doing inked.

Yep, there we go. Hey, it's rotating up. That's great and it's more difficult to move that lens. Now it's more.

do I probably shouldn't because I'd be probably back feeding the motor drive, but that is really quiet. That's really quite stiff now so you know I can still move it, but it's not loosey-goosey like it was before. It's definitely energized up. You can see that there's actually no error there, so that's it's.

really quite good. Of course, there's nothing coming through the through the lens unless I stick my finger in there and block out some light. but don't again, stick my finger right in and touch the sensor. Of course that would be really, really bad, but that lets you see the oil the iris in there as well.

Sorry I miss that. There's our iris motor there. it is, so that's driving the iris inside there. Let's see if we get a close-up of the iris.

Okay, you can see the iris changing there. Maybe if I stick my finger in front I don't know where it's doing the metering for that, but let's pair it. Let's maybe take a photo There We go there. We go push the shutter button down and can see the iris blade moving in there.

There we go. This took a photo, try and show you that iris up. close. There we go.

Press the shutter button, comes in a little bit. Let me block out some more or allow some more light in. Sorry. There we go.

I'm tilting. What I'm doing is tilting the camera up to the lights here. so it's getting more light coming in and you can really see that. How many blades is that iris? There you go and I tilt the camera back down or put my hand in front of it.

Cover it a bit and there you go. Iris goes wider and watch this. I can actually show you the steady shot system working. What I'm doing now is I'm actually recording a video.

Okay, so it's live. It doesn't work if I don't record a video. So of course as I as I showed, the sensory is actually on the top board here I believe. So let's actually watch this mechanism down here if I shake it like that.

It does nothing Okay because there's no accelerometer in there. But oh look I just have to start wobbling. the camera wobble in the camera a little bit and and look I'll actually pick it up and start shaking it around and there you go. You can see the steady shot.

That's great. You can see it a wobble. Here you go I'll get closer Wow and that's not vibration coming through the desk or anything like that. I've got it off the desk that is that is the drives doing that and I move it slowly around.

That's the steady shot system at work. Good stuff. Look, you can see the you can see the travel on these little guides guides in here. look at that.

There we go. Wow Oh that's great to play with this all day. So there you go I Hope you enjoyed that tear down of this Sony lens and it really is quite amazing engineering that goes into these things. I Wow You know my hats off to the designers of this thing.

I'd Love to know the design team behind just a lens like this because you've got to have the optical people figuring out You know the the irises and the lenses you know gotta have the lens people. You've got to have that people who are figuring out the you know the correct focal lengths and all their you know just grind in the glass and getting all that right is an art in itself let alone getting all the zoom drive mechanism across the top here and inside all you can see it. move. There we go.

It moved, it moved. Whoo Still alive. It's alive. And the IRS and just everything else that goes into of course the optical steadyshot system.

As you know, Absolutely amazing technology in itself. So if you like the video, please give it a big thumbs up and all that sort of jazz. And if you want to discuss it or comments down below eevblog form all that sort of stuff. Thank you to my Patreon supporters.

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