K3 Needs CLA - Looking For European Technician

[Willem Jansen]

My K3 needs a CLA and due to costs, would like to sent it to a tech in Europe. I've messaged Du-All Camera as a plan B.

I don't shy away from doing this myself if it appears to be a rather easy thing to do. Although I'm not experienced whatsoever.

In that case: What kind of oil do I need and what should I look out for?

 

Thanks! (and sincere apologies if this has been posted before..)

[Dom Jaeger]

What's wrong with it that makes you think it needs a service? 

If you just want to add some lubrication, clock oil or even sewing machine oil will do. Put a drop or two on the bearings where a shaft rotates. Don't oil gears, use a light grease or leave them dry. 

I don't think a K3 is worth paying for a professional overhaul by Du-All, particularly if you're in Europe.

I was talking to the owner of a local scanning house recently and he told me nearly all the K3 footage he gets has issues of some sort, particularly the S16 ones. 

[John Rizzo]

Maksim Karpenko  has modifications for K3 s  

https://www.facebook.com/k3super16

 

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[Aapo Lettinen]

19 minutes ago, John Rizzo said:

Maksim Karpenko  has modifications for K3 s  

https://www.facebook.com/k3super16

 

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Shipping and payment to Russia would be a nightmare to arrange and takes very long so would not bother unless you want both s16 mod and pl mount mod at the same time.

Shipments go via middlemen in 3rd countries like UAE and Kazakhstan and payment similar way to cheat the sanctions. Some of my friends have shipped k3 back and forth and I think it takes typically approx 3 weeks to 1 month to get it to Russia and from 1 to 3 months for return shipping. That is just the shipping time. The cla and mod work time on top of that. I don't think it is worth it to smuggle these cheap camera bodies to Russia and back for great effort just to get a simple cla done

[Willem Jansen]

8 hours ago, Dom Jaeger said:

What's wrong with it that makes you think it needs a service? 

If you just want to add some lubrication, clock oil or even sewing machine oil will do. Put a drop or two on the bearings where a shaft rotates. Don't oil gears, use a light grease or leave them dry. 

I don't think a K3 is worth paying for a professional overhaul by Du-All, particularly if you're in Europe.

I was talking to the owner of a local scanning house recently and he told me nearly all the K3 footage he gets has issues of some sort, particularly the S16 ones. 

Honestly, I’d imagine it could use a CLA after 6 years. I’ve used it a couple of times and other than that put dummy rolls through it. I know it’s not a completely stable camera, but it stutters once or twice when rolling the camera (maybe they all do that and it’s normal?)

I just thought these are signs it needs a CLA.

[Aapo Lettinen]

2 hours ago, Willem Jansen said:

Honestly, I’d imagine it could use a CLA after 6 years. I’ve used it a couple of times and other than that put dummy rolls through it. I know it’s not a completely stable camera, but it stutters once or twice when rolling the camera (maybe they all do that and it’s normal?)

I just thought these are signs it needs a CLA.

Can you post a video with good sound, running the camera for the full lenght of the spring? It might be possible to guess from the sound what might be wrong with it

[Willem Jansen]

2 hours ago, Aapo Lettinen said:

Can you post a video with good sound, running the camera for the full lenght of the spring? It might be possible to guess from the sound what might be wrong with it

Here's the link to the video:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AeDhkF7hvAbEsp095vABvyxDul_jFNX1/view?usp=sharing

The "thing" happens at the 00:03 mark.

[Dom Jaeger]

13 hours ago, John Rizzo said:

Maksim Karpenko  has modifications for K3 s  

https://www.facebook.com/k3super16

 

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End-to-end encrypted

 

 

 

Apart from the fact that there are numerous complaints about this guy from people who paid and never received a camera, if you do manage to get one the actual conversions are not very good. I was talking recently to the owner of a local scanning house and he told me 90% of the Max K3 footage he scans has issues. 

[Gautam Valluri]

Here's a list of technicians on the FIlmlabs.org website. No one specifically does CLA for K3s but it might be worth checking with them:

https://www.filmlabs.org/technical-section/providers/where-to-have-film-cameras-repaired/

[John Russell Schmidt]

Willem did you ever find a place for this k3?

 

[Aristeidis Tyropolis]

On 5/16/2025 at 12:26 AM, Dom Jaeger said:

Apart from the fact that there are numerous complaints about this guy from people who paid and never received a camera, if you do manage to get one the actual conversions are not very good. I was talking recently to the owner of a local scanning house and he told me 90% of the Max K3 footage he scans has issues. 

I don't think anyone should support any kind of business that one has absolutely no way to reach out, other than facebook and no phone number, email etc.

From what I have seen his work is way overpriced and + the reputation you mentioned Dom + the scratches are even known to reddit.

I had similar issues with the flange focal distance with my K3 from another "seller" but that was ebay and I got protection from that event. I am quite biased with the quality and approach that Aapo did with my camera in the best possible way, and FFD was fixed of course + the motor modification, CLA -  but at the same time I feel many of the members that offer services here follow similar standards like you Dom and Tyler and others.

We should support that model.

Edited July 29 by Aristeidis Tyropolis

[Ross Yeandle]

We are UK based and do K3 CLA and or repairs with film run checks

Contact us on www.shotonfilm.co.uk

[Aapo Lettinen]

On 5/13/2025 at 11:59 PM, Willem Jansen said:

My K3 needs a CLA and due to costs, would like to sent it to a tech in Europe. I've messaged Du-All Camera as a plan B.

I don't shy away from doing this myself if it appears to be a rather easy thing to do. Although I'm not experienced whatsoever.

In that case: What kind of oil do I need and what should I look out for?

 

Thanks! (and sincere apologies if this has been posted before..)

If you happen to need a crystal motor for your camera and it would be installed here, one would get some basic overhaul/cla for the installation price. The camera needs to be fully disassembled for the installation anyway so I am just checking and managing the gears and bearings exposed during the installation to make it run smoothly for testing.  If there is loop guides you want to be taken off I can do it at the same time, takes couple of minutes and makes testing the crystal mod easier so included in price too.

Next available times are in November though so it will take time and if you like to use the camera with clockwork mechanism then keep it just as is, you will lose the spring capability if the motor is installed. It is possible to buy readily converted K3's as I have an extra one at the moment.

Normally the motors are black or dark grey. Just an example of how they look like when attached to the camera. All models have 6 crystal speeds or more and one can typically shoot at least two shooting days with a 50Wh mini-vlock battery on typical indie productions.

It is not overly complicated to DIY open a K3 for CLA. The main thing is that you have to be comfortable doing it by yourself and take the small risk. If you fear breaking your camera it is difficult to service it...  I treat K3's as expendables as they are affordable cameras and I have other ones so if accidentally breaking something I just take similar replacement part from one of my own cameras and problem solved. If you are interested in doing diy cla then I would encourage trying it without fear, in 99% cases it will work fine and if having bad luck then you can get replacement parts cheaply so would not consider it a risk at all