DIY Repair for XL1 16x lens?
 

Has anyone made a tear-down of a 16x auto-lens? I can't afford to replace the one we dropped, and the repair place wants $900 to fix it.

I'm willing to take my chances and fix it myself. ANy DIY repair tutorials on this yet?

Problem I have, the lens cannot auto-focus -- the manual servos work fine, but there's a chromatic shift -- we can see a prism effect when bright, reflective objects are in frame. The glass probably just got jarred loose a bit. We can live without AF.

Just replace the lens; it's not worth a $900 repair. You can easily find a replacement for less than that. In all honesty I don't think you stand a chance on being able to affect a repair yourself, and I've never heard of anyone doing it on their own. Replacement is your easiest, most affordable option.

If you are getting rainbows, chances are an internal element may be cracked straight across on an outer edge. Chances of being able to replace an individual glass element may be pretty low unless you find another damaged lens to cannabalise.

Do not necessarilty be discouraged from attempting it yourself if you can afford to lose the use of the lens you now have but don't expect success. It is most likely you will compound any damage with your attempts which among other things, may introduce dust and the odd fingerprint.

If the guide pin of the travelling group which affects focus has jumped its track and jammed, you could be in luck if you can get it back into its groove or slot. You could be out of luck if the sleeve the groove or slot has been machined or cast into has also broken or been bruised out of shape.

If this group has indeed jumped its track, then this would also account for the rainbow effect which should resolve if you get the group back in place and correctly centred again even if the focus remains forever dead.

If you are bent on doing this, you may be able to buy the service manual for the lens and camcorder from Canon's national parts number (after going through some hoops). But this is a job for a competent technician (cool if you are one) and probably will require resetting back focus (an electronic process) once you complete the lens repairs, so you will need a bag of applicable service tools as well.

Keep in mind that lens operation is a complex interaction with controllers in the camcorder body, that is where the auto focus sensing takes place, and where back focus settings are stored.