# Where to buy focus ring rubber?



## Sean C (Dec 10, 2018)

My Canon 28mm F1.8 focus ring rubber has turned sticky. Where is the best place to order a replacement in the US? I think the part number is ya2-2235-0000.
Do they just roll on or is there an adhesive?


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## Kit Lens Jockey (Dec 10, 2018)

I don't know about the 28 1.8, but I know on many other lenses they just slide on and off with a little effort (no adhesive.)

When I took a lens in for repair at Midwest Camera Repair, they replaced the rubber grip as well for an additional five bucks. My guess is that they would sell you one mail order as well. I think you can find them for a lot of lenses on ebay, but no guarantees that it will be a genuine Canon piece of rubber, if that matters to you. A third party one, if they make them for this lens, will probably have a little bit different feel and/or surface texture.


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## Sean C (Dec 10, 2018)

Thanks. I just used their contact form to ask if they can sell me one.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Dec 11, 2018)

Canon sells them, you can sometimes buy them on ebay, lots of places will get them for you, but you might pay more.

They are basically a big rubber band, you can stretch them to get them off and reverse the process to install a new one.


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## Sean C (Dec 12, 2018)

Awesome. I guess I'll try Canon directly. (or try and find someone else who'll sell me just the ring)

Midwest wants me to send the lens back for them to put it on for $130. I'd rather buy and install it, it's just a fancy rubber band. I don't blame Midwest for having a minimum price for handling it, but I don't need that much hand holding...


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Dec 13, 2018)

Sean C said:


> Awesome. I guess I'll try Canon directly. (or try and find someone else who'll sell me just the ring)
> 
> Midwest wants me to send the lens back for them to put it on for $130. I'd rather buy and install it, it's just a fancy rubber band. I don't blame Midwest for having a minimum price for handling it, but I don't need that much hand holding...


Lots of people do it themselves, its easy and just takes a minute. I've removed and reinstalled the bands many times when I needed to open up a lens to clean it. My Sigma 600mm mirror lens has a band about 4 inches wide, that takes more time and effort to get on and off.


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## Sean C (Dec 18, 2018)

The Canon parts department at 866-481-2569 took my order for $26 and change shipped. Yay!
Lensauthority would have sold me one if they'd had happened to have them in stock.


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## Sean C (Dec 29, 2018)

*FYI: For anyone trying this - you have to disassemble part of the lens!*

For this lens, it does NOT take just a minute.
The original ring was rubber coated hard plastic. This coating has turned sticky. The new replacement omits the coating (yay!).
It might be that it could be removed if you could use a cleaner that doesn't get in the lens, or if you pull the ring and clean it separately to be safe.

Replacing it required removing the lens mount and circuit board, 3 flat flex connectors from to get those out, then the middle lens barrel section. The optics section didn't need to be touched. There is a small metal ring that needs to be moved to the new focus ring. You'll need a couple of small screw drivers and tweezers to get the job done. It takes about 45 minutes if you're slow and keep referring to the one youtube video on the lens. Delicate but not hard work. I spent the most time searching through my small Phillips(- and like) screw drivers to find good matches as the screws are small but firmly seated and I didn't want to strip any. I suspect at least the mount screws may be one of the cross type heads that aren't actually phillips, but I had a driver in my collection that exactly matched.


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## TommyLee (Dec 29, 2018)

Sean C said:


> My Canon 28mm F1.8 focus ring rubber has turned sticky. Where is the best place to order a replacement in the US? I think the part number is ya2-2235-0000.
> Do they just roll on or is there an adhesive?




I did my 85L II..

bought directly from canon..
it was about $15...I forget the price

if you have part number..talk to a person.
they were very nice and helpful..

someone posted the part number but I also looked it up somewhere..
haha.. I am not febble minded.. just cant remember the details

the 85L had rubber already part of a shell that came off with 3 / 4 screws..
clever part replacement...took 5 mins total and a small phillips..

I sold the lens later but it looked new..

not sure if yours is similar..
plastic shell with rubber glued on...

call canon first maybe?

good luck

TommyLee


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Dec 30, 2018)

Sean C said:


> *FYI: For anyone trying this - you have to disassemble part of the lens!*
> 
> For this lens, it does NOT take just a minute.
> The original ring was rubber coated hard plastic. This coating has turned sticky. The new replacement omits the coating (yay!).
> ...



There are indeed a few that have a coated ring rather than a band. Fortunately only a few.


All the screw heads in Camera lenses that look like Phillips are JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard). Don't use Phillips drivers, they are designed to cam out, and can ruin the heads of hard to remove screws. JIS drivers do not cam out. Good ones are a bit expensive, but nothing like the cost of dealing with a screw that can't be removed because the head is ruined. 

https://www.amazon.com/Moody-Tools-...=screwdriver+jis&refinements=p_89:Moody+Tools


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## Sean C (Dec 31, 2018)

Yep, that sounds right. I searched through my pile of small screw drivers that came in kits until I found one that matched exactly once I saw it wasn't a phillips match.

TommyLee - Yes, the folks at Canon were very helpful. The fiddly bit with the 28mm was the limited access to the flat flex electrical connectors. The lens mount is in the way when you remove and replace them, so much so that you need tweezers for one.


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## Sean C (Jan 22, 2019)

Two other lenses have developed the same problem, a 28-135mm and a 70-300 IS. Like the 28mm they have a hard plastic focus ring with a rubber coating. That coating turns to goo.
I found that Krud Cutter cuts the goo wonderfully. Spray some in a bottle cap then use q-tips and you can clean the goo off if you're very careful and take your time. Keep wiping off with a paper towel, and change the q-tips often as they'll load up with rubber goo fast.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jan 22, 2019)

Sean C said:


> Two other lenses have developed the same problem, a 28-135mm and a 70-300 IS. Like the 28mm they have a hard plastic focus ring with a rubber coating. That coating turns to goo.
> I found that Krud Cutter cuts the goo wonderfully. Spray some in a bottle cap then use q-tips and you can clean the goo off if you're very careful and take your time. Keep wiping off with a paper towel, and change the q-tips often as they'll load up with rubber goo fast.


That happens occasionally to users, but on 3 lenses?? Something is happening, are you cleaning your lenses with something, or perhaps they are near a chemical. It sounds like there is a issue of something softening the rubber involved. They are older lenses, so there may have been something at low concentration working on them for years. Don't apply any chemicals to the lens that disolves the rubber, it may get inside the lens and dissolve other plastics like wire insulation. I hope not. Tale the ring off and clean it away from the lens, If I were not replacing the ring, I'd consider wrapping it with self adhering silicone tape. No adhesive is involved. I've used it when the 12 or so rubber grips on my Benro tripod all suddenly fell off and they claimed that there were no replacements. It does not provide the same grip, but it does work and has a wide temperature range.

It is used to cover electrical splices on fueled aircraft where heat shrink is too dangerous due to a potential fire.

https://www.amazon.com/X-Treme-Tape...lf+fusing+silicone+tape&qid=1548181031&sr=8-3


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## Sean C (Jan 23, 2019)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> That happens occasionally to users, but on 3 lenses?? Something is happening, are you cleaning your lenses with something, or perhaps they are near a chemical. It sounds like there is a issue of something softening the rubber involved. They are older lenses, so there may have been something at low concentration working on them for years. Don't apply any chemicals to the lens that disolves the rubber, it may get inside the lens and dissolve other plastics like wire insulation. I hope not. Tale the ring off and clean it away from the lens, If I were not replacing the ring, I'd consider wrapping it with self adhering silicone tape. No adhesive is involved. I've used it when the 12 or so rubber grips on my Benro tripod all suddenly fell off and they claimed that there were no replacements. It does not provide the same grip, but it does work and has a wide temperature range.
> 
> It is used to cover electrical splices on fueled aircraft where heat shrink is too dangerous due to a potential fire.
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/X-Treme-Tape...lf+fusing+silicone+tape&qid=1548181031&sr=8-3



That is neat tape! I'd been given some before but without a label and didn't know what to order to get more, so yay! Regular electrical tape turns to goo but this stuff is wonderful.

But for this sticky coating problem, I do know a bit about what goes on.
First to allay your concerns: These lenses have always been stored in air conditioning, and have never needed cleaning by anything but eclipse fluid on the lens elements. The 28mm and 70-300mm have been used in very different condition, and with the 70-300mm seen little use since I got a 70-200mm f2.8. Now that I think about it, they've all been on hot Orlando vacations but weren't left in hot cars. (heat probably is a factor in the time to goo)

Taking the ring out to clean it isn't a bad idea, so point taken. I decided to chance it with the 28-135 both because it's obsolete and not too valuable anymore and because I've used this cleaner on plastic extensively without trouble. I use it at my day job to clean dirty computer electronic equipment, and have only seen it be dangerous to painted labels. But - that's not a lens with lens coatings etc. If the 70-300m came apart as easily as the 28mm I might have taken it apart to be sure, but slow work with q-tips worked well and the other lens cleaning went fine. Taking the ring out would be safer, but there is some risk is disassembly too. (for those following along - remember you must have JIS not phillips screw drivers, and tweezers for the flat flex)

The consistent thing about the lenses is age. The coating on the hard plastic focus ring failed, the rubber band style zoom rings are all fine. Both would have been exposed to the same conditions. The replacement from Canon isn't coated, which made me wonder if they'd stopped using it. I checked though, and the brand new 35mm IS has a coated focus ring so that's not the case.
Outside of this, I've had synthetic rubber fail this way before. Foot pedals on a '92 Taurus SHO, and almost all the interior panels of my '01 Benz SLK was coated in this material and it looked like the car had leprosy after about 5 years. Actually I've got a 1st gen Razer mouse here that did the same thing, and was my test case for the Krud Cutter cleaner. The same thing has happened with other mice that had this kind of coating. (it's nice at first though)
A PHD polymer chemist explained a little about it. (simplifying for me) He said that in order to get the suppleness, the material isn't really chemically bonded internally. It's flying in formation instead. To make the trick work the purity, exact amounts and precise temperature are all crucial. It stays sticky goo if they're wrong, and turns back to goo if the conditions were close. Lasting for ~15 years would indicate it was almost right, and you'd expect different batches to vary so that'd explain one reason why it's not the same for everyone. I bet the Canon engineers know exactly what's happening and why.

Which is a long winded way to say I think the problem is that the material used in the coating has longevity problems in practice.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jan 24, 2019)

I believe some lenses were recalled due to improper coatings a few years back, the runner was oxidizing to white. It was blamed on a subcontractor who mixed the formulation improperly. Those were the bands. I have lots of old Minolta cameras and lenses that long ago turned white. I used a toothbrush and elbow grease to get the oxidation off. I think its stayed off.


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## Sean C (Feb 28, 2019)

I've seen the white oxidation before too. The ones I was fighting with were all hard plastic with rubber coatings.
Just as an update, the two I cleaned with krud cutter are both doing fine. Zooms looked like they would have been more of a pain to take apart for a replacement/cleaning outside of the lens.


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## Michael Clark (Mar 5, 2019)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> I believe some lenses were recalled due to improper coatings a few years back, the runner was oxidizing to white. It was blamed on a subcontractor who mixed the formulation improperly. Those were the bands. I have lots of old Minolta cameras and lenses that long ago turned white. I used a toothbrush and elbow grease to get the oxidation off. I think its stayed off.



Some of the rubber grips on the Canon EOS Rebel T3i/600D also turned white after exposure to skin oils and sweat. Some users reported being allergic to the rubber used. The Rebel T4i/650D, which was introduced only a few months after the T3i/600D, was not much more than the T3i/600D with updated rubber grips.


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