In article ,
Amanda Riphnykhazova wrote:

Thanks Isaac for that very full reply. It seems possible to buy these cameras
for parts very inexpensively on ebay at the moment and with August
approaching, prices will go even lower. How difficult is it to switch out the
whole lens assembly mechanism itself like Nikon would do if they did the
repair?

I don't know about Nikons. The Panasonics I've opened up have been
excellently engineered, with clever assembly needing nearly no screws,
plus connectors everywhere so no soldering is necessary. I've opened one
each HP and Olympus, and they were both POS messes of spaghetti wiring
inside. Everything was connected with flying wires (no cables, flat or
otherwise) and screws everywhere -- except for where pairs of boards
were actually soldered together. Impossible to work on, nearly, and if
you tried, you'd have to make a complete record as you took it apart, to
be reasonably sure of getting all the wires properly connected again.

On the Panasonics, the complete lens assembly is attached with three or
four screws, and two flat cables connect everything up. It's a drop-in;
no alignment is necessary.

Isaac