Hi, Jacob. Still around here?
I have some good news for you, Maybe:
There's a Danish company coming out with a great new revolutionary motor for the K-3, but unfortunately, I don't have the link here in the office, and I'm blocked from going to a site where I can find it for you right now.
It's around $500, a very simple installation, and not only pretty lightweight, but also thin.
Basically, what happens is you get it from the factory preset at 24fps or 25fps, but if you want to change it to a funky speed, you connect a USB cable to it (yes, it has USB) and you go the company's web site to have their magical computer upload the magical setting to make the change. Yeah, this might seem like a bit of a negative, but how often do you shoot at the weird settings anyway?
There are some other great pluses to it, like the size and kind of the rechargeable batteries which are available everywhere. Forget if it's lithium or NiMH, but it's a standard.
I have a K-3 too, and will probably make the jump as a Christmas gift to myself. The company just started shipping out prototype units to some guinea pigs, but it's a matter of any day now when they'll be available.
They basically saw a need for something like this because there are so many thousands of K3s still out there, and the alternatives have been ridiculously large and impractical. Plus, the major one has been discontinued.
When I get home tonight I'll TRY to remember to post the link, but if you want to remind me at
thefloridafunnies@yahoo.com, feel free to do so.
The only thing I'm unsure of is NOISE. It's very possible that even with a motor, the gears still make the same noise, making it difficult to do sound unless you get real creative. This has been the case with past motors.
