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As long as I've owned my Master Series sled, two things have stuck out at me as being sore spots. Lack of modularity/self serviceability: Like most of us, I enjoy tinkering around inside my rig - adding, subtracting or repairing parts here and there. The Master Series sled was never designed to allow for someone to easily get inside and perform such tasks. Honestly, I never knew how easy it could be until one day, remembered clearly, I stopped by Alec J's place. He had a slight problem with his donkey box on his PRO/XCS/Jerry Hill rig. I watched aghast as, in under 60 seconds and with a single allen key, the donkey box was separated from the sled and sitting on his desk, easily displayed for servicing. Alec thought nothing of it until he saw the look on my face, and after a couple seconds of thought replied, "Oh yeah... you've got a Master rig." 90 seconds later, and I'm sure it was just to show off, he was holding his gimble in his hand spinning it like someone spins a basketball on their finger. We both stared at it hypnotically - him proud, me suicidal. Top stage: Flex. Lots of it. For 90% of my operating this was not an issue. The remaining 10%, however, that involved either a long lens or any sort of a run, those bastard micro-vibrations would show up. It was just a matter of design of the old Master stage, unfortunately. Combine those two sore spots together, and I was left with a bad top stage for which no remedy existed. A more modular rig with a part that just wasn't performing well, one could easily just order away for a replacement or an upgrade and swap it out themselves. In fact, my original top stage was the thumb screw/slide-in version which was just unacceptable, so I had to send the entire sled to LA to be upgraded to the better latch/drop-in version. Frustrating to spend all that money on shipping for just one small part. The stage was better, but still had more flex than I like. With no more upgrade options, really the only next step was to sell the entire sled and buy a new one - a prohibitively expensive option. Last summer on the forum a great deal came along for a used Donkey Box III, and I snatched it up knowing it was the stage I eventually wanted, but not knowing what sled would go under it. I'd either find a way to mount it on mine, or keep it around for the day when I finally do upgrade the whole thing. Long story short, it's now mounted atop my Master rig. It works great. It has the rigidity we need. And the best part is it was done with the absolute minimal modification to the sled itself. What this means is when it does come time for me to upgrade, if I choose I can easily put the old stage back on, and sell it as a complete Master sled, keeping the DBox for my new rig. I designed a junction box that would both house the connectors I need (same as my Master sled except for the size 2, 2pin LEMO on the back for isolated 12V which I've never ever needed), along with having a way to securely mate the DBox to the post. The only modification I had to do to the original sled was cut all the wires that run up the post. I reconnected them to the connectors in the new junction box. I bought cable mounted M & F LEMO connectors with the thought of adding them to the post wires, making for a simple attach/detach situation similar to the PRO and XCS posts currently, however, I didn't end up installing it for simplicity's sake. I also wanted to test everything out with as few variables in the equation as possible, and once it was actually working, I thought I'd just leave it alone. If I ever do have to open it back up, I'll likely then install the LEMO. So 7 months and counting and all is running swimmingly. One small down side is with the new junction box, stage, and an XCS plate, the cameras typically sit higher than they used to, forcing me to fly a slightly longer sled than before. I plan to buy a few of the low profile PRO plates to solve this. You can see it's still un-anodized. Again, I just wanted to test it first, before finishing it, and once it was up and running, I was happy. I thought I'd let my fellow Master Rig owners know that I do have 4 more of these boxes available (I had a run of 5 done). If anyone else is frustrated like I was and can get your hands on a Donkey Box, I'd happily help you upgrade. Just let me know. Best to all, Afton

Hi @Alex Foerderer I found a wrong sentence on a post about a sale announcement where you connect SmartSystem company to Easysteady one. I'd like to point out that the two companies have no connection between them and that SmartSystem cannot offer warranty or repair service for easysteady products (in case they need to be checked). Thank you so much