PRO Center Post Collapsing

[Afton Grant]

I could swear I read in a PRO manual at one point, if you're having trouble collapsing your center post you can detach the junction box and give the post cable a twist to alleviate any conflict between the post itself and the cable inside. I can't seem to find this tip in the manual I currently have. Perhaps it is in an older version? Perhaps I read it somewhere else? Perhaps I'm completely making this all up?

 

If anyone knows what I'm talking about, or has said manual, if you could post it here or email it to me that'd be just swell.

 

Thanks in advance!

[RonBaldwin]

you can detach your lower sled and give it a twist (you don't have to unplug the lemo). Also make sure any low mode dock rings aren't too tight.

[Adi Visser SOC SASO]

you can detach your lower sled and give it a twist (you don't have to unplug the lemo). Also make sure any low mode dock rings aren't too tight.

I had this once and it took a while to sort out....quite stressful really, anyway top and bottom needs to be turned opposite to each other and dont twist too much try extending and collapsing and re adjust until its good .

 

Adi Visser

[William Demeritt]

Speaking for the centerpost cable with LEMO connectors on both ends, yea if you unscrew the bottom mount, spin the lower portion clockwise, and reattach it, you make the coil "tighter" and reduce friction with the walls of the centerpost. The tradeoff is you lose length of the centerpost cable's extension, so extending the post now creates additional strain on the cable. Shorter extension, and if you try to extend too far, you're creating a lot of stress on the cable itself.

 

Imagine a slinky, and you take one end, or one half, and twist it clock-wise (looking at that end from dead on). The slinky's coil shrinks in diameter and becomes a bit longer. Now if you try to stretch it, it reaches it's "maximum" much sooner.

 

If you're also having trouble with collapsing the centerpost, and I'm not sure if this is sanctioned by GPI, but you might consider lubrication applied to the walls of the inside of the centerpost? Remove centerpost completely, wrap the LEMO connectors with plastic, pull them out of the way and spray silicone lube down the inside. Don't need to drown the thing, but a good spray to coat the walls could help decrease the friction of the center post's metal on the cable's rubber sheath.

 

Waiting for Baldwin's reply to this post when he searches for "lube" and "sheath".

[Andrew Ansnick]

Which gen post do you have? My old gen 1 was difficult to collapse because it had been overtightened and this caused a rubbing issue between the outer and inner posts. I ended up having to replace my innerpost which helped. I am now using a gen 2 hd post so the clamp helps prevent this problem. I also checked in the manual and the version I have (Gen 2 sled) doesn't make mention of this tip, but it sounds like other ops have used this and had success.

 

The tolerances between the inner and outer post are so exact you shouldn't need to lubricate it and I would think Jack would frown upon that.

[flemming laybourn]

I had the same issue with my MK-V 4 stage post... talcum fixed the problem