Zephyr Arm broke during a shoot yesterday

[Regis PROSPER]

Hi, I am not active in this forum but I read it occasionaly.

I am in this industry for 20 years and am in charge of Steadicam distribution in France since 1995. Sorry for my language mistakes, if any.

I do repair in my workshop the rigs if necessary and I have very few issues with Tiffen products: I never had to send back a unit to the factory in 20 years because I allways had the job done here in Paris. So, in fact I can't say good or bad things about repairs done in the factory! :D ..but I am sure they do their best.

 

I am quite surprised that everytime there is a problem with a tiffen unit there is a "Tiffen bashing" with allways the same remarks:" this would never happen with a pro or X&S unit"....even when there is an operator mistake like in this topic.

 

I think this is not fair and I just wanted to say the following:

 

One French operator, Aymeric Colas baught a new Pro last year. When he received it, the gimbal was not centered correctly so he sent it back in the US. when he got back the unit, it was not fixed and the gimbal problem was still there...back another time, problem not solved. Just imagine how painfull it is when you have to do this from France to US (papers, time, temporary admissions.....). After months of discussions Pro finally accepted to refund and take back the unit because they could not solve the problem.

 

I am not saying that Pro has a bad service, I just say that problems can occur with any rig....

 

Also, to me, it is not a right conception thing to make a gimble you can't adjust or fix. This one advantage with the Tiffen units.

 

Anyway I hope there will not be a "Regis bashing" in this topic! :P

 

Cheers,

 

Regis PROSPER

[Brian Freesh]

Hi Regis,

 

I agree a problem can happen with any rig, and I certainly do not claim to know what happened with your friend's rig. All I can say is that I've watched an operator center his pro gimbal himself with the tools provided standard with the kit. I've also watched Tiffen operators do it with Tiffen gimbals, it seems to be the same process.

 

I don't like any of the bashing either, I appreciate you trying to keep things objective. I think it's all about what works for each individual.

[Victor Lazaro]

The problem is not with wether the product will ail or not. Every gear you put on your back and run with is vous to break some day. Wether it's a pro Steadicam or Wondlan. The issue (to me) is the quality of the response when it breaks. I have had issues with the locking clamps on my zephyr sled. Took me a couple of month to get two replacement clamps when even Tiffen recognizes that it's a design flaw. I ha to call multiple times to get an answer. And my first answer was sen it back to the factory. I'm in New York and the sled was still working but just to change two clamps, I was supposed to send the whole think back. After longer explanations I was able to get the clamps by mail but we could have avoided the whole month of conversation an I would have been a happier customer. As another example, I contacted heden for a broken motor clamp on a friend's kit, the offered to send him a fee replacement immediately without asking anymore questions (and thank you heden for that). Now that the rant is over let's put out rig on and let's go shoot some more.

[JobScholtze]

Well regis, i should have send you my broken tiffen gear then, perhaps you could do it i a normal time frame. Ah well, to late, moved on

[Jens Piotrowski SOC]

Again, i my experience with Tiffen, nothing was addressed immediately, I always had to leave the gear behind, in one example, my master arm was noisy and they told me while I was there waiting (glendale), "leave it here we will look at it next week...."

[Eric Fletcher S.O.C.]

Again, i my experience with Tiffen, nothing was addressed immediately, I always had to leave the gear behind, in one example, my master arm was noisy and they told me while I was there waiting (glendale), "leave it here we will look at it next week...."

 

And they wonder why they have an image issue. With Pro they will look at it while you wait....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then they will fix it..... while you wait.........

[RonBaldwin]

I am interested to hear about this pro gimbal problem...it is the 1st I have ever heard of.

[Victor Lazaro]

If you look on the GPI pro website video section there is a video explaining how to fix your gimbal yourself when it's goes out of balance. Actually there is a video for practically anything you can service yourself, and that's a lot of videos.

[RonBaldwin]

I know about the videos, and have flown the same pro gimbal (#133) since 1997. The videos I believe are talking about changing bearings or cleaning them out. I have never heard of a pro gimbal (or xcs) that needed recentering. I am not familiar with that adjustment if there is one. I had mine apart today actually. The bearing is dropped in, screw it together and go...that's all I have done the last 16 yrs.

 

The pro videos are great...the stuff is really easy to service in the field.

[Eric Fletcher S.O.C.]

If you look on the GPI pro website video section there is a video explaining how to fix your gimbal yourself when it's goes out of balance. Actually there is a video for practically anything you can service yourself, and that's a lot of videos.

 

No the two videos have nothing to do with gimbal centering. The first one is for cleaning, the second is for adjusting the VZ handle. There is no centering provision on the PRO gimbal, doesn't need to be, same for the XCS gimbal, design and build them to high tolerances and you don't need to "Field center" a gimbal. Problem is for most manufactures they don't want to spend the money to build it right and want to rely on "Adjustments" which in the end you will just end up chasing because it's another failure point

[Jens Piotrowski SOC]

I am interested to hear about this pro gimbal problem...it is the 1st I have ever heard of.

I have a feeling something other than the Gimbal was the issue....I can't imagine that GPI sent out the sled not being up to the specs once it came back for service...

[Eric Fletcher S.O.C.]

 

I am interested to hear about this pro gimbal problem...it is the 1st I have ever heard of.

I have a feeling something other than the Gimbal was the issue....

 

 

 

Ya think?

[Stephen Allanson]

Thanks for this thread guys- very handy. I've ordered this part. To be fair Ive flown a stripped down Amira with no probs a few times but I'm replacing the original pin after reading this just by way of insurance. Any other mods like this that people have done would be good to hear about.

[Martin Hawkes]

Awesome thread!

Enlightening and entertaining!

M

[Jonathan Pfundstein]

The problem is not with wether the product will ail or not. Every gear you put on your back and run with is vous to break some day. Wether it's a pro Steadicam or Wondlan. The issue (to me) is the quality of the response when it breaks. I have had issues with the locking clamps on my zephyr sled. Took me a couple of month to get two replacement clamps when even Tiffen recognizes that it's a design flaw. I ha to call multiple times to get an answer. And my first answer was sen it back to the factory. I'm in New York and the sled was still working but just to change two clamps, I was supposed to send the whole think back. After longer explanations I was able to get the clamps by mail but we could have avoided the whole month of conversation an I would have been a happier customer. As another example, I contacted heden for a broken motor clamp on a friend's kit, the offered to send him a fee replacement immediately without asking anymore questions (and thank you heden for that). Now that the rant is over let's put out rig on and let's go shoot some more.

I recently just started a thread asking about Tiffens service of the Zephyr line and it doesn't look promising according to everything I've read here.

My problem specifically being this exact part of the Zephyr arm. This seems to be a known issue of them being weak and I always though the implementation was pretty shotty.

Any updates from anyone contacting Tiffen about this problem?

 

On the other hand have never had a problem with this pin falling out. The one I purchased with the rig with (used) was short and slightly bent so I purchased another slightly longer one, but when It's inserted from the top I couldn't imagine it just falling out. #checkyourshitbeforeyoufly