>Take a look at the picture here. The screw does not drive directly into the ball joint. It drives a piece of rubber into the joint to create friction. It may work OK for a couple of times, but I think the aluminum chews into the rubber and makes it loose its grip.

Sorry I do not understand you.
Can you please show me this "piece of rubber "?

Wher do you see it?



@lanparte

>rubber washer

Where it is located on your picture?

>we do believe we can fix it.

Can you clarify how problem with thumbscrew that is clearly bad made can be solved by such approach?

>I assumed that it was rubber gasket of some sort. There is a black rubber like substance that rubbed off into the ball head.

If you look at the picture you'll see no such things.
I have similar handles (not made by Lanparte) and do not see any such problems.
Inside it has just metal half sphere.

@Vitaliy
>You need counterweight.

I found this, which should attach also to 15mm rods. Any other suggestion?
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/5194-REG/Manfrotto_172_172_Counter_Balance_Weight.html

Handles need fixing.

I hope that Lanparte will present their current solution.
We'll wait until first customers will recieve replacements and go from where.
Un uptil then deal will remain closed, look at Wondlan rigs.

The hex screw in the knob is too thin, that's the reason why some guy's knobs met problem. Right now we use two screws to replace it, all the member who bought the rig will get the replacement. We will ship the replacement this week.







I missed the pics yesterday

anybody received the new screws already?

Received my new Thumbscrews today, but unfortunately I have receive a second Offset clamp instead of a straight clamp...

Anyways,while the new screws are definitely an improvement to the sitiation before, I am still not perfectly happy with it.
The ball joint is very stable when you have the handle straight at 180 degrees, just as the above test suggests.
But normally you would use the rig with the lower handle in a 90-120 degrees angle, and in that position the problem remains, that the handle is not really staying in the locked position when you move the loaded rig around.
I thought it probably has to do with the groovings in the ball, which are only in the top part of the ball-joint.

Also I thought the suggested stainless steel ring seemed to make sense, as the thumscews leave quite some marks in the aluminum counterpart. Or maybe the plastic-material in the counter half shpere does not provide enough grip...

@lanparte
did the ring-solution not work for you in your tests?

Well just received mine. Very well packed and am quite impressed by the rig. Finish seems refined, screws tighten without too much pressure and the rig feels solid in the hand. The handles seem solid to me, they don't need to be over tightened to feel locked in, but time will tell whether they hold up. I'm not carrying much weight though, just the 7d, lens, follow focus and the lcdvf viewfinder.
Overall very happy with the purchase.

Had another shoot with the rig today.
I still like the look and feel and the general quality of the parts.

But the problem with the moving handles remains.
This time we only had a 5D and follow focus mounted, but even in this lightweigt set up, the ball-joint does not stay in it's locked position.
Especially when you want to operate the follow focus and hold the rig only with one handle.

In fully loaded setup (Af100, Monitor, Mattebox...) it's unfortunately not a workable solution at all with this kind of handles.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev
you said you don't have this problem with your rig. Who is manufacturer of your handles?

@lanparte
do you think you can solve this problem?

Here's my quick update on the handle issue:

@spreegurke I wish these screws are easier to tighten as well. as for the position of the handle, it should not make much of a difference how you have it. I showed it straight out, since that would theoretically generated the most torque on the joints. As you can tell, my rig is extremely heavy. I had a hard time even holding it in that position. It felt like 15kg at that angle. I have a cavision handle on my second rig, I can tell you that if I put that much torque on it, it wouldn't hold any better. There must be something else wrong with your handle. I'd talk to Jerry at Lanparte to see if he can do something for you.

same here. just replaced the new scres but still the problem that i cannot pull the screws tight enough to "lock" the handles. it always depends in which angle you are with the handbars.

should we really enlarge the whole by drilling? i feel a bit insecure ;)
after enlarging the wholes, could we pull the screws more tighten?

I have a handle bent up so it's right beside the follow focus wheel and I've noticed it slips if I pick my rig up by it. I think an easy fix for lanparte would be to provide friction grooves over the whole ball socket for the screws to grip into instead of just the top half.