Posted by Lance Warley on January 22, 2015 at 7:11 AM
Each of the three legs on my Manfrotto 055cxpro4 has three pull-out sections.
On two of the legs, the sections work as designed - when I pull them out, they are prevented from totally disconnecting from the rest of the tripod.
When I extend the sections on the third leg, two of the three sections come all the way out and are no longer attached to the tripod. They are now just carbon fiber tubes in my hand.
Any suggestions on how I can fix this and restore whatever prevents the sections from going airborne when I pull them out? Thanks.
P.S. Yes, I rinse the tripod after it's been in mud and salt water. However, it has been in a lot of mud and salt water lately, so that surely hasn't helped matters.
Posted by Mark Seaver on January 25, 2015 at 9:42 AM
Lance,
Two possibilities. In my old Manfrotto (aka Bogen) Aluminum tripod it's all about how tight the bolts are that hold the lever locks in place. I had to tighten the lower bolt on the levers regularly (the 8mm socket for those bolts was part of my camera kit because they constantly worked loose) so that the legs would lock were I set them. For that tripod, the legs coming out is determined by the tightness of the upper bolt on the lever locks.
In my (twist lock) carbon fiber tripods, there are small plastic pieces that fit in loosely at the very top of each leg. If your tripod is like these, then those pieces have gotten loose. (They may be in the larger leg section, but if these have come out more than once, you've probably lost them.) If those bits for adding width at the top of the leg are gone, you can probably order new ones. With out those pieces, the leg's width is the same top to bottom and will easily fall out when you loosen the lock.
Posted by Lance Warley on January 25, 2015 at 3:41 PM
Thanks very, very much, Mark for pointing me in the right direction.
It's the small plastic pieces. Apparently, two "sets" (i.e., each set appears to have two pieces of plastic) of them came off. I have both pieces of one of the sets and just one piece of the other.
I'll look for a service provider to send me the missing piece and hopefully instructions on how to apply them so that they stay in place.
Discussion
2 repliesOn two of the legs, the sections work as designed - when I pull them out, they are prevented from totally disconnecting from the rest of the tripod.
When I extend the sections on the third leg, two of the three sections come all the way out and are no longer attached to the tripod. They are now just carbon fiber tubes in my hand.
Any suggestions on how I can fix this and restore whatever prevents the sections from going airborne when I pull them out? Thanks.
P.S. Yes, I rinse the tripod after it's been in mud and salt water. However, it has been in a lot of mud and salt water lately, so that surely hasn't helped matters.
Two possibilities. In my old Manfrotto (aka Bogen) Aluminum tripod it's all about how tight the bolts are that hold the lever locks in place. I had to tighten the lower bolt on the levers regularly (the 8mm socket for those bolts was part of my camera kit because they constantly worked loose) so that the legs would lock were I set them. For that tripod, the legs coming out is determined by the tightness of the upper bolt on the lever locks.
In my (twist lock) carbon fiber tripods, there are small plastic pieces that fit in loosely at the very top of each leg. If your tripod is like these, then those pieces have gotten loose. (They may be in the larger leg section, but if these have come out more than once, you've probably lost them.) If those bits for adding width at the top of the leg are gone, you can probably order new ones. With out those pieces, the leg's width is the same top to bottom and will easily fall out when you loosen the lock.
It's the small plastic pieces. Apparently, two "sets" (i.e., each set appears to have two pieces of plastic) of them came off. I have both pieces of one of the sets and just one piece of the other.
I'll look for a service provider to send me the missing piece and hopefully instructions on how to apply them so that they stay in place.
Much appreciated.