Good Morning,

I have a flycam 6000 arm and Vest and an older glidecam sled. The sled works brillantly. I have had it for about a year and used it with xlh1/xl2 on top of it. I had some OK results with it in spite of the huge learning curve.

I now have a sony fx 1000 to put on top. It weighs in at 4.6 pounds.

It seems a tad light for my rig. I losened up the springs best I could. I am not to happy with how it floats.

I have used it with just the lcd flipped out and it is fine for short simple shots.

If I add a monitor down below it helps with overall weight but balancing doesn't seem right due to weight difference.

Should I perhaps add a weight under the camera to bring the weight up. I reckon this would also allow me to shorten the length of the sled as well as bring the camera closer to CG. This fall I am going to need it with a farely short sled, will be out in the bush.


Is there an optimal weight to length ratio to optimize having it in the float position that gives best results?

Is there an optimal camera weight to sled weight ratio?

or is it just wing it until you are happy?

I have more questions but will leave with this for now.


thank you

dale guthormsen

Hi Dale

I used to run my HMC72's on the flycam arm and that clocks in at just under 8lbs. Now the original springs were way too stiff for an 8lb camera so I had new springs made that were one wire size under the normal factory size and that worked pretty well.

To fly correctly on the factory springs you need a combined sled weight of nearly 30lbs so you might need to add, as you say, some weight to the top sled. To run decently the arms need to be almost hrizontal with the sled at correct weight.

Chris

Thanks Chris,

I have no idea where to go out here to get smaller springs, more weight will likly be the answer.


Dale

Hi Dale

Hope you have BIG muscles!!! I tried that as the easy route. You need to put a weight plate under the camera and then extra on the bottom stage.... when the whole sled and camera gets to around 40lbs then the arm will work fairly well. I got really tired of trying to hoist a 40lb sled up in the air and onto the arm post each time so I got a local spring guy to make me new springs.

All it entails is taking the springs out complete with the cables and plugs as a unit and send them to any spring manufacturer and ask him to drop at least one wire size... they will do everything for you..all you have to do is put the springs back...with a reduction of spring wire from 4.0mm to 3.15mm I got my sled right down to 15lbs (including the camera)!!

Chris