Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I got my replacement Cyber Commander today and it's actually worst than the one it's suppose to replace.

Both CCs folds down on themselves very easy, just handling the camera will cause it to fold down on itself. The strange part is that it takes a lot of effort to fold the CC back up. Maybe this is an issue with the new mold as my old CC without the antenna did not experience this?

The serial number difference between my original and the replacement is about 50, so it was most likely from the same batch of parts.

TS, any suggestions or tips on what can be done to prevent this from happening?

I was thinking about just gluing the gear part of feet so it doesn't fold onto itself.

Also the first CC with the bad foot did not come from the factory with a microsd, but the replacement did. I popped the microsd into the first CC and it's stuck now. It looks like it's trapped under the plastic housing. I think I'll need to open it and file down the housing slightly to prevent it from being stuck.

Will the gluing and filing down the plastic cause warranty issues?

Thanks.

I opened the CC to remove the microSD and noticed something interesting.



You can see that the friction locking tab is pretty small. I put the foot in and rotated it, it pushed the tab back and I could see that the tab had a lot of give, which made it easy to rotate it down. While trying to rotate it up, the tab was very stiff since it's pulling the tab forward in to the teeth of the foot.

It looks like that gap between the tab and plastic to the left, if filled would strength the tab a great deal.



It doesn't seem like it would cause any problems with the foot if that gap was filled in with epoxy.

I asked our staff to review the new version CC with antenna stub in terms of the swivel ratchet action. They found no difference between the versions, as the swivel has not changed.

Sure, we could make new molds and add four months to CC shipping schedule and throw away $100,000 worth of inventory.

I have a one week old Cyber Commander with the same folding problem. It slams down with just gravity but feels like it going to break when I try to straighten it.

The other thing I noticed was that it's not a tight fit on the camera hot shoe mount and unseats itself quite easily. It's much more loose fit than my cybersync transmitter.

If it will not hold, contact customer service for warrany repair or replacement.

Just got my Einsteins yesterday and set them up ... W00t! Einstein + CyberCommander = Match Made in AlienBee heaven.

However, I've got the same problem with my CC. It folds down under its own weight (plus batteries) with only the slightest touch. Simply taking my camera away from my face and turning it gently downward is enough to cause my Cyber Commander to completely fold flat.

It also seems disproportionately difficult to unfold and stand back up ... the clicks are a LOT louder when standing it upright than when folding it down. To me it seems almost as if the ratchet mechanism is reversed. I'd be perfectly happy for it to fold down with difficulty, but stand up with ease.

I guess I will call Tech Support too ... maybe I just got a bad unit. This is too bad, because I really don't want to send it back, because I am loving using it with my Einsteins! Can we paste videos in the tech forum?

-M1styrX