Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I am going to have to send one my Einstein's in for a second time to get it repaired. I have the Einstein v2 and I am using their large softbox. The fingers held the softbox fine for a while but now they will not hold it, the softbox just falls off. It's like they become weak or they are not long enough and the top of the softbox just slips off the top fingers and the modifier falls to the ground. All fingers are inside the the ring and its locked in place.
It's so frustrating I just recently got it back and now I have to send it back again. Tech support has been great though.

We will be contacting you today to make arrangements to get you taken care of ASAP!

I recently got my V2 Einsteins as part of the upgrade from the original version, which I had been working with for a while and loved. The original Einsteins held the soft boxes with no problem, but the fit does not seem right with the new V2 Einsteins and I have had soft boxes fall off 3 times(Once was a Giant softbox during a session :oops: ). All my lighting assesories are Buff stuff and fit snugly on my old White Lightning X1600s(Including the Giant softbox). I know I am going to have to send them back in for repair, but I am currently booked solid and won't be able to be without them for a while.

My question is: What is the proper action of the fingers? On one unit the fingers will remain open when the lever is pushed down/up and needs to be pushed back to secure the modifier. On the other it does not remain open and the fingers seem loose and I can hear one of the fingers lightly "ping" the light cover when I move the lever. I think originals sprung back to lock on. As I understand it there is normally a small amount of "play" that allows the soft boxes to tilt forward slighly, which is part of the design I am not crazy about, but if it held my softboxes without falling off I could live with. The excess forward tilt allowed by both of my units seems to be part of the problem here. Both units have had soft boxes fall off them. Any advice about keeping the softboxes from falling off would be appreciated.
Thanks.

When the E640 lever goes up or down all four of the cam fingers should travel evenly back and forth to ensure a firm hold of attached light mods. If the fingers are independently moving or sticking when lever is slid up or down then the unit will have to come for repair.

I want to state here that I am a big fan of the Einsteins and Paul buff lighting in general and don't want to come off as a complainer/basher. Being able to change my whole lighting setup with different ratios and/or apertures with a few quick selections of the CC is a godsend. I just want to have my lights function the way they were designed to function.

The fact alone that both units have had the soft boxes fall off after being properly secured is enough to have to send them in as far as I am concerned, I am just trying to make the best of this situation until I can send them in for repair. Upon closer inspection, the fingers on both units do not spring back on their own when oped fully and the top fingers on both wiggle independently(don't know if that is normal or not). I will only use the Giant soft box with a WL X1600 for now and maybe only use the lightmod stuff with the Einsteins until I can find time to get them sent to TN.

I was vey happy with the reurn time from customer service when I sent my V1s in to exchange for the V2 Einsteins. Will tech support be able to do the fix quickly or will the repair take longer? From a layman's point of view it seems like they will have to take the units apart and fix the springs/fingers on these.

My other main concern is that I do not want to have to keep sending these back for fixes. While these are not my only lights they have become my "Go to" lights in the studio and I am very limited as to what I can do without them. I think my experience is the same as fstop8(original poster), I didn't seem to have any problems with the fingers at first, but this problem seemed to develop in both units over usage in a short time. I don't change lighting modifiers more than probably once a day on average, so there has been no unusual extra wear and tear on them. The fact that this happed to both my units makes me concerned that the units may come back from being repaired and have the same thing happen. Is there a potential problem with the springs in the fingers in general, or did I just get a couple of bad apples?

Turn around on Einstein should only be a day or two in house. We will need to inspect teh light to see what is going on before we can speculate anything about it.

Thanks for the info. I just found out I have to fly out of town for a week long commercial job next month and that will be a good time for me send them in. I will call customer service and work out the details.

This is so frustrating for me too. I've had my Einstein v2 since January. It had the old fingers with stronger springs. I had my Paul C. Buff Large Softbox fall off in March and when it did it damaged the modeling lamp and the finger mechanism.

After sending it in for service, I got it back with new fingers. The fit was great! It held the softbox tightly to the unit and I felt confident my issues were behind me. However, after a few months of use, the mechanism got looser and looser. The top two fingers developed some "play" in them where they move somewhat loosely even when the mechanism locked. The bottom two fingers are rock solid, no play at all.

Anyhow, last weekend the softbox fell off AGAIN, about an hour into a session. Nobody touched it, it just fell off on it's own. The top two fingers are very loose now, they won't hold the softbox at all.

Jeez this is so darn frustrating. I love everything else about my Einstein, but the mounting mechanism is obviously flawed. I do about two sessions a month, up to 1 hour each...this unit sees very light use in my studio. It just doesn't make sense given the softbox is by the same company.

The service folks are always nice and helpful at this company, I'm sure they will take care of my issue. However, now that I'm 10 months into my 2 year warranty I am worried that I will be sending in the Einstein for service on the mounting mechanism every 6 months. I hope I've just been having some bad luck, but the experience has been giving me serious doubts about purchasing more Einstein units in the future.

I am going to call Customer service this morning to get my UPS lables for shipping.


Here is the view from the top of one of my units



Side View




You echo my feelings exactly on all fronts. Buff Customer service is the best in the business and always will make things right. Let's hope they can resolve this issue.

I just contacted customer support and was directed to the repair request form and have printed my paperwork to include with my units. On the phone they said this issue could be from the modeling light melting a part that may have something to do with the springs . I was told Part of the repair, apart from fixing the fingers/spring, may be installing a lower watt modeling lamp. I will have to pay shipping back to TN, but they do pay the shipping back to me.