701RC2 Balance Question (1 Viewer)

jiminlondon99 said:

You may find this option I posted some time ago useful? It requires a few basic workshop tools but it does help and after several months of use I have had no problems.

http://birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=35743

Click to expand...

Thanks also for your option jiminlondon99 I had searched for the 701 posts but yours had not come up will try Dons tip first but have no problem cutting some off the head to get it to my satisfaction.
brian

Hi Brian
Yes the " drop time " is done with the scope balanced as best you can and with the lock screw undone.

It will be interesting to hear the before and after results.

The " drop time " after you have tried the ' TIP ' , will give an indication of the health of the fluid side.

Question - Does your Kowa823 balance without the camera ? If so can you give an idea of where on the scale on the sliding plate it is from the front edge of the indicator slot.

Hope it gives an improvement.

Don

" Drop test " results omission appoligy.

I must appologise to followers of this thread for not qualifying the scope used to produce my results.

This is where Kimmo's " drop test " came into play.
Assembly 1 - Hold spring side while attaching sliding plate - " drop test " 15 secs.
Assembly 2 - Lock side plate while attaching sliding plate - " drop test " 35 secs and even then it never did reach vertical.

Click to expand...

This was the Nikon EDIIIA a 60mm scope. Using a head with sliding plate in as new position NO mods.
After the test I remodified it to take the 60mm scope and hold ANY position without the lock screw in place.

Realising my omission I today did the " drop test " with the Nikon 82A on the modified head.
82A " Drop test " time 7 seconds.

The fact that the head works beautifully with the 60mm, a lot sweeter than the 128, I still find it to be excessivly light and skittish with the 82mm even with a bit of drag. This still suggests that there are limits to its ability to handle large scopes without excessive use of the lock screw, despite the quoted capacity of 4Kg.

I have at last reset the sliding head on my 701 using the method described above as I have a slight weight added inside the cover to improve the balance I have just used the scope with the camera on and tension applied, as the scope can set easily on the slide(minus 1/2) .With the head reset and tension applied to level with the mark on the neck, the camera/scope can be moved back as far as the photo shows.if the camera is turned as I sometimes do to get in the longer shot the angle can be increased,probably does not show as well in the photo but over a longer distance this would increase greatly, but I can only acheive this if I hang about 200g on the front of the scope(which in my case is three spare batterys,started with a tin of sardines but thought the batterys would be of more use)So now I have free movement from the forward position to that shown. This is as good as I will get
it probably won't work in the field lets hope it does.
I have tucked the nose weight into the front lense cover just to tidy it up and clipped it onto the cord.
Brian

Posting a couple of pictures of the first head I modified. It has a sub-base to allow the sliding plate to be mounted 40mm forward of its origional position.
The Nikon scope is really quite tail heavy. Even a 128 head requires drag increasing to hold position.

In picture 1 the lock screw has been removed to show that the scope will balance at any point.

Picture 2 gives a better idea of how far forward the sliding plate now is.

The heads action with this light scope is almost the same as with no scope attatched - light and very very smooth. A delight to use when following birds in flight. Even smoother than my 501 with the weight of my 82 scope on. ( Teflon coated discs so I cannot modify that one. ) Would probably have to move up to a 503 for the 82 scope to equal it.
It just goes to show how nice this head can be with a small 60 - 65 scope that balances.

Due to the differences between 701 heads, my other head to experiment on, has a sub-base to move the sliding section forward by 20mm to achieve the same results.

Looking at Better View Desired " Big Scopes Fight Back " the point of balance differences between 65 and 80 Swarovski and Zeiss 85 are quite marked without adding a camera, so different users of this head will have different experiences.