farnz Posted March 5, 2012 Share #401 Posted March 5, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) Matthias, To be clear, did the tripod topple over while your M8 was attached to it or did your M8 fall off the tripod when the casting broke? Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted March 5, 2012 Posted March 5, 2012 Hi farnz, Take a look here M9 on tripod - bottom part broken anyone else ?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
thegrantgreen Posted March 5, 2012 Share #402 Posted March 5, 2012 the m8 was mounted to the tripod when it toppled over. when everything was on the ground i saw the base plate attachment being broken off. i wrote to stefan daniel and he answered me today that he would send this case to the customer service to see how to proceed further. but i'm still waiting for a mail by the CS. well, luckily it still works and neither focusing nor image quality is obviously decreased since the drop down. i aswell hope that they will repair it. otherwise i will leave it like it is and just duck-tape it all the time until i'll have a better idea how to repair it Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
farnz Posted March 5, 2012 Share #403 Posted March 5, 2012 Matthias, Thank you for explaining what happened. I only wanted to make clear what happened because there are one or two members who would love to make mischief out of what happened and claim that "it was a design flaw!" and "how dare Leica sell such shoddy goods!" etc when it was just an accident that could happen to anyone. I hope it get sorted out for you and I'm glad to hear that your M8 is still working okay. Have you checked the rangefinder alignment? Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegrantgreen Posted March 5, 2012 Share #404 Posted March 5, 2012 well i was a bit surprised when i had the m8 without a baseplate in my hands^^ but surely it was an accident, i could imagine that every camera has some kind of a breaking point when it is exposed to a certain amount of force. i have dropped my m8 lots of times, and only the last time in africa from 1,5 meters onto solid rock it had some problems, but that was the frist tome. It only had some scratches and the rangefinder alignment was shifted vertically. and my sensor was - as they told me later - shifted somehow, but i was still able to shoot perfectly the rest of my assignment in rwanda. now the vertical alignment is en point aswell as the horizontal. i made some testshots with open aperture and they were all on the dot. so i guess it's fine. but probably the CS would find something i guess. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted March 6, 2012 Share #405 Posted March 6, 2012 i could imagine that every camera has some kind of a breaking point when it is exposed to a certain amount of force.. True. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lct Posted March 6, 2012 Share #406 Posted March 6, 2012 Drops on solid rock may help as well Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted March 6, 2012 Share #407 Posted March 6, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) Still, I cannot fathom why the much more robust M3 etc. system was discontinued with the M8. Possibly because there would have been many more such failures. The M3-7 body is made of nice strong malleable aluminium and can handle the stresses involved in repeatedly tightening the baseplate, the M8/9 body is made from brittle magnesium alloy and is liable to fall apart if you just look at in a funny way. I suspect the present system was devised as the least worst way of attaching the baseplate. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted March 7, 2012 Share #408 Posted March 7, 2012 I'm not quite sure that is the correct answer, given that the film M bodies were made of die-cast Zinc ( source: Jonathan Eastland's Compendium) which is not the most robust of metals and given the fact that many high-stress automotive and aerospace parts, including the wheels under your car, which better not fall apart when looked at in a funny way, are made of magnesium alloy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted March 7, 2012 Share #409 Posted March 7, 2012 They must have thought this design would be strong enough but looking at the failures, in my opinion they miscalculated. If greater strength was more of a priority, Leica had several options including a non removable base plate. Or firmly securing the tripod socket to the body and simply have a hole in the base plate for it. (Nikon F, Contaflex.) Even with the existing system, the locking lip could be anchored more securely to the body rather than simply to the thin part of the shell. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted March 7, 2012 Share #410 Posted March 7, 2012 Actually I found the tripod attachment to the DMR is pretty dicey, the thread being fixed in the plastic of the shell only. And that thing is made to use with the longest tele lenses with weights running into the Kg s. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted March 7, 2012 Share #411 Posted March 7, 2012 Jaap, the body shell of M film bodies (the bit which provides all the strength) is aluminium. It is the top plate (M6 and some other models) which is zinc. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted March 7, 2012 Share #412 Posted March 7, 2012 including the wheels under your car..... are made of magnesium alloy. Mag wheels - now that's a blast from the past. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wlaidlaw Posted March 7, 2012 Share #413 Posted March 7, 2012 Actually I found the tripod attachment to the DMR is pretty dicey, the thread being fixed in the plastic of the shell only. And that thing is made to use with the longest tele lenses with weights running into the Kg s. Jaap, Don't most of the long R lenses have tripod mounts on them to avoid stress on the camera mount, like most of the Visoflex ones do? The main issue with pretty much all magnesium alloys is age hardening and unseen corrosion. Trying to scrape around the dim recesses of my memory, from doing metallurgy at university some 45+ years ago, I think age hardening was due to atomic level structure imperfections, called dissociations, migrating to the crystal boundaries. When age hardening together with hydrolysis corrosion occurs, the mag alloy, particularly castings, can become very weak and brittle. We may have problems in future years, particularly those who use their M8/9 on a tripod a lot and stress the base plate fixing area frequently, as that speeds age hardening. Those who live in high humidity areas perhaps should consider a dehumidified cabinet. Apart from anything else, it minimises fungus issues on your expensive lenses. However, mag alloys seem to have improved a lot over the years. Back in the 1960's we were only supposed to use magnesium alloy racing wheels for 3 - 4 years before they had to go back to the manufacturer to be be annealed and recoated to keep damp out, which relieves stress and in effect, resets the clock. I had a crystalline failure of the rim of a 4 year old Fuchs forged magnesium wheel in the 1970's, luckily without damaging anything else, so I will not use that make any longer. The new magnesium Minilites I bought for my classic rally 911 three years ago, said they had a minimum design life of 10 years before they should be returned to the factory for inspection. Wilson Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted March 7, 2012 Share #414 Posted March 7, 2012 Mag wheels - now that's a blast from the past. You must live far in the future- Porsche for instance uses ZK60 Magnesium alloy on all their wheels. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lct Posted March 7, 2012 Share #415 Posted March 7, 2012 I did not know that those old magnesium wheels were still made. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted March 7, 2012 Share #416 Posted March 7, 2012 What did you think your light metal alloy wheels were made of? Magnesium is widely used in about any high-end application you care to name. http://www.magnesium.com/w3/uses/ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJP Posted March 7, 2012 Share #417 Posted March 7, 2012 Indeed magnesium (alloy) is used more and more for a wide range of applications. I once saw a company at a trade fair showing magnesium laptop & mobile phone casings. The advantage versus polymers is obvious, stiffness, faster cycle times in production (injection molding). Still it will remain a niche compared to polymer injection molded goods. Also worth noting its long history, one of the first applications I know of magnesium alloy called "elektron" was for the VW beetle engine, still going strong. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lct Posted March 7, 2012 Share #418 Posted March 7, 2012 What did you think your light metal alloy wheels were made of?... Aluminium i thought. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted March 7, 2012 Share #419 Posted March 7, 2012 Aluminium i thought. They usually are (nowadays). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wlaidlaw Posted March 7, 2012 Share #420 Posted March 7, 2012 You must live far in the future- Porsche for instance uses ZK60 Magnesium alloy on all their wheels. .....and very corrosion prone it is too. Wilson Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/178369-m9-on-tripod-bottom-part-broken-anyone-else/?do=findComment&comment=1947146'>More sharing options...
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