Have you guys had any problem with how secure the toad is? I've had the m5 since first release and the Toad for 8 months. Today we had an accident. I wasn't using it myself and I'm just relying on a shooter's report. I was told the lock gave way so the lower unit fell to the ground. I now have a broken 16-35 lens (new) and an M5 I'm afraid to use again. Below are the pictures. If you look closely, there's a hairline crack on the Toad. Wanted to ask if this is an isolated incident. Thanks.
Jason, normally you hear "click" when you place the toad to the hole. Under normal conditions, even you don't tighten the latch, the mechanism shouldn't let go the gimbal. The golden tooths that you see inside the hole, slides in to the compartment on the toad. However, there were some users who reported similar incidents before. I also would be very glad if Freefly could comment on this matter. I am using toad in the hole on every gimbal and copter I have and these reports make me think twice on relying on this part for heavy loads.
Jason: Please open up a support ticket with FF by emailing to support@freeflysystems.com -- I think they will be very interested to learn of this. Andy
By the way, Jason -- did you by chance inspect the Toad with the hairline crack before the flight? Just trying to determine whether the crack was in some way related to the cause of the spontaneous release, or caused when the Cinestar/MōVI hit the ground and the impact forces traveled up into the Toad. Thanks Andy.
Hi Jason, The Freefly Toad have two security to avoid loosing the paylaod: First: the latch (the part with the crack you take a picture of) and second you have the release buttons on both sides. If the Latch breaks in fly, it will still remain in place. You will probably experience a full turn of the movi (pan) as it won't be mechanicaly linked to the aircraft. In this case, you will have to use the kill switch to stop pan motors ( you can kill all the stabilisation or just the pan one) You should really ask your operator if he have seen the movi spinning like crazy before it goes down. For my part I'm very surprised, especially becuse the Toad is used on all the MovI / m5/10/15; If it's designed to handle 9.5kg (M15+ paylaod) I an't imagine it will break with 4.5kg (M5+payload). Anyway, As Andy mentionned, you should immedialty open a support ticket as Freefly is really concerned about enhancing their products. No doubt they will have a closer look to this case.
hi Ozkan, may you please give me the links to these reports ? I'm intersted in. Thanks Best regards, Cedric
Jason: I made the inference, perhaps falsely, that you were flying the M5 on a copter? On re-reading your original post, I can see that might not be the case...sorry if I added caused some confusion. Andy.
hmmmmmm ... The two guys are describing the same configuration: they have had cable near the Toad in the hole. Both of them are making the same guess: that a cable have unlocked the security, then the Movi started to spin, wraping the cable around the two push buttons. On a multicopter, you can't have any cables between the machine and the gimbal: it's the perfect way to get in trouble (you pan the machine while the movi stay still and you wrap the cable aroud the attach system...) I'm out of stock of Toad, but I will order some to refill the stock, I will shoot a a short video in my workshop with heavy payload and the security removed to see how much weight the Toad can handle without the security enabled.