DJI RONIN broke up into pieces.

[Alex Lubensky]

Hello! On a shoot in July a rented DJI Ronin broke in two pieces, leaving camera hanging on wires. It was on a car-mount (quadrocycle + grip + vibroisolation plate) with a Red Scarlet + 18mm Zeiss .CP2 on it, kitted with lightweight mattebox with clear filter, focus and iris RT-Motion gears. The camera was barebones, meaning nothing was left on it (no top plate, no monitor, no batteries etc.). I was assuming the problem occured due to quadrocycle hitting a bump on the road (speed was about 40 kmh). Had to pay 750$ for a repair of the DJI Ronin to the rental house as a producer of the shoot.

Grip was made by people i trust, and have worked with lots of times and i'm sure it was not a grip mistake or something like that.

But yesterday I was on another rental house and they knew I had this problem happened in the begining of July, and told me they had same problem - DJI Ronin broke in the same place, while being in the hands of cameraman last week. He was using RED Epic + Cooke Ana barebones, and was tilting the camera up, when the Ronin broke.

I'm interested - has anyone expirienced same problems with DJI Ronin? I've used it a lot before, but our local DJI service told us it's the 4th time DJI Ronin broke in a same place for the last 2 month. Some of them qualified as a warranty issue. It does seem like they have a weak spot in the construction, so beware - your camera may fall one day.

 

[Alex Lubensky]

Have to say we have replaced a broken ronin with another one, and ended the shoot with no problems (first one broke on a second run, another worked for 8 hours with no accidents, same package).

 

[Shawn P]

Is the camera ok? I have never seen this happen before

 

[Alex Lubensky]

Yes, in my case the quadrocycle driver saved the camera by stopping in a really fast and accurate manner, while the camera was hanging on wires (d-taps, monitor wires etc.). In the second case the AC managed to catch the camera right before it hit the ground.

 

[Dan Kanes]

Epic + Cooke anamorphic definitely too heavy for the original Ronin... even if the motors work...

Your setup didn't sound too heavy but if the frame cracked internally from stress previously being a rental unit, you probably had the bad luck of being the person who suffered from its stress fractures over time giving way.

Tubular structure would actually have lasted longer - that's why bones are generally more tubular in construction - they take payloads better.

 

[Alex Lubensky]

Got some more pictures of the second case i was talking before (the one which broke up in cameraman hands). Overall one more broken Ronin appeared last month on another rental - and again, in the same place.

 

[Björn Benckert]

The stress a car mount can put on the gimbal is a bit like the kid in the back seat that becomes an elefant when not having a seat belt. The harsh micro vibrations from the car together with a aluminum construction that is simply not built for it is not a good combo. The extension arms does not help the case as those exponentially increase the vibrations and the pressure on the broken bit.

 

[Zeb B]

Crap casting using crap mystery metal