hans98ko wrote:
Calling others "poppycork" or classifying others opinions or suggestions as "bullshit" will not solve the problem.
If you have a better solution or classification then let us all hear it.
Let me give you a couple of examples to make you understand a little better.
1. A good auto mechanic can tell if an engine is misfiring just by the sound of the engine. He can roughly tell if it is caused by a bad spark plug or a distributor cable or cap. All these without having to dismantle the engine.
2. A good electronic engineer can tell if the runners on the PC board are capable of handling a certain current rating just by the look of the copper thickness and the width of the runners. All without having to measure each individual layers and runners.
3. A good mechanical engineer can tell if a certain I-beam or H-beam can handle a certain load without having to use Pro-E to simulate it each time, because he/she has already done them so often. All they need is a final test if they decided to use them.
Now, let me make it more interesting and that is everyone knows that bicycle wheels can never be used on a pickup truck, because they will blow before you can put them on.. All these are basic instinct due to previous experiences.
So, do you call all those people including yourself poppycorks? And their's as well as your opinions bullshit?
I always let time to decide the final outcome rather than fighting over nothing, and if you go through all my posts here, you will find that I was proven correct most of the times though there were a couple of times I was wrong. ...Show more →
Sir I am sorry you were offended by my statements. The purpose of my original post was to call into question your conclusions that the OP's camera failure was an obvious design flaw. Based on what has been presented on this thread up to this point, one can hardly come to a conclusion that the failed casting was a design flaw. I don't care if you're a mechanical engineer with a 100 years of industry experience, or whether you have 3 PhD's in mechanical engineering, structural engineering and metallurgy. There is simply not enough information known at this point to draw any conclusions. And I believe you are doing all readers of this thread a considerable disservice by making an outlandish claim that you have analyzed the problem and have found that there is an obvious design flaw. I'm sorry that the questions that I raised in my response were misconstrued by you and others as demeaning. They were merely brought up to point out there are a lot of unanswered questions still, and I don't believe you or anyone else on this forum has enough information to be drawing conclusions at this point.
I believe if you would have qualified your original post as an engineering judgement that was "qualitative at best " I don't believe you would have been as exposed to criticism by me or anyone else.
I'm not interested in fighting with you or anyone else on this forum. I'm merely pointing out that it is premature to be pointing the finger at Nikon and stating with any kind of authority that there's an obvious design flaw here.
M635_Guy wrote:
film - this is how hans is. He's either a troll, lacks people skills or both. Best to comment succinctly and ignore him otherwise.
Nice one here asking people to ignore and yet you were not able to do the same.
I am not sure who is trolling now? By putting up post that has nothing to contribute to this discussion.
Oh! By the way my friend, it is firmed or confirmed.
I've also suffered from the dreaded Nikon repair letter that the camera is damaged beyond economic repair. The cameras should be more robust, but I suppose Nikon is trying to save weight or money. I bet this crap would not happen if there were a D4x.
hans....i have greatly appreciated your expertise and help while in singapore last year. Again your imput is greatly appreciated on this post, and brought more attention to possible issues involved in the D800 frame. The other members here dont recognize your expertise, and i know your familiar with nikon design.
nwadventurer7 wrote:
hans....i have greatly appreciated your expertise and help while in singapore last year. Again your imput is greatly appreciated on this post, and brought more attention to possible issues involved in the D800 frame. The other members here dont recognize your expertise, and i know your familiar with nikon design.
Hey Bill,
Thanks for your kind words and support on this forum.
I do understand that some people thought that I am here to stir up trouble, but I am not.
What I am trying to do here is to share as much info I knew or can be shared without breaking any NDAs and at the same time gain knowledge from others.
Regards, Hans
For those who are still interested please read on and for those who think I am here to stir up trouble, please move on.
I am really shocked on what I found these couple of days after gaining access to some of the diagrams, and that is the tripod mount at the base of the camera is not in anyway connected directly to the main chassis. It is only mounted to the base plate by 4 tiny screws under the rubber piece. And the base plate is mounted to the main chassis by another 6 or 7 tiny screws with one possibly plugged and unused, plus 1 on it's side just below the HDMI cover.
Now, can anyone imagine about the force being applied through the tripod mount with a big and heavy lens plus flash and accessories for this so called semi-professional camera?
Not only that there are a screw each sitting behind and to the left and right of the tripod mounting hole, with another 1 or 2 (remembered the possible plugged one? ) sitting way in front of the tripod mount also to the left and right. One of them is the one that we saw on the 2 pictures provided by the OP.
Based on my knowledge this will caused a fulcrum effect.
Or pictures it this way: a big and heavy fellow sitting on one end of the seesaw representing the camera, lens and accessories hanging in mid-air and another tiny fellow sitting on the other side represented by the thin piece that fractured. The board that they are sitting on is the base plate. The fulcrum is the edge of the chassis.
What will happen next? The little fellow will give way and liftoff. Right!
So for those who use big and heavy lenses, please beware and avoid applying pressure on the tripod mount or more like to the base plate.
hans98ko wrote:
Yes, I would like to know that answer too. Because I was not able to get hold of it's construction drawing at this moment to perform a one to one comparison.
If Nikon has done a major modification around that area than they must have been aware of the problem without admitting it.
Maybe someone is nice enough to sacrifice one of their own to find out.
That is not such a silly idea as you think. There must be more than a few bodies that have been written off by immersion in water. Even if it was salt water, which will corrode components more than fresh water, testing such a body would at least indicate whether or not your ideas hold water, so to speak.
I would have hpoed Nikon would have checked for such a failure mode. Manufacturers routinely use automated lifetime tests that simulate repeated stresses and loads.
hans98ko wrote:
Hey William,
Thanks for your kind words and support on this forum.
I do understand that some people thought that I am here to stir up problems, but I am not.
What I am trying to do here is to share as much info I knew or can be shared without breaking any NDAs and at the same time gain other knowledge from others.
Regards, Hans
Your posts did not merit offensive comments from the other poster. As far as I see it, you made a suggestion, and called for testing. Seems reasonable to me. Unfortunately Nikon have a history of not acknowledging issues, although their recent response to the D750 light leak is an improvement. I suppose if there is a design flaw, which is not proven, it could open them up to a huge financial hit. Your comment on seeing if the D810 has a change to the frame design is intriguing. A change to fix the flaw you think exists would provide circumstantial proof.
trenchmonkey wrote:
Pretty sure 99% of us use the tripod FOOT for mounting big and heavy lenses
Decades ago I was shocked to see that a zoom lens that had no foot visibly twisted the camera frame when mounted on a tripod mounted camera. I do wonder what stresses lenses such as the 14-24mm F2.8 lens put on the camera, especially since that lens is front heavy hence there is a large bending moment.
trenchmonkey wrote:
Pretty sure 99% of us use the tripod FOOT for mounting big and heavy lenses
But there are many people that think nothing of walking about with a 400mm, 500mm or 600mm lens carried at their side by just the camera body. I have seen it many, many times.
Yes Trenchmonkey I do agree that 99% uses the tripod foot that came with the lens, but there is this 1% that uses the camera tripod mount.These are usually people using lenses that do not comes with the foot, or those who carry their camera hanging by the quick draw shoulder strap and those using it on a monopod. On a monopod using the tripod foot will restrict movement more than on the camera's tripod mount. And after shooting these are the people usually carrying their system over their shoulder with the monopod when they moved around.
The thing is we wouldn't know if there was a fracture until we send in the camera for servicing, and that would be a shocker to find out that one has impact damage.
LeifG wrote:
Your posts did not merit offensive comments from the other poster. As far as I see it, you made a suggestion, and called for testing. Seems reasonable to me. Unfortunately Nikon have a history of not acknowledging issues, although their recent response to the D750 light leak is an improvement. I suppose if there is a design flaw, which is not proven, it could open them up to a huge financial hit. Your comment on seeing if the D810 has a change to the frame design is intriguing. A change to fix the flaw you think exists would provide circumstantial proof. ...Show more →
Sometimes I do hope that discussions can be carried out without having to always ended up in arguments.
We can always agree or disagree without having to throw vulgarity or insulting others.
And yes most manufacturers do perform Accelerated Life Test (ALT), still things do get missed out at times. But recently Nikon has a very poor record with one issue followed by another for their latest products.
As a Nikon user I do wish them well just as for Canon because having choice and competition is always good for us. But we can't just stand there doing nothing accepting their mistakes time after time, and at times even helping by not blowing up the issues.
Worst of all blaming their mistakes on the users by slapping them with impact damage and voiding their warranty. This is not the way a reputable company should do.
What is the point of helping to refurbished a dead man's camera that got damaged by a volcanic eruption and handing it back to the deceased family member, while turning away their living customers? This is not the publicity a company should be looking for.
Does that meant that a camera that was damaged by volcanic eruption does not classified as impact damage and so does not void it's warranty, then how come with normal usage void it's warranty? Taking into consideration that when the man fell and die, the camera must have taken some impact. And the acidic volcanic ash filling the gaps which is worse than water damage.
hans98ko wrote:
Sometimes I do hope that discussions can be carried out without having to always ended up in arguments.
We can always agree or disagree without having to throw vulgarity or insulting others.
If I may, a few questions.
You've come to the conclusion that we should, when using big and heavy lenses, use the tripod foot provided with the lens. I'm sorry, but IMO, any photographer who hasn't figured that out deserves to get hit with claims of impact damage.
You've also proposed that Nikon has engineered the frame section of the D800 (and possibly all frames) to be excessively light and prone to stress while using big and heavy lenses without their own tripod mounts.
With all due respect: How difficult would it be to engineer the frame and tripod mount to withstand the fulcrum effect of a 70-200/2.8 lens? What compromises to the body would that entail? Would the body have to be substantially bigger? Would the interior dimensions change significantly? What does that mean for any internal assemblies?
Why stop with the 70-200/2.8? Why not engineer the frame to withstand swinging a 200/f2? Why stop there? Why shouldn't the frame withstand mounting a Siggie 200-500/2.8, and being placed on a monopod via the camera mounting bracket?
At some point, there is reasonable and prudent use by the consumer. I have a 4x4 pickup truck; while it can go many places a car can't, if I'm dumb enough to drive it into a river so that water enters the intake, guess what? My warranty is voided, and I'm left with a very large paperweight.
Mary...will you please keep us posted as to what happens with your camera when sent in? Many of us would like to know your outcome and hope that foryour sake this gets resolved and the camera can be repaired and made functional. I come from the film days, and i have seen my fm2's and fe 2's dropped, slammed against rocks alpine climbing, immersed in water (participating on an exploratory river trip in papua new guinea (1978 and note that i drained the camera of water, and an older 300 mm lens i took apart and dried out..all functioned well the rest of the trip), one lens dropped in salt water, which i then immersed in fresh water and nikon repaired it (1972) and which i still use today....the electronic digital age changed the dynamics of all this ruggedness...creating sophisticated micro computers sensitive to humidity, dust, electrical charges etcetc...so they can auto focus, auto this and auto that.
so please keep us posted on hopefully your anticipated good outcome.bill
RLDubbya wrote:
You've also proposed that Nikon has engineered the frame section of the D800 (and possibly all frames) to be excessively light and prone to stress while using big and heavy lenses without their own tripod mounts.
Maybe I should have clarify a little better what I meant when I said big and heavy lenses. It is not restricted to just the 400mm, 500mm, 600mm, 800mm or the 1200-1700mm, those are monsters that never should have use the tripod mount on the camera at all. What I meant are lenses starting at around 800-900 grams like the 14-24mm, 24-70mm, 28-70mm, 70-200mm, 200mm and 300mm. These are some of the most common lenses that most people own and used, and also more likely that they hung them by the tripod mount or move around on a tripod or monopod.
I think you have applied the word "proposed" by mistake , because I don't think anywhere that I did proposed to Nikon to have the D800 frame made light, as a matter of facts I am one who do not mind having it a little heavier and robust.
The main problem here is that the tripod mount is not connected directly to the main chassis but was suspended over it through an opening on the PCB.
If one compare the chassis among the Canon 5D, Sony A99 to the D800, one will find that they look and feel a lot more solid and robust with less dug out areas to save cost, material and weight. On the D800 chassis I noticed a lot of dug outs with little circular and square patches all over. These dug outs also complicates the calculation of force and stress distribution on the chassis even by using computer simulations. Sometimes dug outs are necessary to clear a certain component interference, but if it is use solely for cost, material and weight saving that compromise the integrity of the product will be a bad choice.
Let's take the fracture issue that we have on hand. Looking at the areas on both sides of the fractured area, there is no obstruction even if the whole areas were to be filled up with alloy covering the side of the screw posts forming one solid piece protruding from the main chassis, this will give it added strength and will not be fractured that easily. Still not the best solution because the tripod mount is still suspended.
The next thing is the 2 sharp corner edges around the fractured area that we saw on the pictures, if only they have rounded them off would have helped in spreading those load and stress much better. Sharp corners tends to concentrate stress and forces for mechanical as well as increase resistance and field strength for electrical circuits.
hans98ko wrote:
The next thing is the 2 sharp corner edges around the fractured area that we saw on the pictures, if only they have rounded them off would have helped in spreading those load and stress much better. Sharp corners tends to concentrate stress and forces for mechanical as well as increase resistance and field strength for electrical circuits.
Evidently you know the story of the Comet, the first commercial jet airliner.
LeifG wrote:
Evidently you know the story of the Comet, the first commercial jet airliner.
Coincidentally, I do and have viewed the report on it's air crash investigation pointing to skin structural failures ripping a big hole out of the aircraft thus causing it's crash. If I recall correctly, it started from the edge of a window frame due to metal fatigue very similar to what we are seeing here on the D800.
Also Coincidentally I had flew on one of them in the early 60s by British Airways.
The cameras should be more robust, but I suppose Nikon is trying to save weight or money. I bet this crap would not happen if there were a D4x.
