The static balance of the sled means three aspects: fore and aft balance, side to side balance and top-bottom balance. Before start adjusting, take precaution. Choose a stand that match the weight of the rig and put sand bags on the legs of the stand to prevent accidental tip-over.

Make sure the distance between the rig and the stand is big enough so that the rig won’t bump the stand. Secure each and every knob. Then make some rough pre-set. Before fine adjusting, have a rough idea about the positions for camera, monitor, battery, gimbal and desired length of the post and set them so. For example, monitor and battery should be assembled in alignment with each other on the opposite side of the sled, angled at 45°, connect the cables neatly, gimbal is about 5cm below the mounting stage, etc.

Now, start adjusting the static balance. Take the sled that has monitor, camera and battery on it already off the U lock, slide the curved gimbal handle onto the stud on the other end of the docking bracket. Make sure the stud is securely into the gimbal handle. Keep the sled in line with one leg of the stand for the sake of safety.

First adjust fore and aft balance. In the pre-set, battery and monitor have been put at the opposite side of the sled in balanced way. Now, just turn the fore-aft knob on the mounting stage for fine adjustment. In case camera position is changed and moved backward, then move monitor and battery in the opposite direction accordingly. If the camera is moved forward slightly, then move monitor and battery backward accordingly.

Then adjust side to side balance. This step is relatively simple. There is a knob for side to side adjustment, by tuning which side to side balance can be achieved. If the camera’s gravity is off the center, take this into consideration while assembling the dovetail plate. There are three rows of hole on the dovetail plate, choose the appropriate hole (right, left or central one ) in accordance to the camera’s gravity and attach the camera and the dovetail plate through this hole.

Last it comes to top and bottom balance. To do so, first find the horizontal gravity point of the sled. Hold the sled horizontally, loosen the gimbal clamp, slide the post slightly back and forth until the sled is horizontally balanced. Then move the gimbal towards the camera end approximately 1cm (so that the sled is bottom heavy and can stay vertical by itself), lock the gimbal clamp tight, let go of your hand. The bottom end of the sled will drop, take hold of the sled when it is upright to prevent its swinging back and forth. If the drop time is about 3 seconds, it indicates the top-bottom balance is achieved. For sled with more than one stage, in addition to sliding the post, extending or contracting the length of the post can also help find the horizontal gravity point of the sled. For big cameras, counterweight blocks can help achieve top-bottom balance as well. Keep one thing in mind, while extending or contracting the post, always remember to keep monitor, battery and camera in line. Once the top-bottom balance is achieved, any slight repositioning of the gimbal, post length change, or even the change of battery or monitor angle could affect the balance.

This is the end of static balance adjustment. Now the sled should hang perfectly upright and the camera stays level.

To achieve ideal static balance, 2 or 3 tests might be needed before we can finally get it.