Dynafit Tech — Range of Adjustment and Screw Patterns
We get tons of emails and blog comments asking about Dynafit bindings boot length adjustment range and screw patterns. Instead of acting like a lame college professor giving a cloned lecture dozens of times a year, I thought I’d stick the essentials in a blog post (and make sure they’re in our Dynafit Binding FAQ), so here goes Part Two in “A Week of Dynafit.”
Dynafit TLT Speed heel unit base.
Photo above shows for/aft boot length adjustment mech for Dynafit TLT Speed. Range is 6.4 millimeters. Mondo boot sizing is done in centimeters, so range of this binding is around 1/2 size Mondo. Thus, consider TLT for/aft adjustment to be more for tuning to a given boot than for swapping various size boots.
Dynafit Vertical/Comfort base plate underside.
Photo above, Dynafit TLT Comfort and Vertical models base plate. For/aft adjustment range 26 millimeters, or around 2 1/2 Mondo sizes.
TLT Vertical Rental, heel base underside.
Photo above, TLT Vertical Rental rear base plate, 61 mmm adjustment range, or around 6 Mondo sizes.
Now about those screw patterns.
All Dynafit binding toe units use the same screw pattern. Speed, Comfort and Vertical all use the same heel hole pattern. Vertical Race, Low Tech Race, Vertical Lite all use a tighter hole pattern and require machinist level mounting skills because they have no for/aft adjustment. TLT Vertical Rental has its own unique heel hole pattern because it is so much longer.
Dynafit Lite/Race base to left, TLT Speed to right.
Any questions, class?
Comments
25 Responses to “Dynafit Tech — Range of Adjustment and Screw Patterns”
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Thanks for the info Lou! I am a long time reader, first time poster… I really enjoy the thought and effort you put into your blog….
Since this is Dynafit week, I had a quick question… I just bought a pair of Mansalus, and I really want to use them with my G3 alpinist skins. I heard that you basically took the rubber tips of your skis… care to go into a little more detail on how you did that?
Thanks.
Just got my skis back from the shop. I had the heel re-mounted so that I can adjust between my old 28′s (~316mm?) and my new 27′s (~306mm). Unfortunately, the original mount of my TLTs couldn’t move forward enough for the new boots. Two comments:
1. Switching between boot sizes also affects the correct DIN setting. Follow Lou’s wisdom and don’t make DIN an ego thing or suffer the consequences. The difference is minimal for small differences in boot size, but it accumulates.
2. Moving the midsole forward on the ski (switching to a smaller boot) should theoretically affect the way that the set-up skis. I don’t expect this to be noticable, but then again, I’m not the best skier on earth either.
Thanks for the comments Pat, yeah, if you go to a smaller boot you in theory need less DIN. What I’d do if I were you is just set your bindings to the lower setting and use that with your longer boots and see if it works. Probably will.
If you’re not a super experienced skier you probably won’t notice the change in boot/foot position on ski, but it can make a difference.
Lou, thanks for being the Guru, and sharing the dynafit knowledge. her’s my question, is it possible to buy the vertical rental heel base separately, and swap it out for the ft12 base, so that I have an ft12 rental? or can you special order a ft12 rental? I plan on mounting them on DPS lotus 120′s and having the 12din + rental plate will make it easy to share the stoke.
Thanks, Tom
Tom, though it may appear I’m on Dynafit’s sales support payroll (grin), I’ll have to refer you to Dynafit for that one.
See
http://www.wildsnow.com/693/psa-dynafit-north-america-is-available-to-help-you/
Lou
Lou and Tom,
Any word back from Dynafit as to the availability of just the rental heel plate? I want to be able to adjust the Dynafit heels 3 1/2 sizes so the rental plate would be sweet. My comfort bindings only adjust 21/2 sizes. We are looking to set my girl friend up with some ‘Good-” skis and I want to be able to “borrow” them. I plan to position her 20 mm forward of boot center, which will put me 15 cm behind boot center. Sound like a plan?
William
William, just call ‘em.
I just got a pair of TLT Vertical Race Ti bindings. Does anyone know where I can download a mounting template for the heal? I’ve used the templates on this site to mount Comforts, and I’ve thought of just altering that template, but given the presision need to mount the heal piece, I’d like to get hold of the actual or a scan of the template that ships with the binding.
Thanks!
Not sure if I’m putting this in the right place but here goes.
I’ve just bought a pair of 2nd hand trab race skis which had tourlite tech dynafit bindings on and set up for a boot alot bigger than mine. So took them to a shop and have had dynafit low tech lites put on. They appear to have used the old holes as the toes piece is in the same place as the old binding. Get home wax the ski’s and notice that directly under the toe piece of 1 of the ski’s the base is bulged up, so that it is no longer flat at that part of the ski.
Now I’m fairly sure but not a 100% that it wasn’t like that before they changed the bindings, but since i’d just got the skis can’t be sure that i didn’t miss this and would like to be a bit more certain before complaining. Any ideas how this problem has occurred. Did the binding technician screw too deep? I’m presuming it isn’t fixable either, but would love to be told it is.
Kate, it sounds like the ski de-laminated under the binding toe, probably when the re-mount was done. There are mistakes a tech can make that can cause that, but it can also just happen due to age and deterioration of the ski.
The mistake that can cause this is when the existing screw holes are bottomed out with glue, and a longer screw (or thinner binding plate) causes a new screw to ram into the bottom of the hole while the screw is being turned in. Instead of the screw continuing to insert, it instead will strip the hole or delam the ski. Don’t ask me how I know (grin).
But like I said, no way for us here to know if it was tech fault or if the ski was just blown up to begin with and came apart while doing a normal and careful binding mount. That said, that the tech didn’t notice the budged topskin is a concern and indicates a less than skillful approach…
That type of damage is tough to fix, and even if it is “fixed” you can never use the skis with 100% confidence after the fix.
Thanks Lou
Took the ski’s back to the shop and they discovered they’d fitted the binding with screws too long. The friend who went with me has a theory about the quality of french work post lunch.
Anyway they fixed them so they now look brand new. I take your point about the longevity of the ‘fix’ and am a bit worried that they’ve ground my base to next to nothing but will see how I get on with them and hope for the best.
If they pumped some of the correct type epoxy in there and heated the ski up so it’ll run all over the place inside, then clamped and cured, it might be as strong as new. No way to know.
My wife wanted a Dynafit rig. She has new Scarpa boots. For kicks I checked to see if her boots would fit into my lightest skis (7lbs 4 oz including Comforts and skins) because I know she would love those. The Comforts adjusted down to fit her boots, and one of her boots fits perfectly into the binding. But the other boot is out of alignment with the binding, as shown in this linked photo:
extrix.com/scarpaheelopt.jpg
Opinions please — will this amount of misalignment skew the release function or cause prereleases?
I hope I put this query in the right place.
I wouldn’t want that much mis-alignment, if for no other reason than it’s going to cause stress on the binding when stomping down the heel to click in… This is such an easy fix, just take toe unit screws out and re-insert with epoxy while aligning binding.
BTW, the boot could be defective. Easy to check, is it off nearly the same amount when checked in different bindings?
I don’t like the misalignment either, but I’ve never had a misaligned Dynafit and I’m not an engineer, so I appreciate hearing a more enlightened opinion.
Here’s the irony: I have two pairs of Dynafit-equipped skis (Dynafit Tour Lite Rally and K2 Mt Baker). I mounted both myself specifically for my old Dynafit TLT700 boots. I have two pairs of those boots, identical, same year, still work great, and both pairs have the same slight asymmetry in the right boot hardware fittings. But apparently the Scarpas are flawless; thus the problem!
Anyway I have a pair of Kongurs with skins, and TLT Speeds, so I’ll set those up for my fine lady until I can dig up something lighter. I’m too selfish to give up my superlight rig. I love it and at my age I need it for serious tours.
Lou, once again, many thanks.
He he, kudos Scarpa!
Indeed! And they were a steal at STP.
I wonder whether some Dynafit release problems are due to misalignment like in my photo. If I had taken my skis to a shop for mounting instead of doing it myself, I doubt the shop would have factored in the boot imperfection.
Warrn, boot/binding misalignment can indeed pre-load the heel unit in one directing, which could in turn compromise boot retention. I’ve never tested at what point that would occur, but my theory has always been that a tiny amount of fudge factor is ok, any more and I’m playing around with things to get rid of it.
Hey Lou,
I have mounted some Dynafit vertical st bindings to a pair of Black Diamond skis. Would it be possible to take them off then put them back on a few months from now?
How many times can you screw back into the same holes?
Thanks.
Tyler, sure. There is no set number on the times you can use the same holes. It’s more than several, but the screws gradually cut too many new threads and you can feel the screw start to strip when you do a normal amount of tightening torque. Using epoxy each time helps, but heat the screw to back out of the epoxy so it doesn’t ream out the hole on the way out. Lou
Thanks.
How does the Dynafit TLT Speed Radical (http://www.dynafit.com/product/bindings/tlt-speed-radical) hole pattern compare other Speed and Vertical models? The text above says ” Speed, Comfort and Vertical all use the same heel hole pattern” so I’d assume it is the same but the other more heavy duty Radical model does have a different hole pattern.
Similar question to above:
I plan on mounting my sportiva lo 5s with dynafit vertical st10 for 2 boots: 1 is 297 bsl the other has 312. Since I am going to have to mount heel piece for the larger range and then crank it down for the shorter boots, should I mount them about 1 cm back from recommended line to split the difference between the 2 points? Not sure it even matters much, but seems like it might be noticeable.
Any thoughts on mounting sportivas at the recommended line in general?
Thanks Lou, every time I have a Dynafit question and google your site pops up and even though I’m a fairly avid reader I still find new stuff!
I just got a pair used skis with Vertical ST bindings on them. They were mounted for a 26.5 boot and mine are 27.5 but it was close enough that one binding adjusted to accept my boot and the correct gap. When I went to adjust the other binding, the heel adjustment screw starts backing out instead of staying in place and moving the heel unit back. Any idea how I might remedy this (ideally without remounting)? That heel unit was near/at the full forward adjustment for some reason while the other one was mid range when i moved it back.
Thoughts?
Thanks!
Ok, yeah, ignore that. I went back down to the shop and realized I had somehow switched the ratchet direction on my screwdriver and was turning it the wrong way. :-p Now I’ve just go to get the heel piece back together after correctly installing the retaining clip for the brakes.