Dynafit Failure

Here presented are photos and testimony of a total binding failure while skiing the Dynafit FT binding.
I am 6'2", 185lbs on Factor Boots and Megawatt skis 2008 model (white).
The bindings that failed were FT 92mm binding (re-fitted with 110mm breaks), Din 12 and purchased in France on March 2010. The bindings were mounted with a jig by a Dynafit certified technician on a new pair of skis.
The bindings had roughly 30 days of use before failure occurred. The heels were set at 12, a turn left from maximum.
The toes were locked.
I had experienced a toe pre-release one and two days prior in totally different situations - one just after the first turn off the lift and the second on a high speed ride through a low-angle field of broken-crud studded with hard snow chunks. I felt right away that
both of these pre-releases were strange, as I have been skiing Dynafits for ten years with no previous problems in similar conditions. I checked the toes for cracks and verified that there was no ice under the boot or in the toe piece among possible causes.
It is my guess that the toe piece plate was already cracked and weakened, but not completely sheared yet, as seen in photo. But I did not know this at the time as the crack must have been hidden from view.
On the third day, during a traverse on soft snow at medium to high speed, the binding suddenly released at the toe for no reason and the ski shot out from under me. I made a controlled fall and discovered the toe piece had failed.
I was lucky not to have hit a tree or rock.
If the failure had happened earlier in the run, there is a good chance I would not be alive to tell this story.

Cause of failure appears to be from two different reasons:

1- The newly designed torsion-bridge under the FT Toe Piece creates a "lever effect" which I believed caused the failure by adding additional stress just under the screws, as seen in the photo.
The ST and TLT models for example do not have the torsion-bridge and their toe plates are a lot wider and thus give a wider distribution of force around the toe piece screws.

2- The exposed metal of the broken toe piece exposes white looking spots in the metal itself which begs the question as to Dynafit's quality control and quality of the metal itself.

Conclusion: The FT series torsion-bridge causes additional torsion to the toe plate screws which can result in unpredictable pre-releases and/or complete failure in the form of shearing of the metal toe plate around the screws. Serious injury or Death can result from such an unpredictable failure.
There is no doubt that the new torsion-bridge can not handle mixed/hard conditions under higher speeds when skied with a combination of a 4 buckle Freeride type-boot (e.g.Factor) and fat skis 110mm underfoot or greater (125mm under foot in my case).

Thus, the FT is simply overwhelmed at the toe piece because of the poorly designed FT torsion-bridge.

Dynafit, in their description of the FT on their website states:

The patented mechanical four-point link between binding and boot, along with the intricate torsion-bridge between toe and heel, provides a previously unknown degree of force distribution to the ski.

Ironically, it is my belief that the torsion-bridge actually creates additional weakness to the toe piece by increasing torsion directly under and around the toe-plate screws, especially when used with fat skis.
Also, it may be possible that there was a quality issue with the metal used.
However, upon receipt of the broken binding, Dynafit never requested a serial # for the binding which leads me to believe that they were not concerned about faulty metal/poor quality control.
However, it is possible as well that the metal used in the toe-piece is of inferior quality and this is also what added to the failure, or was possibly the principle cause.
This would require a detailed study, which Dynafit has not undertaken to my knowledge.

Incidentally, last winter here at the same ski area, another Dynafit FT failed exactly at the same place in the toe piece through sheering; the skier was of similar build, with a similar fat ski/stiff boot combo.

After 10 years of skiing 500 plus days on Dynafits I have never experienced any seriouys problems of this nature. I have not only skied many rare steep descents with Dynafits, but I have convinced many friends to trust their lives with the Dynafit binding system.
Now, I have serious and well-founded doubts that the Dynafit binding system, FT 12 or others, can safely handle the additional torsion and power created by the modern Freeride Boot/Fat Ski combo when skied aggressively in mixed conditions and terrain.

I warn all Dynafit users to seriously consider the consequences of a failure as described and documented here.
I will continue to use my Dynafits (without the torsion-bridge of course!) but I refuse to use FT's or other Dynafit models for lift-accessed freeriding involving high speeds and high torsional forces in mixed snow conditions.
Please spread the word about this failure of the FT, and the risk it poses.
I believe Dynafit has known about this problem since 2010 and that they have kept such failures quiet as they hurriedly designed a new toe piece/ torsion-bridge to prevent future failures as I have described here.
It will be interesting to know if anyone else has experienced similar failure with FT torsion-bridges.
Hopefully Dynafit will both warn its customers of potential and sudden failure of it's FT Binding series, as well as make the needed improvements to avoid any future failures. If not, I sadly predict serious injuries/fatalities in the near future among Dynafit users, especially those with FT torsion-bridges.
Sincerely
Colin SAMUELS
La Meije, France
January 21st, 2011

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DYNAFIT FAILURE

Erm... shit happens...

Thanks Samuel, but where are the photos ? 🤨

C'est con que ce soit en anglais j'ai pas tout pigé, quelqu'un peut résumer rapidement, grosso modo c'est quoi le pb??? merci

Allez c'est peut-être pas au top comme traduction, mais ça permet de saisir le fond : translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=fr&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=en&tl=fr&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.skitour.fr%2Fforum%2Fread_166223.html%23nonlu

Merci squal...
Dire que je comptes équiper des skis de 102 au patin avec des FT12.... 🤢 Mais bon après faut-il en tirer une conclusion attive... En tout cas l'info est intéressante.

www.camptocamp.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=179143

çà n'a pas l'air d'être le premier à qui çà fait çà...
Arrive-t-on aux limites de la fix Dynafit avec des fats ?

Bonjour Colin,
merci pour ce retour d'info construit et argumenté. Par contre comme Skitour est un forum francophone, pourrais-tu rédiger ce post en français?
Merci d'avance.

Les Photos des Dynafits casses en deux sont a
www.wildsnow.com/4371/dynafit-breakage-ft-to/

[Mod] Message supprimé car non conforme aux règles du forum

comment mettre les photos avec au lieu d'un lien?

si quelqu'un veut le traduire...super! vous etes bien-venue. je prefere que c'est un skieusse(eur) francaise(e) qui le fait(e). mon accent est presque aussi pire que mon francais ecrit 🙂

Colin Samuels a dit :si quelqu'un veut le traduire...super! vous etes bien-venue. je prefere que c'est un skieusse(eur) francaise(e) qui le fait(e). mon accent est presque aussi pire que mon francais ecrit 🙂

Je m'y suis essayé mais tu as du vocabulaire que je n'arrive pas toujours à traduire, ni le dico 🙁 Du coup j'ai peur d'écrire des contre-sens...
Après si tu n'y vois pas de mal je peux faire un "résumé" en français pour ceux qui ont un problème avec l'anglais 🙂

rob

cool!

En résumé et si j'ai bien compris, notre ami Colin a cassé une butée avant de ses Dynafit FT12.
D'après lui, et je veux bien le croire, cela serait du à une mauvaise conception de la pièce principale qui supporte la butée et où viennent s'ancrer les vis, très étroite et à la forme du "pont" qui la relie à la talonnière. Ce pont (Powerplate) spécifique à la FT est trop étroit, et fait que la butée déborde de beaucoup sur les cotés de la fixation. Il se crée alors un porte-à-faux important.
Dans des virages très appuyés avec de gros skis et des chaussures rigides (?), si les contraintes sont trop importantes, la butée se déforme et casse.

Ce débord n'existe quasiment pas sur les ST ou les speed (qui auraient également une butée plus large !), donc à priori pas de soucis, et a été complétement supprimé sur les nouvelles Radical ST.... 😮