Just a short tale of my experience with balancing the Merlin.

When I got my Merlin back in April this year I took quite a bit of time getting the balance correct. Because of the time needed (I knew it would take time) when I got the balance correct I was so happy I then went out to start practicing.......
Although I had it balanced I kept getting small problems with yaw etc.

Then one day I noticed a fault in my Merlin. I returned it the USA and Tiffen. It was soon back - fixed under guarantee.

I rebalanced, this time using the "Exel" spreadsheet on the Tiffen site.
I got it balanced - noticing that this time I had entirely different weights and arc-size than before.
But it seemed to be easier to control than before.
After exchanging an email with Mikko, I changed the settings for a 3rd time.

Now the Merlin is perfectly balanced - with little or no side-effects.

The moral of my story is: After wrestling with the initial balancing for a few hours and finding what you think is the correct setting - note them - then try again with other settings. It is quite possible that your initial settings were not as perfect as you thought.

Hope this makes sense to you!

Douglas

What cam are you using? What is your drop time?

I had exactly the same problem with my merlin. I was balancing too much to the eye and that is what caused me problems