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Zoran Vincic

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Everything posted by Zoran Vincic

  1. Not normal, that's way too much play, especially on the yoke bearings. No wonder you could not achieve DB, it's hard to get the sled to even stay in static balance when you have so much shift. Very small amount of play at the handle is acceptable, but even there you have too much. That's the easier one to fix, unscrew the handle from the blue knurled part and you will see an allen bolt with a split washer beneath it. Tighten it just so that you remove the play. Do not overtighten as that will introduce drag. If the screw is easy to turn it would be wise to add threadlock (Loctite 222) or you will be making the same adjustment again very soon. As for the yoke, when you pull out the plastic caps you will see screws with two holes in them. You will need a pin spanner screwdriver or bit, I think it's size #6. Do a rough adjustment first, tighten both screws so that the post is approximately centered in the gimbal. Tighten the screws just enough that you remove play and stop. If you tighten more than that you will just introduce unnecessary drag in those bearings. Now that you've done this you can go ahead and do a centering procedure. You can find an excerpt from an Ultra2 manual which explains how to center the gimbal. That manual was easy to find but Tiffen redesigned their website and I can't find it anymore. I have a bit of time so here's how I do it, some steps are different than in the manual but this method works: 1. First load the sled near it's maximum payload. I don't use any cables and I make sure that the build is 100% solid. There must be no shifting of any part of the sled. Ideally, you want to pass the shake test. 2. Put the sled on the balancing stud and orientate it perpendicular to the gimbal handle. Looking at the side of the camera, I like to start balancing with lens pointing to the left so I will refer to that. 3. Do a static balance. 2.5 second droptime is a reasonable start. You may want to center it first to that and then if you wish you can continue refining with a slower droptime. To center it to slower droptime than 3 - 3.5s you have to make sure that the gimbal bearings are in great condition. If they are dirty and sticky they will cause sticktion the slower you go with the droptime. After a certain point you won't be sure if the sled is hanging because of centering or bearing drag. And if you slow down even more (5 - 6 seconds and more), then physics come into play, you will lose the help of inertia. It is possible to center it with such slow droptimes but it gets very finnicky and time consuming. In short, centering to about 3 seconds is good. If you achieve that without much of an issue proceed to center to 4 seconds. No point going more than that unless you really like working with very slow droptimes. 4. Verify that the sled is in good static balance (you may want to use a couple of bubble levels during centering) and then pan 180 degrees. If the gimbal is not centered the sled will be tilted either left or right. With bad quality rigs the sled may even start to hang towards or away from you. In that case you have a badly manufactured gimbal housing and there's no help for that. But you have a Zephyr so you should be ok. Now you have to shift the post by adjusting those two spanner screws. Remember that you have tightened them just enough to remove play so it is very important that whatever you do to one screw, you do the same to the other one but in opposite direction. The goal is to shift the post without increasing drag or reintroducing play. Never drive both screws in or out together. It's always - one goes in, other goes out. Also you do very small adjustments here, about 1/16 of a turn. 6. Ok, so you did a static balance and panned 180 degrees. Now the lens is pointing to the right and let's say it's tilting up which means the sled is hanging to the left. To counter that you have to adjust the left side screw clockwise to go in and the right side screw counterclockwise to go out. Do the adjustment and then pan 180 again to return to the starting position with the lens pointing to the left. (now this is where my procedure deviates from the manual which says once you do the static balance you don't touch the top stage anymore) 7. Now at the starting position you won't be in static balance anymore so rebalance until you are. And then just repeat from step 4. until you get to the point where the sled is holding level after a 180 pan. Congratulations, your gimbal should now be centered. Also, before you even start, pull those screws out, clean and degrease them and the threads in the yoke. Then before you start put a little bit of Loctite 222 on the threads. If you don't there's a high chance that you will need to recenter again soon. Don't worry if you don't get it from the first go, it takes a little practice.
  2. Guys, I need an advice. I'm using a Marshall 651STX monitor with a Marshall level sensor. The level marker recently started to jump from middle to the extreme point on one side. It was doing that here and there but yesterday it started doing it so frequently that I had to disable the level as it was too distracting during operating. It is doing the same thing on a Steadicam branded Marshall 70XHB I'm using as a backup. Has anyone else experienced that kind of behavior? Thanks
  3. Cinemilled looked interesting until I realised that the only way to tilt up or down was by leaning with your body. One more thing bugs me about steadimate? Is it possible to use it inverted?
  4. You're right Dougal, I just read your post again and I apologize for being a smartass. As there's not much real world info about the steadimate yet I wanted to ask you something. One sentence in your first post caught my eye, you wrote "the arm will take some of the weight off your arms, but you're still holding all that weight way out in front of you". Ain't one of the main perks of steadimate that it enables fingertip control of the gimbal? Did you try any other gimbal supports to compare with the steadimate? Thanks
  5. Hey Dougal, just one small digression, steadimate did not kill that bearing. As you've said it yourself, you were trying to dial down the arm while it was unloaded or loaded lightly. That would kill it with the sled too. The arm sections needs to be loaded and horizontal before adjusting the dial, especially when you dial down as that involves actually putting more tension on the spring to preload it for less capacity. If you just glanced at the manual you could've avoided the trouble as it says there when NOT to adjust that dial. Luckily for you it's not an expensive fix. You don't even have to disassemble the whole arm although you do need to remove the tension from the spring as you won't be able to wedge a new bearing in while it is under tension That bearing is standard and widely available, 1/4 x 1/2 x 3/16, flanged. You will also find it as SFR188zz. Be sure to get that one as there is also a FR188ZZ bearing which is not stainless. And get some spares too.
  6. I changed the waist band on my Zephyr sled. It's shared with the LX vest and they even have it listed in the webshop.
  7. And be sure to find a more solid way to mount it. You will get vibrations if it's loose like this.
  8. Ned, these converters are made by this company no matter what the box print says: chusei.cn
  9. Ned, you could've saved your self some time in designing and building that regulator if you had seen this thread: http://www.steadicamforum.com/index.php?showtopic=24620 That converter will happily take voltage from any fully charged 14.4 battery as it is rated for 5-18V input.
  10. Charles, I can't confirm as I currently don't have access to a camera which puts out that format so I can't test it. But if you ran into it before it's probably the same thing as they all come from the same production line. Michael, besides the format issue, that unit certainly looks like a higher quality build, proper BNC's etc. My main concern was will this box take unregulated 14.4V power, which it does without an issue. Hence this post, someone will be googling their ass off trying to find the same information, like I did. But unlike me they will have this thread.
  11. I just received a super cheap SDI to HDMI converter which I bought to mount on one of my HDMI monitors. I paid only $21 for it so it certainly goes in the super cheap bin. It is advertised to take 5-12V power and I wanted to test will it work on a fresh off the charger V-lock battery (measured 16.8V). I can happily say that it works with no ill effects (like smoke). I opened it up just to confirm and the input capacitor is rated at 25V and it has AMS1117CD voltage regulator. And it says 5V>>18V on the PCB, right next to the power input. It also has a metal casing and it seems robust enough but there are few issues. The BNC and hdmi connectors are not robust enough. If you were to use it in production environment I'd strongly advise to have backup. I am planning to change the BNC connector to a better panel mounted one. Also, the pcb in my unit is mounted with one screw only although there are four screw slots. I attached a few snapshots
  12. That's correct Frank, it is the addon grip Frederic is making. It really does make a huge difference in handling.
  13. Hi, As the title says I'm looking for a used Zephyr in EU, hit me up with an offer if you have one for sale.
  14. And for those of you who are curious how exactly did the Alexa fly with a rig this small, here is the finished video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3mvuMLiTAo
  15. Here it is, Alexa mini with a focus motor, BM sdi to analog converter, sennheiser audio receiver all bundled up on a Pilot with a 155wh battery on the sled, together with a Marshall 651stx monitor. We used Cooke S4 mini lenses, mostly 50 and 31mm and just a few shots were done with the 18 (which is the lightest of the bunch). As the title says it flies but it is not ideal. The arm is drooping just a bit too much and I had to use my right arm to lift quite a bit more than normally. And I was not relaxed while operating it. It really did feel like a struggle. If the rig was less than a kilo lighter it would had flied beautifully. And if you're wondering what's that cable from the monitor to the top stage, Pilot's power wiring would melt if I powered Alexa through it so I made a D-tap extension which ran from the d-tap port on the battery to a 4 port d-tap splitter that was on the top stage. Worked like a charm. So yes, it can be done. No, I wouldn't like to do it again. v
  16. Hi guys, one of the bearings on my Pilot arm disintegrated and I need to send it in for repair. Does anyone have a Tiffen/Steadicam contact in UK I could reach out to? Tiffen US answered that I would need to send the arm back to California but as I'm in Croatia/EU it would be much easier to send it to UK. Thanks
  17. First of all, sorry for reviving an old thread :) I fly a EX1 with a juice design baseplate (IMO baseplate is essential for steadicam and this cam as the EX1 has an awfully designed bottom) and a Pilot with V-lock batteries (small IDX ones in the VLB kit). I have a original Sony 0.8x wide angle adapter on and often a led light and sennheiser ew100 g3 audio receiver. The camera is powered from the sled as it's already top heavy and I had to remove the camera's battery. I have no trouble achieving dynamic balance in stripped down configuration or fully loaded, so it certainly CAN BE DONE. My drop time is around 3.5 sec. Here's a video I did when I got the Pilot, the cam is without a wide converter but it has an battery attached. There's also no baseplate in this video but I used a Manfrotto quick release system. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa_nU1X9ZG8 I don't balance it this way anymore, I have moved the gimbal closer to the top stage and shortened the post as I found that i have some vibrations when operating aggresively with the post extended. Oh, and I had to fine tune the gimbal to achieve nice DB. You can find the instructions on the Tiffen's Ultra page or have them email you the pdf (the procedure is the same).
  18. Hi Gregory, that video you embedded is actually mine and the only thing that's added is a 400gr plate with attachment points for weights. On one of that points behind the camera I mounted a 1/4'' spigot and attached a Manfrotto 035 superclamp there (I just got the plate when I shot this video and did not have any weights yet). After that it was easy, found and marked the CG, mounted the whole thing with CG about a 1cm behind the centerpost and from there easily found the DB, just like with a normal camcorder. The lens mounted on the camera is a Canon 17-40 f4L
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