Irys Steel

The RF is your best bet for lightweight lenses. 0.25nm is perfectly adequate for most use cases. If the lens is stiff then the Plus will get you through. Mostly it's best suited to Zoom due to it's added strength. One thing that improves the response of the motors is adding additional power into the loop. Having a D-Tap to LBUS cable going into the chain will immediately get everything running at full speed on high torque. With the added power the Mini becomes a good middle ground between the RF and the Plus. I still haven't found a motor that feels as good as the long discontinued Reflex in terms of speed, weight, and torque but the Heden LM-30 gets pretty close.

Somehow that's still too soon

If it had a regular fitting on one end, I'd call it a "Rat Tail" which would be used for moving a commonly unplugged BNC from inside a wet weather bag for example. This? I'm not sure how I'd use it...

As much as it pains me to say it, the PDmovie remote AIR 3 (Dual motor with thumbwheel) might be the path to go. The motors are fine, not great but they'll cope with stills lenses and light cine lenses. Thumbwheel just needs a battery connection and it's otherwise wireless. I wouldn't go much cheaper than the PDmovie (the tilta version maybe) as the servicing and customer support just isn't there below that price point. It'll get you up and running and you'll have a hand unit to give a focus puller if you get one.

I'm curious as to peoples opinions on PLC electronic solutions. Are they not an official distributer or are they kind of a competitor using Jims hand units?

Jim posted about extending the range on this forum a few years back - HERE He recommends trying the half wave antennas on the RX only Analog Receiver Antenna Digital Receiver Antenna Higher gain antennas will probably fix your issues, plus they're fairly cheap so worth trying.

Shoot Blue and Pixie Pixel are indie friendly and have good alexa mini packages. I've used them a lot and haven't had a bad experience. Filmscape are often the go to for very low budgets but I've had problems. Lots of hand holding is needed so you don't get bitten after returning kit. They're getting better though. If you can, go to Arri directly. Get a quote. If it's in your budget, go there. They have everything and your AC's will be happy