steve wagner

Thanks for correction Alec. I’ve never gotten to play with one. looked for it last Cinegear but didn’t find one to see in use. Works for a lot of folks as I have gathered. We all play together.

The Volt was never supposed to be a custom tailored monthly-updated boutique solution for every individual operator. Although I think the three knobs give it a lot of personality. All it ever sought to do was solve the pendulum compromise Garrett made back when he invented this device in 1898. You get adjustable bottom heavy on independent roll and tilt, And some friction on tilt if you need it. And a great tilt headroom setting feature without actually moving weights around. We will keep making it better. And I love a great challenge. But why it needs to swing wildly from low to high and back again with so much as 1.5 degrees of "drift" while it resettles. Oh the horror. Wave requires you to pin-lock, power off, reset, power on when high to low reset As always will try to learn as I go.

it resets at 270 to 300 deg/sec. based on gyro max rate it can measure. takes seconds not moments to reset. about same time your viewers need to recover from that dizzying move you just made!

Really just want to learn, not trying to sell here. Uff Da

I don't ever want Volt to change the feel of the sled in a 'Oops what just happened!' sort of way. so Volt as it acts/reacts should never surprise you, it may feel different from passive 'pure' sled the first few times as you push it around and learn its feel. But it will ALWAYS react same way given same operator input, My absolute basic philosophy for any and all upcoming improvements. I listen. Garrett Jerry H, Rey Reyes, and many great OPs Steve Wagner

And maybe said this before, but need to repeat: Volt is not A.I. it never tries to anticipate what it thinks you want to do in future nor does it try to react to something you did in past. Very simply put: as you move your sled in all possible motions: Volt instantaneously transforms the physics of the actual rig into something not achievable in a passive rig: fast damped drop time for roll, easy to control long drop time for tilt, and no pendulum reaction to acceleration. with a few simple adjustments for all. Most importantly: once you set the knobs. the feel doesn't change. You and Volt cooperate. It simply becomes a learnable new class of passive Steadicam in your hands.

Bear in mind we are constantly looking to make the feel of the Volt as aesthetic and transparent as possible. I now have a great Volt test rig here at my shop. Built on a beautiful Ultra sled.Working a healthy list of subtle but substantial improvements. Good news is all Volts can be upgraded. I want to make sure anything I release is rock solid and breaks no features you've come to depend on. Thanks. Steve Wagner

the M1 Volt motion tracking algorithm completely covers 360 degrees of roll, tilt, pan with no glitches or dead zones. It always knows camera orientation and pointing direction over the full sphere of motion and does not get lost or confused. Like all inertial navigators it will very slowly lose horizon if you accelerate for minutes at a time. Recovers smoothly when acceleration ceases. Steve Wagner

I believe you can see it this week in NY at Abelcine

To see it in action from this Cine Gear to now, just search #m1volt, best regards, Steve Wagner

Not sure, I guess this specialty item's sales were a bit too intermittant to keep factory interested in making more of them.

The only solution that works is the complete one: measure 360 degrees of motion for any orientation in all three axes of rotation using rate gyros, then convert that to a horizon value using accelerometers for gyro drift correction. It is very hard to do but the WHM-BG, properly calibrated comes beneficially close to a true acceleration/fast pan, tilt, roll rotation immune level. The only way to fool it is to do long sweeping turns at speed on a vehicle mount. Only GPS compensation would help that. Hopefully you can find a used WHM-BG out there. Steve Wagner

Reminds me :many candidate light bulb attempts before Edison; ... of course he didn't invent it but his lab made it practical, As Dean Kamen and his more than humble and capable engineers didn't invent the first self leveling inverted pendulum transporter,They had the gumption to produce it, give it redundancy, make it safe enough, put it out on the market, even in USA the most litigious country on earth. As they cleared the way, almost anyone could follow.

Just a guess. Back-light failure, partial. Newer panels use multiple white LEDs for back-light. if one fails, dark spot.

Hi Greg, The WHM-BG has several types of display. For indoor use we have the tri-color bubble. The display is 53 LED segments across about 2 1/4 inches wide, Segments can be green, amber, or red. The 'bubble' is about 4LED's wide , about 1/4 inch. Display split into 5 regions. Center region the bubble is green, about the center 1/5 of the display. Outside that region bubble turns amber "warning" and final outer regions are red "danger" The bubble moves smoothly just like a real spirit level but ignores almost all acceleration which would give false readings with a true spirit level For outdoor use you can set the display to solid red or solid green. Attachable red or green filters are included in the kit to enhance sunlight viewability. You can also set the display to produce an expanding solid bar in either red or green that expands out from center and shows which direction to push the rig to re-level--so called 'Knight Rider' mode. This mode is a bit more visible in peripheral vision and can be set to solid red or green for use with the filters for better outdoor viewability. Hope this helps, Steve Wagner