Alan Rencher

Seconded. The Red MX cable works with the Epic adapter, but it's kind of awkward to use. Terry West made an Epic cable for me, and it works great. It's also cheaper than the Tiffen Red MX Cable.

So I should flip my collar if I buy one?

It sounds to me like there are particles in the bearings. If the bearings aren't sealed, you may be able to clean them yourself, but if you don't have experience with that kind of thing then you should send it out for service.

I've owned a zephyr for about six months now, and I'm pretty happy with it. However, I do plan on upgrading to a bigger rig in the next year or so. I've been doing a lot of research, and I'm torn between staying with Tiffen, our going over to Pro. In was leaning heavily toward buying a used Pro setup, and upgrading gradually, but I've been thinking lately that I might want to invest in a Tango and eventually upgrade to an Archer 2. I know this comes down mostly to preference, but I just wanted to get some thoughts on the subject. I guess my main question is how practical would it be to invest in a Tango? Does anyone on here own one? Could you share your experience with it? Thanks! Alan

I've built many rigs just from Berkey parts. They're cheap, and you can be creative. berkeysystem.com

where's Troll Hunter when you need him?

I've made that exact cable for my Steadicam zephyr, but you still haven't said what Steadicam you have. It isn't going to cost you $50, either. It's $80-$120 in Lemo parts alone depending on which exact connectors you need.

I love the hard case that it came in.

They basically updated the washer with a divider in between the lever so that the clamp can't spin. My rig was one of the unlucky ones that ended up having a bent screw in the clamp. I also had to have my gimbal rebalanced when I took it in for service, but it was all covered under warrantee. The service tech told me about the issue when I took it in for service.

Hey, I just wanted the other Zephyr owners out there to know that Tiffen has updated the gimbal clamp to fix a problem where the clamp was coming loose and, if overtightened, the screw would bend. If you have an older Zephyer, check to see if they can update the clamp for you.

That just looks like you need practice. The common misconception of Steadicam systems is that they just work out of the box. If you search through the forums, you will see this thread being brought up again and again. All I can say to you, is that you need to practice, take some lessons, read, etc. I hope this helps.

What's your set-up like?

Hey Mark, I'm not speaking from any technical standpoint, but a purely empirical one. I use the "SD" port exclusively on my rig as it cuts down on clutter. I even loop it through my monitor and out to a wireless transmitter sometimes. I haven't had any issues yet.

It also says in the manual that it can be used a a general purpose output that can be mapped to any of the user keys, so in theory, you could map it to the still/movie switch, turn it on, and leave it on. right?

I have a quick question to anyone who might have an insight on these types of things. I was reading through the Epic manual, and I saw that the GPO contact in the CTRL port on the Epic puts out 3.3v. So my question would be, would it be possible to make a start/stop cable that uses the power from the CTRL port (maybe a Y cable?

I just recently bought a Decimator from Charles Papert, and I'll be testing that with the HDMI transmitter on various cameras. Hopefully, I'll be able to use this transmitter with more formats now.

I'm going to try using it with a Decimator 2, and see if that will make things like the Epic work with it.

Okay, so I haven't updated this in a while, but I have been working on a second prototype. I've scratched the receiver box to video village, and I've decided to go with a handheld director's monitor. I'm shooting a short film next weekend, and I'm going to test drive it there. I've already started to build the prototype, and I'll have it up and running a a couple of days. I've taken a couple of pictures of the build so far: WHIDI Director's Monitor