How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Powertap

[Mike Germond SOC]

Just as a matter of preparation, I have at least 2 ways to power each of my accessories. My BFD has about 5 ways depending on which camera we're talking..

[Jason Torbitt]

Just as a matter of preparation, I have at least 2 ways to power each of my accessories. My BFD has about 5 ways depending on which camera we're talking..

 

Exactly Mike - have solutions available no matter what configuration you're faced with. I have at least 2 ways of powering everything, and all accessories have at least one cable that terminates in an XLR-4 or the aforementioned PowerTap / D-Tap for a simple solution.

[Colin Donahue]

fried a canatrans and blew a fuse in the vari-cam last week when the p-tap was plugged in backwards by the ac. We were using a 4 position female p-tap "box". The two outside sockets have a split to allow the plastic to widen. Still not sure how hard someone had to force the damn thing backwards into the socket but it happened so be aware of morons and your shit! Wish the holes were offset like the old pro batts so even if you are a moron the pins won't line up.

 

rb

 

 

I am one of those "morons". :o I have the AB four tap box. I usually mount it off the AB bracket on the camera . When the camera is on the stand It is too high for me to see into the tap to figure out which way the plug goes. On the end taps it goes in either way with about the same resistance. I have not blown anything up yet... but now I just use the inside taps first. Of course, I could just lower the docking bracket so I could see what I was doing, but apparently I am still a moron!

 

Charles, thanks for all the info.

 

Colin

[Jess Haas SOC]

I got one of those four tap boxes, took the end off and replaced it with a lemo tha fits my sled and added a little velcro so I now have 4 P-Taps on my sled for all HD jobs. Never really felt that the P-Taps could fit the wrong way in the breakout box but maybe my velcro is helping that. I have noticed a number of RED power plates where after a little wear the P-Tap was almost completely square and fitting in the wrong way was very easily done.

 

Before I had a Red power cable for my rig I had a last minute Red gig where I really didn't want to fly with the battery on the camera. I didn't have the right lemo handy but I did have two spare P-Tap connectors so I soldered up a male to male P-Tap cable. Ran this from my sleds P-Tap breakout box to the P-Tap on the Red camera plate and was good to go. This isn't really ideal but it worked great and I never had any problem with it. I have a proper Red power cable now but the P-Tap cable makes a nice backup and there have actually been some other occasions where I contemplated using it for other things.

 

I try to keep a few spare P-Tap connectors in my kit because in a pinch they are an easy and quick connector to solder up when you need to power something form the sled that you don't have the proper cable for. Soldering lemos on set is much more difficult.

 

~Jess

[Jerry Franck]

1) Sled to female d-tap. This will be a custom cable, but it will provide you with the ability to provide a d-tap source from your rig without relying on the camera to do so. This may allow you to shed weight off the camera. In the case of RED, it's well known that flying the onboard battery often requires a depressing amount of bracketry (hopefully ET but more often than not the lumbering RED stuff with steel 19mm rods, ugh); powering the camera off the sled with the appropriate cable is good but you still might have to power accessories, and by removing the battery you will have disabled the d-tap port. This particular cable has elicited many a "huh, that's a good idea" from other operators when I describe it, so I feel confident in saying that it's a good idea. I have PRO wiring so I had mine made (by Terry West) with the 3-pin camera power Lemo.

 

 

Hey Charles,

 

great post.

 

I was thinking of getting an AB Multi P-Tap to PRO AUX 2pin lemo. But am I gonna run into restrictions later?

Is there a technical reason why you did yours to the 3pin camera port? Might it be because of certain power hungry cameras that you power with a Y cable from AUX & CAM ports? In that case you would want the P-Tab to be on the second CAM port that's still free, right?

 

Hmmm, reading this I might have answered my own question. :blink: But could you still confirm?

 

Thanks,

Jerry

[Mike McGowan SOC]

In addition to all the great stuff mentioned above, I still like the 'backpack' option. As just about everything can be powered (in a pinch) by a standard power cable to a standard block battery which in the scheme of things weights nothing on your back.............

[Alec Jarnagin SOC]

Jerry,

 

I think you just answered your own question indeed. There are actually three camera power outs so you have two spares at any given time (the 12 volt pin will always provide 12 volts even if the rig is in 24 volt mode).

[Jason Torbitt]

In addition to all the great stuff mentioned above, I still like the 'backpack' option. As just about everything can be powered (in a pinch) by a standard power cable to a standard block battery which in the scheme of things weights nothing on your back.............

 

Yep - it's not ideal! But works when it has to - for example the other day when I was at the top of a mountain shooting the last shot at 3am. Backpack was with us - my PAGs weren't - job done.