Bartech and RED cam

[Santiago Yniguez]

Hello all. I will be shooting a project with the RED cam shortly and the DP asked what FF I have. When I told him it was the Bartech, he said that we might need to "upgrade" because in his past experiences, the Bartech has overloaded the RED cam. He hasn't elaborated on what he meant by "overload" yet and am hoping he will e-mail back soon about this. I have never encountered or heard of this issue before now. The only way I can think of this happening is if the RED is powering the Bartech(I'll be powering through the sled)...and even then, it could have been a issue with the cable or the camera. There are just too many variables that could have made the camera "overload". The camera is so finicky as it is, I just can't believe that it was the FF. Just wanted to know if anyone has come across this.

 

Thanks!

Santiago

[Nitin Rao]

Hi there,

 

I think the DP meant was the power surge, since the Red can draw upto 10amps. The bartech where as is also a 12volt run unit. Its possible the wires would have gone hot due to this. you can overcome this if u run the Red cam by its own supply (Red Brick batt).

Hope this helps.

cheers

Nitin

[William Demeritt]

I'm not sure if you can conclusively say that's the case, but I did have an experience last weekend on a music video where the RED shut down and I blamed the FF.

 

Basically, had RED on on Archer2 with a Bartech all powered off the batteries on the sled. On the Steadicam powercubes, I had 2 green lights on one battery and 1 green light on the other, and we had to move fast. So, I figured I had one more take before I'd have to swap batteries. During the shot, though, the DP wanted the follow focus to "pop" in and out of focus, which required a lot of very quick focus racks. Towards the end of the performance, the camera hiccuped and shut down.

 

I think there's an easy solution for you, though. Request that the RED come with a second battery plate with a D-tap, and use a battery to power specifically the Bartech. Keep camera on it's own battery plate, so it's independent of any voltage drops caused by the FF.

[Santiago Yniguez]

Thanks a lot fellas. That helps out. I usually run the red off of its own battery power. I don't want to have any issues arise where the camera goes down and I have to troubleshoot by eliminating each and every aks to find out what the problem is. The only cable I'll have plugged into the camera is the S/S and BNC video out.

 

Thanks again,

Santi

[Robert Starling SOC]

I've flown the RED with TWO Bartechs when I owned Bartechs and have flown it with up to three motors on my Preston MDR2 / HU3 system. No problems related to the FF but always a host of challenges with the RED in the early days.

 

Jim can speak to this better than I can but the only issue somewhat related to this that I ran into was that if I ran the lens all the way to the end of the ring rotation where it hits the stop and continue to apply turning force to the M-One motor, the motor draws more amps as it tries to torque up. This blew a few fuses on my rig so after consulting Robert at Tiffen we upped the fuse a hair and of course I made sure we all paid more attention to not deadending the motor all the way to the lens stops. Whether this has anything to do with your scenario I have no idea. Also, don't just blindly up the fuse ratings on your rig without proper consideration and consult; they're there for a reason!

 

Good luck!

 

Robert

[JimBartell]

Hello all. I will be shooting a project with the RED cam shortly and the DP asked what FF I have. When I told him it was the Bartech, he said that we might need to "upgrade" because in his past experiences, the Bartech has overloaded the RED cam. He hasn't elaborated on what he meant by "overload" yet and am hoping he will e-mail back soon about this. I have never encountered or heard of this issue before now. The only way I can think of this happening is if the RED is powering the Bartech(I'll be powering through the sled)...and even then, it could have been a issue with the cable or the camera. There are just too many variables that could have made the camera "overload". The camera is so finicky as it is, I just can't believe that it was the FF. Just wanted to know if anyone has come across this.

 

Thanks!

Santiago

 

As long as you are powering the BFD from your sled and the RED from it's own battery you won't have any problem. The reports I have had have been when powering the BFD from the RED via the P-Tap and using RED batteries that were low on charge. Also, it happened a lot more often on earlier cameras. The problem seems to go away when using Anton/Bauer batteries.

 

Jim "power ranger" Bartell

[Santiago Yniguez]

Yeah, I can see when hitting the end of the lens can put a draw on power. I'll just make sure to fly the cam with its battery.

Thanks for all the input guys!

 

Santi

[Jess Haas SOC]

I have seen this problem when using a BFD/M-one combo and powering it from the Red battery. The Red will sometimes just shut down while pulling focus. Never had this happen with my Heden motor which is not as powerful. If you power from the sled this should not be a problem.

 

On another shoot we were powering a redbyte downconverter from the accessory port on the camera and the camera was freezing up a lot. Disconnected the redbyte and it stopped freezing.

 

~Jess