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Alexa / Codex Onboard combination


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Dear Ariel,

 

That cable was made by Fred Davis, who I believe is no longer in the business. I would try Chris Konash at East Coast Cables. You can reach Chris at 201-522-5030. It's a weird connector on the Archos side of the cable. Also, you need to know what voltage your sled outputs for the on board recorder. The Archos is not 12v, so either you need a selectable voltage output from your sled, or a voltage regulated cable. I don't remember the Archos voltage off the top of my head, but Chris would know.

 

I've been using the Archos AV 500 for years, and I love it as an on board recorder. It's small enough that I lost the recorder bracket and just velcro it to the Dionic HC on the back of my sled.

 

I saw that Robert Starling was selling an Archos on this forum for a great price. I bought a spare one, because they don't make that model anymore. The new ones are bigger, and probably too big for my liking. I think I paid twice as much for my spare as Robert is charging.

 

Good luck,

Mark

 

 

Dear Mark,

sorry if I'm answering only now...i had a week rather busy.

Thank you for your information I'll try to get in contact with Chris Konash,The archos voltage must be 3,7 volt. But his new batteries are well working.

I am also using an AV 500 as on board recorder and I just love it too but accidentally a grip has bumped and broken the 'travel adapter'...it could happens sometimes...

I think the best way is to find the same connector as your.

 

Good luck too

 

Ariel

 

www.arielsalati.com

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This is how I have been working with the Codex of late. Very neat. All powered off the one 24v Arri cable and a mass of RS sockets. I used my XCS AB accessory plate to mount the Boxx to the top of the camera with dual lock.

 

Pardon the sideways-ness!

 

EDIT: I can't add pictures. I've maxed out some kind of "global upload quota"

 

Rick.

Edited by Richard James Lewis
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I am flying the Alexa with the Codex for the first time on the feature I’m working on in North Carolina. I have an XCS sled, and have been using a 12V power cable to power the camera as recommended by Greg Bubb. I use 3 Anton Bauer Dionic HC batteries on the sled to power the camera and AKS (no on-board battery).

 

I purchased the XCS Alexa bracket before the job, thinking I’d need it to fly the sled with the Codex, but I decided during the prep to put the Codex in a backpack (thanks to Jason Ellson for the idea) and have my dolly grip carry it around. This saves both weight, and battery power, as we have a bracket from Otto Nemenz that attaches a Dionic HC to the Codex in the backpack. The wardrobe department sewed some Velcro to the outside of the backpack to attach the Codex remote so it is visible and easy to get at. Otto’s supplied a bag of 10’ spaghetti BNC cables for us to hard-wire the camera to the backpack with the Codex and so far it has worked out flawlessly. We do the same thing when we go hand-held. We are 10 weeks into the shoot (halfway) with no issues, and we haven’t broken or damaged a cable yet (knock on wood).

 

We are using the newer Leica prime lenses which are nice in size and weight, and they all weigh roughly the same. We are also using the HP HD transmitter, which I fly at the top of the sled using the XCS “lollipop” transmitter bracket. It is roughly the same size and weight as a Canatrans and has thus far worked very well. It is coupled with a receiver that is built into a large high-gain antenna array. We haven’t done any huge multi-room moves, but it has been flawless when working in line-of-sight conditions. No issues at all have been reported from VTR or the DIT tent. I’m also running a Cinetape, Decimator (yes, still rocking a Transvideo SD monitor), and a two motor Preston set-up.

 

All of this has made for a very nice camera to fly. It probably weighs less than a Panavision XL, and despite being hard-wired to my dolly grip with the Codex, the tiny cable supplied by the rental house is thin enough that I don’t feel it.

 

While we have a regular Alexa body dedicated to the steadicam, and another dedicated body for the Technocrane, the A and B cameras are the Studio Alexa’s with optical eyepieces. I’ve heard from others that the optics were dark, or that they don’t like the spinning shutter, but I have found the new eyepiece to be pretty great. Far less eye-strain than the standard eyepiece, and I feel like I can see focus better. The Studio Alexa’s apparently weigh more than the older bodies, so I’m glad to have a regular Alexa body for steadicam.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Brooks

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Hey Brooks,

 

Sounds like you've got it worked out very well to your liking. I elected to fly the Codex on the back of the Alexa & be wireless. It's just a preference of 5 1/2 more lbs. over a cable. I had a Boxx transmitter, but I'm interested in the HP HD transmitter. Do you have a link or more info on this one. I've held off buying a transmitter, because I think the Wevi and Boxx are just too big for Steadicam, and I knew if I bought one, someone would come out with a smaller unite the day after I cut the check.

 

It's funny what you said about not breaking a cable. I had a Codex issue in studio mode, because the DIT used inferior cables. It's the weakest link in the system for sure.

 

Fly safe,

Mark

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Hello everyone,

 

I recently had some fun with Alexa + S-Two OB-1 combo. In order to minimize the sled length I decided to put the OB-1 at the bottom of my Ultra2 rig. The rental house provided me with S-Two`s universal mounting plate which I mounted at the bottom accessories rail tray of the rig using an adapter plate my machinist made. Then I powered both with onboard AB-mount battery. I powered the monitor and accessories from a single Powercube from my sled.

 

Result:

 

- The bottom of the sled was a little too much heavy for my taste but it was certainly better then carrying all this equipment up top and having a 2 meter long post.

- S-Two`s universal mounting plate is very secure but unfortunately it`s prone to vibration so I had to put several layers of gaffer tape where the plate and the recorder mates. You just have to apply a certain amount of layers. Too much the recorder doesn’t slide in, too little and you have vibration. You should also put some gaffer tape around the digital-mag as it also vibrates.

- U2`s bottom accessories tray is surprisingly strong and carried the weight quite well. I only had to remove plastic caps on fixing screws in order to tighten them real good with an allen wrench

- Freshly charged Dionic 160 powering both the camera and the recorder I had 1,5 hours of power on time. These suckers are big but very powerful.

 

The images below are made just as a what if scenario. At normal circumstances I wouldn`t recommend to add a pair of antlers to this setup as this will dramatically decrease your stamina.

 

As Gemini 444 recorder received the Arri certification I hope we will see less and less of these heavy and bulky recorders such as Codex or OB-1.

 

Fly safe.

post-11013-0-15290800-1349129951_thumb.jpg

post-11013-0-78747900-1349129964_thumb.jpg

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