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RTMotion Systems MK3


Alan Rencher

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Thanks for correction Jim. I'm no expert on radio and wireless. It seems to be about a 2-3 foot blind spot, I will check with different power range settings when I get a chance. Perhaps its a symptom of the one mile line of sight strength signal.

Have you had a chance to play with the new mk3.1 Jim? It does offer a few different approaches that make it a fair rival to the BFD in my humble opinion. Strangely with a single motor it rents for upto 2.2x the rate of the BFD in London right now (£150 vs £70.) I guess it's all the Movi and drone guys wanting the lightest possible transmitter. I do love the no brainer auto calibration and the protected antennas, but imagine that US based Steadicam ops are still best served by the Holy Trinity of wireless follow focus you mentioned. Peace of mind and awesome customer support seem pretty high priorities!

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To me peace of mind and awesome customer service is a very high priorities and are worth $1000's when you consider it must work perfectly every time I work .

Karl is the RT Motion receiver smaller then the BFD Digital receiver ?

The RTmotion receiver is smaller than the BFD. Not by a ton, but WAY smaller when you realize it does FIZ.

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  • 3 weeks later...
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It looks like they're taking a page from the CMotion handbook. The motors look like they are just receiving a serial connection from the wireless receiver. The drivers are probably built into the motors. That means no cross-compatibility.

Alan,

 

That is correct. I owned one for awhile and the motor cables were just power and serial, 4 pins.

 

Originally they were supposed to have a dongle to convert to the 7 pin standard, but they haven't done it yet.

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Update: I've been working with the RT Motion 3.1 a lot lately and am really very happy. It does everything I need. I have also used the thumbwheel as a handy run stop on the gimbal handle while practicing. RTMotion have apointed extra staff to cope with the demand and their support is now spot on.

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I've had my single-motor RT Motion kit for about 12 months now, and I find myself hugging the hand unit after every shoot.

 

The compact size, relative to it's sheer veratility makes me question the size of the other recievers on the market. I've had Prestons and Bartechs on my Zephyr sled before. I'm glad not to have worry about mounting those any more.

 

The *current* release firmware resets the motor between power cylces - fine for cine lenses, but a pain for DSLR lenses. A new BETA release firmware I've installed has the motor remember near-indefinitely (years) its previous calibration, making DSLR work much easier. I've given my big thumbs ups to the engineer for this. Any new calibration is done exclusively through the hand unit.

 

THe hand unit's firware hasn't enjoyed much evolution so far, but the best bit is the knob, which has the perfect level of tensioning and fluidity to it. Sometimes I concern for debris falling into the iris slider, but I hardly ever need that anyway.

 

I've come to love the thumb-wheel accessory also, in fact, it makes focus pulling on a DSLR shoulder-rig a whole new experience. I wouldn't do it any other way now.

 

If/when my work expands, I can buy another motor, and and have a two channel system. Simple as that.

 

Some minor gripes though: The securing bolt mechanism on the motor can get difficult to access. It works well, but is often buried around the lens and rails.

Also, as I've suggested to RT Motion incessantly, I really need a run/stop trigger for DSLR cameras (though the USB). THis would make its integration into my rig complete.

 

I know I sound like a blind fanboy on this product by now. Truth is, I'd never touched an RT Motion system before spending very serious money on it, and now it's totally indispensible.

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After working with my 3.1 for about 3 months now, its been a pretty much love, hate relationship.

 

The first time powering it on it took me about 30 mins of powering the receiver and handset on and off for it to final connect, and it was automatically trying to auto calibrate the second the motor cable was plugged in, with no way to stop it via the handset.

 

Besides that I'm still on the very first lp6 battery I loaded in with the handset sitting at 75% power still! Not really sure how that works? The motors are strong and fast, and overall the system is really well made.

 

Although upon upgrading the motors firmware recently, the auto calibrate mode was calibrating the Zeiss super speeds I was working with, to just before infinity, a huge pain in the ass to manual reset, and at times had trouble with the motor actually being set at that and not the hard stop of the lens.

Luckily it was a shoot I was 1sting, so I had the joy of cursing at it and not someone else , gonna try downgrading the firmware now.

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