PANAVISION ALEXA PLATE WARNING!!!

[Jens Piotrowski SOC]

Just wanted to inform you that the PANAVISION Alexa dovetail plate, now sent out with their Alexas, is not always compatible with the XCS Topstage and in fact broke the lock down kipp-handle-bolt on mine yesterday. (spare parts are always handy to have...)

 

This could have been a catastrophic failure in mid flight, thankfully it happend while it was being locked down.

 

The problem stems from the angle or width of the dovetail on the Panavision plate which is not the standard (60, i believe) degrees, it's steeper.

 

It put's upward pressure on the tie-down bolt and in my case sheered it off. You can however adjust the 2 small set-screws incorporated into the XCS locking part, if needed. This has to be reset, if you go back to the xcs/pro plates.

 

http://xcsinc.com/files/Adjusting%20the%20Dovetail%20Clamp.pdf

 

 

 

fly safe

[Eric Fletcher S.O.C.]

two season of my show and I NEVER had an issue with the panavision supplied dovetail.

 

Having said that I'm hope my new better solution will be ready by next week....

[Jens Piotrowski SOC]

I had plates on two different shows from Panavision and both had the same issue with my topstage, i think it's just important to be aware of it and adjust the "set screws" if needed and not crank down the topstage tie-down...

[Matthias Biber]

for that reason the alexa bracket from http://cam-jam.de works with your existing dovetailplates

[GregBubb]

Dominick Aiello from Panavision was nice enough to stop by the shop the other day with their Alexa camera plate design. I dropped it in and locked it down on a few different top stages without issue. I asked him about the dovetail angle which of course is correct and tolerance on their plate they machine to, which is far better than most.

I would guess, because I wasn’t there, that the assistant was accustom to other top stage designs that require more force and over tightened the Kipp handle, which is not necessary XCS clamps. Jens stated that he himself didn’t tighten the dovetail plate.

I would say with all confidence that one or two of three things occurred.

1. The assistant used way too much force possibly accustom to steel or aluminum on aluminum clamp designs.
2. The clamp on the upper camera platform was misadjusted. For those XCS owner who are unaware, not everyone reads manuals. There is an adjustment of on the clamp keeping the face of the clamp level when contact is made. This keeps the mating faces flush. Which is just one of a few of the common causes of dove tail plate slippage on clamp designs.
3. The zinc stud on the handle may have been flawed.

In any case I could not see any issue with the Panavision plate for the Alexa.

Respectfully

Greg Bubb

[Jens Piotrowski SOC]

Thx for checking it out.