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Panel lite power


Charles Papert

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Has anyone made a power cable to power the LED panel lite off the rig, so you don't have to use its oboard battery? Just looking to avoid re-inventing the wheel if someone's already done the connector research etc., I'd love to just place an order. Also interested in mounting bracketery and hardware to modify the output control knob with a gear so that you can mount an iris motor on it.

 

thanks chaps!

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Has anyone made a power cable to power the LED panel lite off the rig, so you don't have to use its oboard battery? Just looking to avoid re-inventing the wheel if someone's already done the connector research etc., I'd love to just place an order. Also interested in mounting bracketery and hardware to modify the output control knob with a gear so that you can mount an iris motor on it.

 

thanks chaps!

 

 

Hey Charles, Fred Davis made me a few, both for my old EFP (4pin HRS) and for the MK-V (4 and 3 pin lemo, PRO style). Great little setup for the occasional walking fill.

 

Jeff

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"I power mine off of the anton/bauer accessory port, (that rectanglish 2 pin port on the battery mounting plate). The cable for this came with the light, in 12" and 36" lengths- so check with the Panel light folks."

 

That reminds me - a cable I had made up that comes in handy on a semi-regular basis is an A/B power tap receptacle (same as the one on the plate itself) to the Lemo 4 pin Power/Video on the PRO junction box. This means I can plug in any accessory meant to plug into an AB plate into my junction box. Works great with downconverters, etc. Would work well for this situation too, alleviating the need to send the cable to the lower battery unit.

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Alec, Christopher, nice line of reasoning. I like the idea of the rig power to Powertap receptacle, especially since I've already ordered that cable for my litepanel anyway ( to power it from a Dionic away from the rig).

 

Bob, even though I ordered mine with the camcorder battery back as well (I have Panasonic batt's, same idea), when using it on the rig the advantage of a cable seems pretty clear--one less set of batteries to have to manage and keep an eye on, especially since the camcorder batt's don't have meters on them. Plus there's the unnecessary weight.

 

Erwin tells me of a small Noga arm-with-clamp-end that he attaches to his lowmode plate, which sounds like a decent plan. Now I've just got to get the iris mod mounted to it for the motor (oriented 90 degrees from the usual direction due to the placement of the knob which is soon to be a gear). Sure wish there was a teeny little motor that was compatible with the Preston.

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Hey, Chas - I have given some thought to doing what you are doing with the whole gear conversion, etc. but I was also considering just getting the Preston LED system with remote dimmer (I already have the separate single channel hand unit). Perhaps I should start another thread on this system, but let's see where this one goes first. Anyone using the Preston lights?

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I have used the 4pin xlr cable for the litepanel and then a 4pin xlr cable of my sled. I have since had every "japanese" plug connector made as 4 pin xlr s and as cables coming of my sled for the case of any piece of consumer electronics I want to add to my sled on the day. I personally feel that little japanese connector (centre + outside -) is completely inadequate. All my cables came from marell electronics.

 

Noga arm works great, transvideo make a better one that s a lot more sturdy.

 

I have attached control knobs for gekko ring lights to follow focus using double sided tape! but its better with the 3m velcro discussed elsewhere on this forum. Cover the end of the knob with velcro and the centre of your motor with velcro, leave it for half an hour whilst u prep other kit (so the sticky dries out). I have however only done this with bartechs where you can set your end points manually and delicately. To attach the motor to the light I put one bar coming out of the motor and gaffer that to the light. I know this all sounds very heath robinson (done on the shoot day) but I ve done some really big comercials like this and the DoP has been overjoyed to have control over the bright high fall off light that can cause so many problems. I feel it s important to come up with a good solution. Please keep us up to date with what you come up with in the cold light of prep.

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I have just finished a tandem unit of SVU, and the DP had batteries that seperated from the LED units, so we used extensions down to my vest from the light. I attached the light to my lowmode plate using a mini cardolini (sic) clamp to a small wonder arm, and it sat very rigidly right over the guns of the Panatape. It was an easy set up and it made the DP very happy. I must say that the light balanced out well and the camera flew just fine with it on, so it was a good experience all around. In the future, I might suggest getting a cable made up to either go to the video/power port, or to an anton bauer tap. These two ideas are only so that I don't have to have a cable hanging from my vest to the sled ( very thin and flexible nonetheless ).

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Thanks for the info guys, this is good stuff for anyone who is looking into doing this.

 

Alec, I think the issue with the Preston version is that the light with dedicated receiver is about $3500, 4x the cost of the Panel-lite...very nice setup but obviously pricey, and you have to mount the receiver somewhere.

 

Getting ready to tame this sucker soon.

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