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red camera power issues


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I am currently using the red camera and all of a sudden today, my breakers have blown due to lack of voltage mid shot.

I am using the red camera, clock it boxes x2 (sound imputs), transmiter, down converter and my preston mdr.

I am powering all this with a red lithium battery. I have a second battery powering my monitor.

No problems all week until today.

I am using a 4 stage post and the battery at the base indicates plenty of juice. At the camera end, it then indicates around 12 volts. I am assuming the voltage loss is due to the length of the eternal cable???

I changed the powering method to run a trimpac (nicad) and it seems to be ok although I will be going through these pretty quick.

Any ideas or suggestions??

Cheers

Quincy

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If it's a post cable issue, then this topic may be worth a read...

http://www.steadicamforum.com/forums/index...?showtopic=6986

 

Best,

 

Rick.

 

 

I am currently using the red camera and all of a sudden today, my breakers have blown due to lack of voltage mid shot.

I am using the red camera, clock it boxes x2 (sound imputs), transmiter, down converter and my preston mdr.

I am powering all this with a red lithium battery. I have a second battery powering my monitor.

No problems all week until today.

I am using a 4 stage post and the battery at the base indicates plenty of juice. At the camera end, it then indicates around 12 volts. I am assuming the voltage loss is due to the length of the eternal cable???

I changed the powering method to run a trimpac (nicad) and it seems to be ok although I will be going through these pretty quick.

Any ideas or suggestions??

Cheers

Quincy

Edited by Richard J Lewis
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I just finished a feature shot on the RED that was plagued by power cut out issues. I was actually able to diagnose the problem (or perhaps A problem - not sure if it is the only problem). The quick explanation of the issue I found was with the V-Mount system. What do you mean by your breakers being blown? On your sled? The battery mount actually has no breakers or fuses like the Anton Bauer mounts.

 

The full explanation is a lengthy one and I'm working on it complete with diagrams addressing that and a number of other issues. I'll try and get that done today or tomorrow. Stay tuned.

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OK - here is what I found through my testing on set. This was after days of hit-and-miss batteries that would indicate a full charge, but deliver no power to the camera. Other symptoms included a mounted battery and a powered-up camera just spontaneously shutting down, often while merely sitting still, and frequently if bumped.

 

We had three RED batteries total for the camera - more than enough to keep it powered as long as they were being rotated on the chargers properly. All batteries seemed to take and hold a charge, as indicated by both the charging stations and the on-battery LED indicators. Often however, even when fully charged, only one of the three would deliver power when mounted on the camera.

 

During one battle, when the good battery was drained, and the other two just wouldn't cooperate, I decided to figure out just what was happening. The crew was relighting, and the camera could go off of AC power for a bit if necessary. I took out my multimeter and started testing, to try and figure out just where the problem was.

 

I tested the battery. As indicated, it was charged and delivering the full 14+ volts. I tested continuity in the battery mount. Continuity was intact between the mounting pins, and the connector pins on the LEMO as well as the P-Tap. This let me know that no fuse was blown in the battery mount (we would soon disassemble it, only to find no fuses exist anyway), and any connections within the cable and mount were intact without shorts. However, not surprisingly, when the battery was mounted on the mount, no voltage was read on either the P-tap or the LEMO connector, indicating the problem had to do with the mating of the battery to the mount.

 

We disassembled the battery mount, just in case there were fuses to replace. I was pretty sure there were not due to the successful continuity tests, but not knowing what the insides of the plate looked like, anything could be happening. No fuses exist. All connections were intact. We then mounted the battery with the back of the battery mount off so we could see what was going on. The problem became immediately obvious. The mounting pins, were not mating with the corresponding sockets on the battery. Close inspection of both elements turned up a mess on the positive battery sockets - on ALL batteries.

 

For some reason, still unknown, the plastic casing that is around the positive sockets on the batteries was being chewed up (Figure 5). This left us with little bits of plastic protruding into the socket, and obstructing anything that might need to get in - like a mounting pin. That, on top of a poorly mounted circuit board inside the battery mount resulted in either a poor mating or no mating at all between battery and mount (Figure 6).

 

I should note, we called in for a replacement set of batteries and mount. An almost new set showed up the next day, but already the sockets were showing signs of damage, and this was gear our production had not used yet, indicating it was not a problem unique to our camera package. We were able to work through the problem by simply taking a knife and delicately scraping away the excess plastic from around the sockets. My guess as to why this was happening would be the pins on either the charger or battery mount were not spaced properly. Even if one pin was one way or another by a couple thousandths of an inch, repeated mating and unmating would quickly cause wear.

 

I would be very curious to know if others have found this problem. It would be easy to tell. If you are on a RED job, just take a battery and look closely at the sockets. My guess is that more than a few of you will see some messy plastic. The good news is you can typically get by with a knife and a delicate hand. The bad news is you have to get by with a knife and a delicate hand. A 90 second boot time between power downs, AFTER you've gotten a battery to work, is more than a small nuisance. It may make some AD's homicidal.

 

More reports to come. Best of luck to all!

 

Afton

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I just finished a feature shot on the RED that was plagued by power cut out issues. I was actually able to diagnose the problem (or perhaps A problem - not sure if it is the only problem). The quick explanation of the issue I found was with the V-Mount system. What do you mean by your breakers being blown? On your sled? The battery mount actually has no breakers or fuses like the Anton Bauer mounts.

 

The full explanation is a lengthy one and I'm working on it complete with diagrams addressing that and a number of other issues. I'll try and get that done today or tomorrow. Stay tuned.

 

Yes, the breakers on my sled would blow. We have a v mount to AB mount adapter so I was flying the RED battery along side my AB battery. Mid shot -pop- dead. I determined that between the battery(on the bottom) and the camera (on top) there seemed to be around a 2 volt loss resulting in the bottom end of what the camera can function on. It seems my nicads have solved this kinda like a 435 and lithiums. I guess the total draw from the red battery along side the loss up the cable resulted in not enough juice. I cant figure out why now at the end of the week and not over the past five days. I still cant understand that the super post eternal cable (maybe 8') has such a voltage loss.

Keep me posted with any ideas

Cheers

Quincy

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What rig do you have? Small gauge wire and multiple connectors can lead to a significant voltage drop. If there is a poor connection anywhere that could be adding to the problem.

 

~Jess

Thats what i would like to know too, but i have an idea. Lets see.......

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Nice drawings Afton. How'd you do that? I hope you forwarded that to technical support at Red (www.red.com) or IDX (www.idx.tv)

 

A couple of the drawings I took from user manuals and the rest I drew in Adobe Illustrator.

 

I posted the same report on the Red user forum. Already, a few people have responded stating they've experienced the exact same issue. I imagine the Red folks will see it sooner or later. Hopefully they'll take good note. I tend to believe it is more a Red problem rather than IDX, as one of the companies has proven itself to be reliable for years, and one is struggling with a number of growing pains with a new product.

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Nice drawings Afton. How'd you do that? I hope you forwarded that to technical support at Red (www.red.com) or IDX (www.idx.tv)

 

A couple of the drawings I took from user manuals and the rest I drew in Adobe Illustrator.

 

I posted the same report on the Red user forum. Already, a few people have responded stating they've experienced the exact same issue. I imagine the Red folks will see it sooner or later. Hopefully they'll take good note. I tend to believe it is more a Red problem rather than IDX, as one of the companies has proven itself to be reliable for years, and one is struggling with a number of growing pains with a new product.

 

So you don't think IDX makes those batteries for Red? Or the problem is with the battery cage which Red does make?

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I imagine the Red folks will see it sooner or later. Hopefully they'll take good note.

I would check back regularly and see if that post is still there. There are many accounts of any negative postings about Red being deleted from that forum.

Thanks for the good info. It was very informative and helpful

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