Moderators Louis Puli SOC Posted January 19, 2009 Moderators Report Share Posted January 19, 2009 FYI, GPI is working on an official HD upgrade, including an HD, CTR monitor.... Hi everyone It sounds great that GPI are working on a HD upgrade .I would like to see them supply the market with DIY upgrade kit with all the parts,plugs and cables and instructions etc so as you don't have to send your rig back to them ( in my case 12,000 Miles and say 2 weeks down time freight costs etc) The ikea upgrade its all in the box . The only down side is that I always have a few screws left over after make that bookshelf . I hope PRO will consider my idea. Fly safe Louis Puli Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Dana Morris Posted January 22, 2009 Premium Members Report Share Posted January 22, 2009 I just ordered a new sled from GPI yesterday with the HD upgrade. They are still waiting on some special connectors that are about 10 weeks or earlier away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Ashley Bradford Posted January 23, 2009 Premium Members Report Share Posted January 23, 2009 Dear Operators While we appreciate any buzz about our equipment, we would just like to clarify a few things. We are currently in the process of researching the possibility of developing an HD sled. In theory we feel that we will be able to produce a sled that will run the HDSDI signal inside the centerpost, but we have not been able to test anything as we are waiting on components from various vendors before we can do this. Currently there are pretty significant lead times on the parts we need and so we cannot say for sure if the sled will work or when it will be ready if it does. We are giving operators who are interested in purchasing a new rig the options of either holding off until we know everything works or purchasing the existing sled and upgrading at a later date. Most PRO™ Generation II owners will be able to upgrade to the new version. As soon as we have any updates I will let you know. Thank you for your patience. Regards Ashley Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Hugo_Langer Posted February 15, 2009 Premium Members Report Share Posted February 15, 2009 Hello everybody, sorry for not getting back quicker on this but I've been working round the clock on this project and building arms. For those of you who are waiting for arms, we are assembling as fast as we can. Thanks for your patience. GETTING HERE Now, back to the looms/coiled cords…I started on this project the second week of June, 2008 and I thought I'd have something ready in August. It's amazing how much time these projects need in order to get everything correct. We have now finalised the specs and design and I think we have successfully addressed all the points that operators had raised. We have worked through several designs with the manufacturer as we worked out all the dilemmas. It's been a long road to get to this final point and, as ever, the project turned out to be much more complicated than it initially appeared to be. When I first went to the manufacturer, original specs in hand from my electrics person, I thought this would be a done deal; how difficult could it be? Well, those first few samples that I managed to get from them didn't work at all. And along the way, I found out that this industry is not interested in collaborative design efforts with its customers. They were absolutely uninterested in making up prototypes or preliminary designs; not only did I have to twist their arms to make samples for us, I had to pay them a premium price for each round of samples. And by the way, I searched until I found what I believe to be the top manufacturer this type of product. They supply Boeing, Disney and ILM, among others – so not only are they supplying the top companies in the world, they have some experience of our industry as well. Anyway, I needed a finished product that I could mechanically fit and have our electrics technicians test each time. It was not easy to get the loom manufacturers to do this for us time and time again. Solving the design problems was a convoluted process. We wanted to move to the heaviest gauge wire possible for Cam and Aux power but ran into problems because so many operators wanted additional cables for extra functionality. When we included 4 new cables for auxiliary items this created a problem with the cord diameter – it no longer fit in the back of an industry standard Lemo plug. We then moved to 18 AWG and trialled another jacket material but found the cord was catching inside the centre post. When we tried out a third jacket material, it caused a problem with snap back. When trying to make the smallest coil possible to fit inside the lower section of a 1 ½" post, we learned that it was impossible to manufacture because the mandrill diameter would have been so small that it just wasn't workable. It went on and on. Each time we solved one problem, another one popped up. It took time but we eventually sorted out all the problems. FINAL DESIGN FEATURES AND SPECS The cord consists of a coiled section with a straight tail on either side of it. Each straight tail is approximately 1 metre long. The extra length in the tail gives the operator two options: The electrics person can cut off the extra length, strip off the outer sheath and use the inner wires for the upper and lower junction boxes. This provides consistency throughout the wiring on the rig with no need to spend time in sourcing materials elsewhere. There is sufficient length to enable the cord to be installed into a Super Post. SPECS Here are the specs for our final design: - 4 cores, 18 AWG (red, black, green, white) - 2 cores, 26 AWG (red, black) - 4 cores, 28 AWG (red, black, blue, yellow) - 1x RG 179 75-ohm mini coax - Wire configuration/order matches that of the industry standard - Outer jacket colour: Black - OD of the cord to suit standard Lemo plug - OD of the coil to suit inner diameter of 1 ½" centre post In addition, the wire is configured the same throughout the cable, resulting in a mirror image no matter where it is cut. This will make your electrics technician very happy. EBAY The initial supply of looms is scheduled to arrive at the end of March. We will be selling them on eBay. The looms will complement our Centre Posts and Upper and Lower Junction Boxes. We will be receiving a few more looms than the number of Centre Posts and Upper & Lower Junction Boxes that we will have up on eBay. I had originally planned the sale for the end of February but feel it will be better to have both the Centre Posts, etc and the looms available at the same time. Also I thought I might mention that some of these Upper & Lower Junction Boxes are the prototype IIIA and EFP upgrades. I hope that this answers a lot of people's questions. To let you all know, we will be supplying the looms only. There are a number of electrics technicians scattered around the world and we can give you their details if required. Kind regards, Hugo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Iain Baird Posted February 15, 2009 Premium Members Report Share Posted February 15, 2009 Hi Hugo, A Few questions about the loom What is the OD of the Coil? What is the retracted length of the coil (not including the leads of course) What is the OD of the cord? thanks, IAIN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Jess Haas SOC Posted February 15, 2009 Premium Members Report Share Posted February 15, 2009 (edited) Any idea what the price for just the loom is going to be? The lack of 14awg(or 16awg) isn't ideal but I don't need that many wires so would probably just parallel some of them. I will try to see if I can figure out some of the math for that later. ~Jess Edited February 15, 2009 by Jess Haas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Hugo_Langer Posted February 17, 2009 Premium Members Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 Hi Hugo, A Few questions about the loom What is the OD of the Coil? What is the retracted length of the coil (not including the leads of course) What is the OD of the cord? thanks, IAIN Any idea what the price for just the loom is going to be? The lack of 14awg(or 16awg) isn't ideal but I don't need that many wires so would probably just parallel some of them. I will try to see if I can figure out some of the math for that later. ~Jess Hello Iain and Jess, Thanks for the questions, the answers are as follows.. The loom coil OD is consistent for the entire length of the coiled section and is 30mm nominal, the retracted length (without tails) is 135 mm nom. The loom will allow the centrepost to comfortably extend 14 inches and the high quality of the loom ensures that the snapback is quite firm and positive. All the cables within the loom are multi-stranded as this is the only way to mitigate fatigue and allow consistent performance over an extended period of time. The cable OD is 9.5 mm nom. We specified to the manufacturer that the loom cable OD needed to be 11.9mm or less because one of the most commonly used plug in this application is a Lemo FGG.3B 308. The collet in the rear of this Lemo plug has an inside diameter of 12.0mm. Regarding the sale price, we originally started on this project to source looms for our own rigs, and we had to order more looms than we initially required (because of the minimum order value). We now intend to sell the excess through Ebay auctions and this will determine the sale price. Further to the discussion regarding wire size, I believe that 20AWG is the wire guage used by some of the well known and established manufacturers in their rigs. We have checked and re-checked with the loom manufacturer, electrics technicians and other resources and we are certain that a 20 AWG cable will carry 10 Amps without any problems. Please also check this table for your own confirmation Current Capacity Table. We have decided to go with 18AWG as this increases the carrying capacity to 15 Amps, this is a 50% margin beyond the capacity of the circuit breaker (10A) and this ensures that the wire will not be under any stress. Our cable manufacturer has stated that there is nothing to be gained by moving to 14 or 16 AWG, considering the circuit breakers are Mil Spec rated to 10 Amps. The heavier guage cables also raise issues relating to additional weight and less flexibility in the loom itself, we have avoided these problems. Regards, Hugo Langer Steadyrig +61 3 9898-6298 admin@steadyrig.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Jess Haas SOC Posted February 17, 2009 Premium Members Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 20awg will carry 10amps without bursting into flames but the real problem people seem to be running into is voltage drop when using high end HD cameras that draw a lot of power. It still usually works but the battery run time is shorter than with thicker cable. AFAIK both XCS and Tiffen's Ultra line use 14awg wire to get around this. 18awg is of course an improvement over over 20, but 14 is even better. That 15amp rating you mention doesn't really sound like it is taking into account the fact that it is bundled tightly inside of an additional sheath which is then enclosed in the post. Of course you can rate wire at whatever you want depending on how much voltage drop is acceptable as long as it doesn't burst into flames. ~Jess Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Eric Fletcher S.O.C. Posted February 17, 2009 Premium Members Report Share Posted February 17, 2009 We have checked and re-checked with the loom manufacturer, electrics technicians and other resources and we are certain that a 20 AWG cable will carry 10 Amps without any problems. Please also check this table for your own confirmation Current Capacity Table. We have decided to go with 18AWG as this increases the carrying capacity to 15 Amps, this is a 50% margin beyond the capacity of the circuit breaker (10A) and this ensures that the wire will not be under any stress. Small problem there Hugo, Those numbers are for a single wire in free air. When you put the wires in a bundle your current ratings drop. 6.6amps total capacity not the 11amps it's rated for "Clear air" Read this post Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Hugo_Langer Posted February 24, 2009 Premium Members Report Share Posted February 24, 2009 Thanks Eric, Our looms have been manufactured and are on the way. Many have been sold already, but the excess will be sold on ebay in March/April. These looms exceed the specs of the looms that have been used in this industry for about the last 15 years. We never intended to be in the business of looms and only got here because we had placed a minimum order that was greater than our needs - so we are selling the excess. Now that we have developed a good working relationship with a top quality manufacturer we are now able to have looms manufactured to suit the requirements of high current cameras. Bear in mind, our manufacturer has advised us, that 4 x 18AWG with 4 x 28AWG and 2 x 20AWG and the RG179 co-ax has reached the mechanical and manufacturing limits and nothing more will fit within a 1 1/2" centrepost. We would have to sacrifice the 28AWG wires in order to increase the power cables to 14AWG. We would be happy to entertain the idea of supplying a High Current loom, 14AWG without the 28AWG wires, and would seek input from you the "SteadicamForum" members in it's design. All designs will still need to be analysed by the manufacturer before we can confirm that manufacturing is possible within our constraints. i.e. centrepost diameter etc. Regards, Hugo Langer Steadyrig +61 3 9898-6298 admin@steadyrig.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Jerry Franck Posted May 5, 2009 Premium Members Report Share Posted May 5, 2009 first signs of the upgrade are on page 5 of their manual...at their website... anyone know any more details? jerry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members RonBaldwin Posted May 5, 2009 Premium Members Report Share Posted May 5, 2009 I'm guessing (hoping) they'll have one at Cine-Gear. I was in there a few months back and Ashley mentioned it'll probably be ready this summer. I'm looking forward to checking it out. rb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Jens Piotrowski SOC Posted May 5, 2009 Premium Members Report Share Posted May 5, 2009 I'm guessing (hoping) they'll have one at Cine-Gear. I was in there a few months back and Ashley mentioned it'll probably be ready this summer. I'm looking forward to checking it out. rb It will be ready soon. As always with PRO, it will be working great. Not only will it provide a dedicated HD-SDI video line (extra BNC on upper and lower junction box) it will also contain a re-engineered power line/supply in the loom/junction boxes. The question is only what HD-monitor to use? Is anybody using a Tiffen Ultrabright on a Pro II? Jens Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members RonBaldwin Posted May 5, 2009 Premium Members Report Share Posted May 5, 2009 I have heard much happiness when folks talk of their boland and transvideo hd monitors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Dana Morris Posted May 6, 2009 Premium Members Report Share Posted May 6, 2009 The Boland is GREAT. I have had zero problems and it is very Bright. 1400nits I have heard much happiness when folks talk of their boland and transvideo hd monitors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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