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Roll / Stop Issues With ARRI Mini

Discussion in 'MōVI Pro' started by Tom Comet, Oct 14, 2018.

  1. Tom Comet

    Tom Comet Member

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    Ok, a little more on my learning curve transitioning from our old heavy lift drone and Gremsy gimbal rig to our new ALTA8 / MoVI Pro setup... This time it is a roll/stop issue. In our old reality we had great luck with the gentWIRE cable (http://www.gentles.ltd.uk/gentwire/arri.htm) and we had one for RED and one for the ARRI Mini. Both worked like a charm. No problems.

    Now that we are on the MoVI Pro something has changed. First we blew up our ARRI Gentwire and I had to order another one. Not sure if this was related but... We do gimbal control via SBUS on a Futaba R7008SB (RX) and camera control to GentWIRE via CH#8 via PWM as both work at the same time on that RX. With our Movi Pro This all works fine in the shop when we test without a camera as we can see the LED go ON/OFF showing camera control on the GentWIRE. We don't own an ARRI Mini so we can not test with the camera until we get to set (not good). We do have a RED and our RED GentWIRE system works flawlessly in the same configuration on the MoVI Pro.

    Now with the ARRI Mini when we plug the GentWIRE in to CH#8 for camera control it is possibly shorting out the RX causing us to loose link. No matter what configuration we put the GentWIRE in we can not get Roll/Stop and gimbal control and we loose the TX/RX link every time. We actually we just can't get roll/stop to work on the ARRI at all. Very frustrating as it worked with our old setup. Obviously this is more a question for GentWIRE who I have emailed but I thought someone here might know something.

    To add insult to injury, I bought both the RED and ARRI cables from Freefly for camera control via Mimic and our fancy new RedRock Commander unit. RED RCP cable works perfectly. Roll/Stop and lots of amazing camera control. So great! Sometimes I really do wish the productions we work on were still flying RED but it is only one in ten these days... Unfortunately I missed the fine print on the ARRI cable and now I have learned that it only works with the MoVI Controller and not Mimic. WTF! It costs more money and does WAY less. Can Freefly please update the firmware in the MoVI ecosystem to allow for ARRI camera control via the Mimic! I have very little headroom with regards to All Up Weight (AUW) on my rig and I need to keep things efficient and streamlined. This is why we went with RedRock motors. They plug right into MoVI/Mimic and now our Commander. I don't want to have to add another flavour of gear for something as simple as roll/stop.

    What are other folks doing in this regard??
     
  2. Tom Comet

    Tom Comet Member

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    I am an pretty new Freefly user and I feel that there is really not much input on any of the questions I have been putting out on these forums. What is the deal? Are people not using this gear or is this just the wrong place for questions? Where IS Freefly in all this? I get that forums are for the community but often that people who make, sell and profit from the gear (Freefly) chime in as well. I guess I'll just lock myself in a dark room and figure my own shit out...
     
  3. Graham Futerfas

    Graham Futerfas Well-Known Member

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    There are several Facebook groups for Freefly Movi Pro and XL that get much more traffic than this forum, unfortunately. But you can post there and get better answers.

    My original understanding about Arri start stop was that the issue was not with Freefly but on Arri’s end. RED has a much more open integration with 3rd parties than Arri does, or that’s what I remember people around Freefly saying originally.
     
  4. Tom Comet

    Tom Comet Member

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    I have joined and viewed those pages but I find social media a little more distracting and more of a free for all in this regard. These forums are curated and hosted by Freefly and part of their "support" structure as detailed on their main web site. It appears that this forum has been very active in the past and the community has since lost some enthusiasm perhaps.
     

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