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MoVI Pro shuts down Alexa Mini

Discussion in 'MōVI Pro' started by Christopher Aran, Sep 15, 2017.

  1. Brandon Obey

    Brandon Obey Member

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    What happens if you run the camera off of a non Freefly batteries and run the movi off the movi batteries?
     
  2. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Using a different Pro now and it shuts down the Alexa constantly. I’ve got 14 batteries and it does it with all of them. None of them seem faulty so I really don’t think it’s the batteries. Anyone had any luck with this yet? I’ve reverted to powering the camera off a separate LiPo for the time being but it’s obviously not an ideal solution. Changed all cables, unplugged all other accessories etc. Nothing makes a difference at the moment
     
  3. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Quick update. Whilst trying to trouble shoot we discovered we’d only ever seen these issues whilst using the Leica Sumilux C lenses. I switched it out to a Zeiss and the camera powers fine. I was thinking maybe the lens mount touches the contacts on the lens mount of the camera for EF lens communication and causes some issues. Taped over those and now we have no problems! A friend said they’d seen similar issues with Cookes as well and it needed a fw update from Cooke and Arri to fix it. Seems to be working for us at the moment though!
     
  4. SeBaStIaN BArrEtT

    SeBaStIaN BArrEtT Active Member

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    Wow. . . nice troubleshooting. Very helpful.
     
  5. SeBaStIaN BArrEtT

    SeBaStIaN BArrEtT Active Member

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    just to understand fully. . . you are able to eliminate any power draw issues you previously had by eliminating electro-focus contact between camera and lens? I know a lot of the issues were situational so it would be hard for you to say definitively. Very curious to see if this fix works for others, and can be patched via FW by all lens/camera manufacturers.
     
  6. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Yes that is what it seems to be. Arri have said they can have bugs between different firmware versions on the camera or the lens mount and the lens. I’m sending over our firmware details to Arri so they can fix it with a fw upgrade for the Leica lenses. We have only ever had the issue with those lenses. The camera would not boot at all before we taped the contacts this morning. After taping them we had it running continuously for 2 hours without any issues. Our camera is still on SUP 4.25. Apparently on SUP 5 on the Alexa Mini you can disable the contacts on the lens mount so you don’t need to psyically tape them.
     
  7. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Just to clarify though, the camera still booted fine with a separate LiPo with the lens touching the contacts. So it doesn’t just shut the camera down regardless, it must create a current spike on start up that trips out the Movi’s current cuts off.
     
  8. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Also again just to clarify, this was on a PL mount lens, so no electro focus/iris on the lens. I was thinking that when the mount was done up to tight the specific mount on the leica lens was touching those contacts and causing issues. Can’t say for sure but as I said, taping over those contacts completely fixed a very consistent problem
     
  9. Graham Futerfas

    Graham Futerfas Well-Known Member

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    Interesting thread. Thanks for posting it, Ben. Where are these contacts you taped over? On the PL mount's exterior, between lens and PL mount, or underneath the PL mount, between the mount and the body? Can you please post a photo when you have time?
     
  10. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Yeah I’ll take some photos shortly. They are on the PL mount, so go between the mount and the lens. It looks like the PL mount on the Leica lenses has an extra metal lip that presses against the contacts and must cause some sort of current spike that trips out the Pro. This is the lip I’m talking about on the lenses
     

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  11. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Here’s a stock photo of the lens mount. You can see the contact points on the inside of the mount
     

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  12. Brandon Obey

    Brandon Obey Member

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    You may have to use the Ignite Digi Power Adapter. I am using Movi Pro currently with Power Adapter x Hypercore batteries and I am having no power draw issues. I get around 1hr 23mins of run time.
     
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  13. Greg Kubik

    Greg Kubik New Member

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    I've had similar issues that all of you are describing with my MP and Alexa Mini. System will die after a few minutes with each battery displaying three lights. This happens consistently.

    Why hasn't anyone at Freefly responded to this thread? This is a major issue with your flagship product. To not have a warranty for your batteries seems to be an admission to the batteries not being trustworthy. We are all professionals using their product in professional environments. When you have an issue like this on set, it reflects poorly and slows the production down. It would be great to get some input from Freefly on this because I would think most of us would all agree that a nearly $10k investment in a piece of gear that doesn't work as advertised is unacceptable.

    My only hope is maybe a third party will develop better or bigger batteries. I would gladly have my batteries weigh an extra 8 ounces or even a pound if it meant they worked 100% of the time and had a longer run time.
     
  14. Bart van otterdijk

    Bart van otterdijk New Member

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    I had the same issue a few weeks ago on a shoot. Alexa mini with a Summilux 35mm(?), one cForce mini motor and a Teradek 500 transmitter powered from the movi Pro. Monitor powered seperatly. Alexa power cable was from FreeFly, no DIY.
    Our first setup went great. No problems. Then we had a lens change and even though I specifically said NOT to power down the movi Pro and the camera but to 'kill' it and keep the camera 'on' at all times, the assistants did power it down and then when booting up again we encountered this problem.
    Tried different (fully charged) batteries, no change.
    There was a problem when calibrating the lens motor though so the camera might have gone in some sort of safety mode when drawing too much power?? Since at the first try the camera also didn't want to boot on a normal V-lock battery!
    A bit later it did go.
    I have seen this same problem with the LDS contacts described above but didn't think of that on day. Too many people breathing down my neck asking how long it would take to get the movi up and running again :-(
    Quickly changed to slider/tripod, no issues there.
    This other time we taped over the LDS contacts and it worked well again. That was on a Mini, Cooke S4i lenses and an m15. Camera was then powered externally on V-lock battery.
    Later that day I checked the Movi Pro with the mini again during my lunch brake and it was all fine again.
    At the end of the day we did another 3 or 4 shots on the movi pro without issues..
    So yes.. I'm not sure what is the solution here :-(
    Turning off LDS when not using it (or tapeing over) will be my standard way to go anyway from now on but we can't have 'sometimes it works fine, sometimes it doesn't' on a professional shoot!
     
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  15. Fabio Taddei

    Fabio Taddei New Member

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    Hi there.
    I’ve suffered same issue as you described, but I was powering the Alexa Mini with 2x v-lock batteries in parallel configuration (diode protected, vlock plates on handlebar).

    I was also unable to calibrate ARRI motors (sometimes even powering the camera on was impossible).

    The issue was intermittent, sometimes everything working...sometimes not.
    After getting Alexa Mini replaced, everything started working again. Btw: ARRI Master Prime with LDS being used on this production.

    From my experience, it could be some bad contact on the LDS connection causing very high power draw....or maybe just a software bug. I got two IDX 146wh damaged, other 4x of them to be tested, and probably 10x IDX 75wh damaged during this production...and never had a problem before (7th movie production using Movi almost everyday).
     
    #35 Fabio Taddei, Jul 23, 2018
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2018
  16. Guilherme Costa

    Guilherme Costa New Member

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    Just my experience.

    It looks like some focus motors do use too much energy, or has energy peaks, and they shut down the camera. I got this problem with the MoviPro and Ronin 2. On our Ronin, I believe that was the cause for the energy hub to burn.

    My problem was basically with the Bartech.

    We are using the Pilot and also the Nucleus M. I still need to do some experiments with the Bartech with lower torque settings, I believe this may help.
     
  17. Graham Futerfas

    Graham Futerfas Well-Known Member

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    Switching to the Ignite Digi battery adapters and TB50 batteries has changed the whole power game on my Movi Pro. I don’t even worry about it anymore.

    I have the Lemo plug and a 24v Lemo to DTap cable that can power a power hungry camera or accessories like the Bartech directly off the battery.
     
  18. Fabio Taddei

    Fabio Taddei New Member

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    To me was impossible even powering on camera, power led from Alexa Mini was flashing. We got a new camera and problem disappeared.
     
  19. Fabio Taddei

    Fabio Taddei New Member

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    Also choosed your configuration after having those issues, but I was able to replicate the issue with a short lemo-to-dtap cable between Alexa Mini and a Blueshape 270 battery: using the standard dtap port, the camera wouldn’t power on...while using the orange dtap (without 10A limitat) the camera would work as expected.
     
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