I recently just purchased a MoviPro last week. I am having some issues with it and wanted to see if I am doing something wrong or if it's MoviPro issue. Issue 1: Power from the MoviPro to the Epic W. I use the 12-14 Volt port using the $300 Red Epic cable Freefly sells. Batteries are fully charged and the Epic W seems to power up fine but then the Red Epic W starts acting weird. I am using Wooden Camera RED Male Pogo to Female Pogo LCD/EVF Cable from the Red Epic W camera to the Red DSMC2 7” monitor. The screen locks up and not responsive. I removed the Red Epic power cable from the camera and attach a V mount battery to the Red Epic W. I power on the Red Epic W and all seems to work fine with the v mount battery. I doubled checked all the connections and all connections are secure. I retried the power from the MoviPro to the Red Epic W using the Freefly’s power adaptor and still get a non-responsive touch screen. I’ve also reset the Red Epic W to factory defaults and still the same issues. What might be causing this issue? One of the reasons why I bought the MoviPro was because of this feature of powering the Red off the MoviPro batteries. Dropbox Link with example of the screen acting up on the DSMC2 using Freefly battery power, Freefly Red Epic Cable. You will notice the screen has like a split/delay diagonal on the screen: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/e4bpxfkra1pd08c/AABcnDOEodlxoG2Te3nASvDua?dl=0 Issue 2: MoviPro doesn’t center after balance and auto tune. When I mount my camera and balance it on the MoviPro, the pan arms are not 90 degrees to the ring. It seems to hang to the left. (See picture). If I move the ring to where the pan tubes are 90 to the ring, the pan tubes seems to slowly make it’s way back to the left. I tried adjusting the toad in the hole but same thing. I removed the Wooden CameraRED Male Pogo to Female Pogo LCD/EVF Cable incase that was causing interference, but it still did not help. Autotune is set at 70 -75%. Should the pan tube always center on the ring at the ring?
Hi Adam, this may not completely help, but I saw this other thread on here recently. Maybe it's related to your first problem? http://forum.freeflysystems.com/index.php?threads/movi-pro-red-raven-monitor-issue.9234/#post-78802 Regarding the 2nd issue, usually I would just turn the Toad in the Hole a bit to align it -- but you're saying that doesn't fix it. Maybe I don't understand... The latch of the Toad will always line up with the back of the gimbal. You can just turn it a little bit to straighten it out? And I assume you don't have the Pan trimmed in the app, correct?
I've tried the turning the toad in the hole to align at 90 degree to the ring tube, but it seems to go back to the same position a little bit to the left.
I am wondering if the DSMC2 are the ones that are effected by it only and not working with the Movi Pro batteries
At one time, I wondered if there was a grounding issue with the Movi Pro. I had a small Sennheiser on-camera mic that I was trying to add to a C300, because it has no internal mic for capturing scratch audio, and if I put the mic on the Movi cage, there was a terrible hum. It went away if I took the Mic off the Movi Pro.
Graham: There really is no "ground" on the MoVI Pro unless you have a grounding circuit (e.g. copper wire down to the earth, or you're using it with wet hands and wet feet). What you're describing sounds more like a "ground loop" where the negative side of the circuits are not all at the same potential -- that can happen (as far as I understand it), if you have a high impedance component like a mic -- and the carbon fiber frame of the MoVI Pro is picking up some interference. The carbon fiber of the MoVI Pro ring is not conductive (some carbon fiber is but not the MoVI Pro) -- I just measured it. I'm not sure whether the set up you describe is a ground loop or just that the MoVI Pro is an inductive pickup for electrical noise. It would depend on whether the mic was electrically connected to the MoVI Pro or isolated from it, I suspect. The other wacky thought is that might the microphone be picking up mechanical noise -- the humming produced by the motors stabilizing the gimbal? What kind of frequency was the hum? Was the mic mechanically and or electrically isolated from the frame? Did the hum diminish if you held the mic close to (but not in contact with the frame) or did it stop instantly the mic was not touching the frame? (Sorry about the barrage of questions!) Tracing hums is akin to voodoo magic and can drive you nuts.... (or in my case, further nuts). Andy Forensic Software & sUAV / Drone Analyst : Photographer : Videographer : Pilot (Portland, Oregon, USA): Trees=2, Ground=1, Props=11. The Ground Is The Limit™ ---------- Forensic Drone Analyst : Forensic sUAV Analyst : Forensic Unmanned Aircraft Analyst : Forensic Drone Expert
Interesting, thanks Andy. I don't know a lot about electronics from a technical perspective, but it's interesting that some carbon fiber is conductive while other CF is not. I noticed the noise while prepping a shoot, and didn't really have time to do more testing on it -- had to get the job done at the time. The C300mk2 camera was a rental, and I don't own one, but I might be able to test this more with the Lumix sometime. I only bring it up because maybe someone smarter than me can do something with the information. I've seen others complain about the DTap Movi power somehow causing interference with some lens motors and RED's... but it's anecdotal and not fully figured out, so I'm wondering if this 'noise' might be related. I'll try to do more testing on my end.
Yeah, I was surprised to see some CF is conductive and some not -- I suspect it's the amount of resin to carbon fiber mix. The DTap power outlet might have some noise on it -- I've not measured it but if in doubt run the power cable through a ferrite ring a few times to block the AC signal that might be on the power line: http://www.rchelination.com/ferrite-rings-on-escs-what-do-they-do-and-how-can-you-use-them/ You can also get "clip on" ferrite rings that allow you to avoid having to do a radical cablectomy and remove the connector to run the wire through the ring. Search Amazon for: "clip on ferrite" and you'll find them. Hope that helps. Andy Forensic Software & sUAV / Drone Analyst : Photographer : Videographer : Pilot (Portland, Oregon, USA): Trees=2, Ground=1, Props=11. The Ground Is The Limit™ ---------- Forensic Drone Analyst : Forensic sUAV Analyst : Forensic Unmanned Aircraft Analyst : Forensic Drone Expert
Andy, come on Get up to your attic and dig out that old carbon, crystal and speaker radio. See if you can still pull in the old country. (just couldn't resist, pun intended)
— · — · — — · — Transmitting for DX. Andy. Forensic Software & sUAV / Drone Analyst : Photographer : Videographer : Pilot (Portland, Oregon, USA): Trees=2, Ground=1, Props=11. The Ground Is The Limit™ ---------- Forensic Drone Analyst : Forensic sUAV Analyst : Forensic Unmanned Aircraft Analyst : Forensic Drone Expert
I have also had weird RED camera power problems on the Movi Pro: at panavision Woodland Hills back in January, the Helium 8k body powered by the MPro started acting weird too. Eventually it shut off and would not reboot until we switched to a block battery. The HD Tech over there said "REDs really hate inconsistent power flow." So we powered it off a gold mount plate. Huge bummer. Try testing your RCP. Mine has never worked.
I have been using my epic w with my movi pro no issues with power or freezing. My only bug that I'm having is that I have no touchscreen when using the side pogo mount, but it may just be me needing to adjust monitor priorities in the settings. No hdmi connected so I don't think it has to do with that. I am using one of the tilta pogo to pogo connector cables so it may be an issue with that bit it works fine off of the top connector. I'm on the latest movi beta and epic w firmwares. Make sure that you are using the dtap labeled for camera. I have used both with no issue but I wasn't powering any other accessories off of the movi at the time.
What DTAP cables are you using to power your Epic-W? Are you using a JetPack SDI Expander? I was just using the Wooden Camera DTAP with a Scarlet-W w/ Jetpack SDI but I get sporadic shutdowns I think it is the DTAP cable.
I am using the jet pack hdmi expander and self made dtap to lemo cables. The side pogo now works with the newest epic dsmc2 release. Do you have another dtap power source that you can troubleshoot with? Either a v mount battery with dtap on it or a battery plate with a dtap out on it? Going up to Adams original question also, I sometimes don't get perfect roll after a tube and I need to go into the app and offset slightly. I think that most of he time for me this is because I may be a slight bit off on my alignment with the up/down tilt adjustment. It's tough to be exact without having markings on the tubes.