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Tired of the extremely poor craftsmanship of our LCD cables

James_Mills

James_Mills

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While on set a few months back my LCD cable finally came apart and the head basically broke into pieces, this coming after a few months of being without the head's back-screw that continually came unloose. Now my newest cable (the third of which I've purchased in six months) is again having its head's back-screws coming undone repeatedly and jeopardizing the placement and arrangement of the pins that I'm assuming are responsible for transmitting the signal.

20130822_090823.jpg


I'm an admitted RED fanboy, but for the ridiculous prices of these cables you'd expect them to at least not be falling apart by themselves. What makes these head screws come unloose? I can't imagine I'm the only one having these same issues if it's now happened to three separate LCD cables of mine?
 
just put some thread lock on there or loctite on that bad boy. easy fix.
 
I put a little blue gaff tape on the ends of mine to keep the caps intact and make my cables easy to identify on big shoots with cables flying everywhere.
 
CJ- What loctite product did you use? Super Glue?


CJ Roy said:
This has been an issue since the Red One days when the right angle connecter came out for the EVF. Locktite or spare end caps were needed fairly often for me.

Once I put the locktite on, it was never an issue again.
Click to expand...
 
It's not broken, its just come undone. Loctite 243. Tiny dab behind a loosened thread, tighten and forget.

That said it baffles me when people let threaded components fall this far apart. Maybe it's from working on cars all my life, maybe from the responsibility of heavier grip gear, but I go over stuff with Allen keys and spanners any chance I get. Amazing what shakes loose on anything mechanical, especially in transit or subject to vibration.
 
Marcos Montenegro said:
CJ- What loctite product did you use? Super Glue?
Click to expand...

Superglue is permanent, but you might like to be able to take it apart sometime in the future if you ever want to repair/replace the connector. In that case, Loctite 222 (red coloured version) or 243 (blue fluid) is a nonpermanent threadlocker that stops the back nut working loose, but the seal can still be broken with a wrench if necessary. Alternatively a dab of nail polish across the nut and shell can also stop the nut working loose.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?32579-Red-LCD-Cable-back-cap-nut
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?26057-Wanting-Hexagon-shaped-part-from-the-EVF-cable/page2
 
+1.

John Marchant said:
It's not broken, its just come undone. Loctite 243. Tiny dab behind a loosened thread, tighten and forget.

That said it baffles me when people let threaded components fall this far apart. Maybe it's from working on cars all my life, maybe from the responsibility of heavier grip gear, but I go over stuff with Allen keys and spanners any chance I get. Amazing what shakes loose on anything mechanical, especially in transit or subject to vibration.
Click to expand...
 
Common trick carried over from special forces soldiers, get a testors paint pen marker, and put witness marks on anything that can and will vibrate loose. Such as main screws, bolts, whatever. If the witness mark between bolt and body has changed you know it's coming undone.

This has worked for me for a long time, and saved my ass many times.
 
Posca paint pens too, at least here in the UK.

Handy also for touching in scratches on gear, and for adding foolproof orientations and instructions to grip equipment so hired hands have fewer excuses ;)
 
We use loctite blue, works fine. As soon as any lemo cable appears in our shop Red or non Red) it gets loctite treatment. We ourchased the last of the lemo caps Mouser had, hope that have more stock now but essential to carry a few.

The paint pens are a great idea. We have had to ship via C130 and other transport aircraft to remote location at times. Im never sure how those things stay in the sky, when we unpack out kit you can practicaly guarentee at least one item has dismembered it self in to component parts from vibration.
 
I have the same 4 lcd-evf cables that I got with my first red one, and a few more that I got since. Never ever had a problem. Shot all over the world, features, docs, music vids, steadicam crane africa whatever. Treating them like what they are goes a long way. They are delicate, expensive precision gear. Treat them that way and they will behave just fine.

Nick
 
I think this should not be a discussion. All our EVF cables have came apart. Also all our EVF connectors on camera, Pro I/O and +1 module also comes loose.

It's not ok I think, offcourse we could all use nail pollish and a pair of pliers. But I very much think red should look into this, They just need to buy a few cans of locktight and apply it on all such threads. It's easy enough to do and the cables are expansive enough to expect that to be sorted from factor.

It's such a small thing that can such big traumas so please red, with sugar on top, make sure to tighten all conectors on the cameras and cables you sell as this little issues cause a lot of bad mouthing about red as a company and also it goes out over us owning the cameras, renting them out and so on.
 
Nick Gardner said:
I have the same 4 lcd-evf cables that I got with my first red one, and a few more that I got since. Never ever had a problem. Shot all over the world, features, docs, music vids, steadicam crane africa whatever. Treating them like what they are goes a long way. They are delicate, expensive precision gear. Treat them that way and they will behave just fine.

Nick
Click to expand...


I agree, BUT it's hard to do all the time. I feel pro gear should hold up to being rough. I wanna throw my stuff around and have it be fine. Not really throw... : )
 
Björn Benckert said:
I think this should not be a discussion. All our EVF cables have came apart. Also all our EVF connectors on camera, Pro I/O and +1 module also comes loose.

It's not ok I think, offcourse we could all use nail pollish and a pair of pliers. But I very much think red should look into this, They just need to buy a few cans of locktight and apply it on all such threads. It's easy enough to do and the cables are expansive enough to expect that to be sorted from factor.

It's such a small thing that can such big traumas so please red, with sugar on top, make sure to tighten all conectors on the cameras and cables you sell as this little issues cause a lot of bad mouthing about red as a company and also it goes out over us owning the cameras, renting them out and so on.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Expecting customers to buy an additional application of unknown substances doesn't seem like an apt solution to the problem, and frankly it baffles me that so many in this thread are acting like I'm the crazy one here.

As I said, I'm a RED fanboy, guilty as charged. At the same time I'm well aware that their proprietary gear is marked up to hell to compensate for their camera's low cost in the first place, and I'm perfectly fine with that. So long as the stuff I'm buying doesn't need to be babied or replaced all the time, at least. Nick Gardner (whom I admire and respect tremendously on these boards) is absolutely correct when he says we should treat our equipment according to its value, however I haven't done anything cavalier in my handling of these cables. Each time it's been when I've pulled my cable out of my bag (or my AC has) and the screw has magically disappeared since the last time it was used / handled. Rather than have to forewarn any and every AC I work with to be wary of these stupid little screws, why not make them simply stay tightened?

Fwiw, the same issue was happening with the Rhino Slider's bolts in the middle of the rollers and after a few complaints they addressed it immediately and new ones have yet to come undone again; this change happened only a few months after its release. That's a homemade company out of Washington with 1% of the money or clientele as RED that simply addressed the issue without needing its consumers to tell others to "deal with it" or "fix it yourself". RED is better than that, hence why I'm bringing the issue to attention. Pretending it's not a problem and blaming the operator only makes us all look bad at Reduser.
 
John Marchant said:
It's not broken, its just come undone. Loctite 243. Tiny dab behind a loosened thread, tighten and forget.

That said it baffles me when people let threaded components fall this far apart. Maybe it's from working on cars all my life, maybe from the responsibility of heavier grip gear, but I go over stuff with Allen keys and spanners any chance I get. Amazing what shakes loose on anything mechanical, especially in transit or subject to vibration.
Click to expand...

Also, I should that it is indeed broken. After this happened the top round half that the head attaches to dislodged and seemingly vanished so it cannot be hooked into the camera. Even worse, the other side transmits a signal without a red channel even when I try to gaff the pins in. Somehow losing its heading damaged the pins, I'm guessing.
 
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