Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Switronix Releases GP-TS-RED

davecw said:
Just to get it straight - in the event your camera assistants are having an off-day does the GP-TS-RED safely power the camera down if both batteries are allowed to run down or would that result in a hard cut-out?
Click to expand...

If you have a RED Brick on the Right Side of the GP-TS-RED, you will get a normal RED shutdown, as if you had 1 RED Brick mounted to the RED V Plate. You will not experience that abrupt shut down unless the camera shows 'DC' and you are unaware of your battery status. With the GP-TS-RED, it takes away the guessing on battery status, and gives the camera and the user RED Brick percent capacity.
 
That's great - thanks, Vinny. So with the GP-TS-RED with two Red Bricks on board you get that nice countdown sequence on the Red camera when the batteries are about to die, leading to a safe power down? That's pretty impressive!
 
The only time with a RED brick mounted that you DON"T get the countdown is when there is no battery on the righthand "data" side. This is the side where the battery info is always read by the camera.

My recommendation is slightly different than Vinny's. I say to always have the left battery lag behind the right by 10 minutes or so. Start with a brick on the right. Put a brick on the left after 10 minutes. When the brick on the right indicates it will soon die you'll still definitely have a little time on the left.

The other way to work is to only keep a battery on the right side and stick a brick onto the left only long enough to swap the right side for a fresh one, then pull the left battery again. Then your data is always accurate, but of course you'll be doing more battery swaps.
 
This requires considerable more work so it will take a bit longer. Once we test the protoype then the manufacturing run needs to be arranged & scheduled and so on.
 
.....and that may take how long?

without the cable I don't think it's safe...well i wouldn't use it.

the other advantage of a dual plate is.....
You can have a battery on one side and a Reddrive (with ET cradle) on the other...

Although I don't particularily like the ET cradle shock mount & locking mechanism...drive can easily not mount correctly (no positivie lock), Vinny could add a couple of shock mounts to his rig so you could use the ET fixed drive mount mechanism and voila....
you have a nice setup!!

Get a move on ladies........

Dave
 
It may take a few weeks, it may take a few months. There are various factors that can effect this. Here's a simple one -- what if Lemo is backordered on the connectors? These things are not necessarily in Switronix's control.

I don't know why you do not consider this safe. RED has apparently improved the quality of their battery mounts and we rather rigorously tested several units on numerous cameras with no issues (other than finding one RED mount that needed an adjustment). It is perfectly safe or a company such as Switronix would not risk manufacturing the product. Lawsuits & all.

Why not use the RED cradle and mount the batteries on the back of that? You can do that with the current unit by mounting to the RED mount and you'll be able to do that with the next device whenever it is ready by removing the RED mount.

I guess you could use the V-lock on the battery mount to attach an accessory such as a drive mount but it seems a bit of a waste. Certainly the Switronix unit is not designed for this use so I don't know if the cantilevered weight floating off the unit would be stable or otherwise cause problems. It certainly is a unique solution.

It's realtively simple to create this product as it was an internal alteration. But the next device requires new external parts and these things take time.
 
Mitch, I appreciate and thank you for your advice.

Firstly with regards to design, the lemo version is more advantageous for the reasons I mentioned in a previous post...
'...getting rid of the additional v-lock /4 pin electrical assemblies should improve electrical failures rates, weight & reduce kit..' and two batteries swinging off that Red battery plate won't improve the risk/safety...whatever you like to call it.
And as you know there are still a couple of thousand Reds with the old battery plates.

I'd say even Vinny is looking forward to the new lemo cable design from his comment a few week ago...
'We've had at least 20 GP-TS hotswap plates which have been sent in for service because the contact block on the back side of our unit has been melted and warped from the poor connection to the RED plate.'

Still, I'm looking forward to the final design....Dave
 
Dave,

The GP-TS sent in to service have been fairly quiet recently. I definitely understand your concern with the RED plate connection. Here is our take on this issue. Those who have RED plates which are having difficulties with connection with a RED Brick(or any V battery) are going to have issues regardless what's on the plate until they send it to RED for a upgrade with the pins. Those who are not experiencing problems, won't with the GP-TS-RED or any other V mount device.

We did get those 20 GP-TS in for service, with the focus on the pin area, but those were also the RED Plates loosing power to the camera. So, that configuration was not acceptable to begin with, and once we replaced our contact block on those(with the same exact part!!!) and those users had their RED plates serviced, problem solved.

As for ETA on the LEMO design, as Mitch said, it could be weeks, it could very well be months. I can't get into all the particulars, but their are many factors. For one, when we had the first article/prototype of the GP-TS-RED, we sent it to Mitch, and field testing took 3-4 weeks. We haven't given Mitch a prototype yet on the LEMO Design, so I'd say once we do, you're probably looking at about a month before it's release. We have to have the reassurance that this product is going to do it's job well, and hold up.

The last thing we want to do is offer a product to RED Users that isn't right, and then I would have the unenviable task of coming on this forum and trying to defend it against the thousands of RED Users, which I DON'T want to have to do.

Also, shameless plug.........go to http://www.torchled.com for our new LED MODULAR light line. They're really useful and bright. They have 1/4-20 threads on the top and bottom so you can mount them anywhere with arms around your RED rigs!
 
skipdivils said:
I could use one of these things in a hurry. Mitch, how long would it take to ship if i ordered today?
Click to expand...

We have lots of orders. We'll check with Switronix supply about any backlog.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the updated version simply have one more wire in it? That's how I figured it'd work. Panatech does the upgrade for $30 so I figure it's very little difference. Does that really warrant a price hike from $169.95 (BH) to $295???
 
skipdivils said:
mitch. i tried to buy this product on abel's site today, and when i got to the billing and shipping area, it wouldn't let me enter a country other than US. I am in Canada. Any way to do this?
Click to expand...

Yes, just call or email us directly and we can handle the transaction.
 
The RED version which passes battery data is exclusive to Abel from Switronix.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top