Origo - Lemo Warning

[Nick Gardner]

Alarming that a $99 part (Origo cable) could cause a $xx,xxx problem on a film shoot, what with a camera fried, delays in shipping, extra camera rental fees etc. etc. We are leaving ours on the shelf until this is sorted!

That's the case on every job. That's why crew members are paid a decent wage, because they have a lot of responsibility, and a lot of potential to fuck things up. I have been using the exact same connectors on my steadicam to send power and video to my transmitters, and have never had problem one. I really think this is a case of inexperienced people forcing and fighting connectors.

Nick

 

[Erik Widding]

We have identified external 4 pin cables that can invert the power / ground and GPIO signal / tally pin mapping to the Aux 12 V port. ... the effect is to map the 12V battery output to the 3.3V GPO tally pin, and that creates a risk of damage to the camera. On a correctly cabled camera, the 12V Aux power output is protected against a dead short and the GPI/O pins are protected against short term higher than normal voltages and currents, such as created by ESD and EOS events.

Stuart, I do appreciate your pointing out the exact failure mode. To paraphrase, circuitry between pins 3 and 4 can allow damage to occur. The following is based on a bunch of assumptions (pin3: 6v ESD trip point, 0.5W of power dissipation sustainable; pin4: 1A current limit; battery: 12V): something as simple as a resistor of between 6 ohms and 60 ohms can do permanent damage. The moral of the story: Don't force any cables. The connector key is meant as a guide, not a fail-safe.

Apparently there is a mode that LEMO 0B 4-pin connectors can be placed into where the barrel can be rotated 180 degrees and then latch again. This can happen if the latch pins are damaged, or too much pressure has been applied during cable construction.

Specifically, this happens when one grabs the knurled barrel of the connector, and uses only a single wrench to tighten the collet. You need to use two wrenches to tighten the collet. If you don't have the right tools, don't try to tighten the collet on a cable if it is loose.

If you are using an external 4-pin cable to trigger or to draw power via the Aux 12V port, you should verify that the barrel of the connector is not able to rotate 180 degrees. If it is capable of this fault, it will only take modest pressure to induce the rotation. Just slide the barrel back from the "latched" position and then gently try and rotate it. If it does rotate, and then clicks back into lock again, its a faulty cable.

Using enough force every cable will exhibit a fault when tested this way. I do not recomend doing this to cables from Birger, as it will void your cable warranty. We use two wrenches to tighten collets, and we do a final short/open test of the cables afterwards as a final test before bagging.

 

[CVB]

Mmm.. i guess they don't see it as a problem then. We have seen dozens of cameras in a short period of time come into RED with Origos attached to them with bad cables and blown ports. If Curt's tests are showing problems with "only one in thousands " of tests then they must be selling Millions of Origos.

Again.. we don't know what Curt's policy is on reporting issues to his customers. We have a responsibility to report problems to ours.

This Origo cable problem keeps on happening, every week, with no resolve, and after we tell customers that we are aware about this problem, they keep asking me " Why didn't Curt tell us... ", followed by " why didn't you tell us? " . All I can do is fix that last one.

Like I said in a previous post, I was never made aware of the magnitude of this issue. I was told by red on that they were receiving cameras with malfunctioning power boards but they never mentioned a 2 cameras per week number. The quote about having a problem with "only one in thousands " was in reference to this post: http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=414825&postcount=41 Eric was referring to a completely different issue than what Jarred brought up in this thread.

As for our policies on reporting issues to our customers, none of the 64 customers (2 units per week x 8 months of shipping) that Jarred mentioned ever contacted us to let us even know there was a problem. Its difficult to alert customers to a problem when there is little or no information to go on. We have only had at most 10 reports of issues directly to us relating to the GPIO port not working properly and on all those cases we had the Origos (and cables) returned to us to find that they were in perfect working order. We then had those customers contact Red to find a solution. as soon as Jarred gets me a list of customers that had the issue I would be more than happy to get them replacement cables to keep this from happening in the future.

Per our warranty for Origo we cannot accept any liability for
direct, indirect, or consequential damages from using the Origo on your camera. All we can do is replace the defective cables. I would ask that you verify your cable is working correctly per my previous post/video and we will replace the cable if its defective.

We are working on a product that will protect the camera power input as well as the accessory ports. Its similar to what clairmont is doing with all their cameras. http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=398741&postcount=1497

In the mean time I would suggest that you keep an eye on your connections and make sure you are pluggin the connectors into the ports in the right orientation.

 

[CVB]

....
Specifically, this happens when one grabs the knurled barrel of the connector, and uses only a single wrench to tighten the collet. You need to use two wrenches to tighten the collet. If you don't have the right tools, don't try to tighten the collet on a cable if it is loose....

Erik, thanks for clarifying that... we too use two wrenches and apply only moderate torque. We also use loctite to reduce the amount of torque needed to hold everything together. We also check for shorts and proper pin outs on every cable.

 

[Brent Carter]

Curt, I know I personally called you a month ago with our findings of the Lemo able to spin 180 degrees. And, at that time, we had a mutual customer who has been burned by this very issue that I think would qualify as a "high magnitude" situation for all parties involved. So, to say that no customer ever contacted you over the situation seems a little misleading...

Meanwhile, without further word from you after I called to give you a heads up, we keep getting in cameras with damage due to the spinning Lemo syndrome. This is a serious situation for our mutual customers. I don't think it should be discounted as "I did not know it was THAT many a week". We knew a month ago it was a big deal.

BC

 

[Jim Bartell]

I use the same Lemo 4-pin connector on the BFD and I took a many-times-used 4-pin plug and tried to plug it into a 9 year old 4-pin socket and could not plug it in in any orientation except the correct one. It took an insane amount of force to even get it started in the wrong orientation. You would have to be trying to do it wrong to get it in. The only time I have ever seen this happen was when the connector was very abused and badly in need of a replacement, never with a new plug. The barrel reversal can happen to any connector of this type if tightened without two wrenches. With over 1300 units in the field if it were this easy to plug them in wrong I would have had 100's of cases this by now, not one or two.

 

[Stuart English]

4-pin LEMO based cable failure

4-pin LEMO based cable failure

Thanks for your comments Erik, Jim.

The failure mode we see is not caused by plugging the connector in upside down, its the barrel of the connector rotating 180 degrees.

But to clarify what I said earlier - as we don't want anyone to screw up perfectly good cables...

"you should verify that the barrel of the connector is not able to rotate 180 degrees. If it is capable of this fault, it will only take modest pressure to induce the rotation. Just slide the barrel back from the "latched" position and then gently try and rotate it"

I really do mean modest pressure. Don't force it. Its pretty obvious if the barrel is going to rotate.

 

[CVB]

Curt, I know I personally called you a month ago with our findings of the Lemo able to spin 180 degrees. And, at that time, we had a mutual customer who has been burned by this very issue that I think would qualify as a "high magnitude" situation for all parties involved. So, to say that no customer ever contacted you over the situation seems a little misleading...

Meanwhile, without further word from you after I called to give you a heads up, we keep getting in cameras with damage due to the spinning Lemo syndrome. This is a serious situation for our mutual customers. I don't think it should be discounted as "I did not know it was THAT many a week". We knew a month ago it was a big deal.

BC

Brent, what I was implying was that Jeffrey's case was in the less than 10 cases I mentioned. I have had no contact with the other customers that you guys are mentioning unless they fall in those 10 cases. If you would provide me with a list of customers that have experienced this problem I would be more than willing to investigate further.

I was in no way trying to discount the severity of the issue. As for not following up after we talked, I recall the conversation with you and from what I remember we left off with an understanding that this was indeed a connector related issue. I'm the only technical person in the shop and things take awhile to happen at VF (as everyone is aware). I was doing the best I could to remedy this situation and still am. Is there any way you can get me a list of the mutual customers that had this issue?

 

[Jim Bartell]

One other factor to consider is if the connectors are, in fact, actual Lemo connectors. Lemo connectors have the name "Lemo" and the connector type and size, such as "FGG.0B" engraved right on the barrel. Actual Lemo connectors are Swiss-made precision parts whose quality is first rate. Anything else is a crapshoot.

 

[CVB]

Need to make a correction... Jarred sent me an email on Mar 20 stating that they had 17 cameras with the problem between Jan 20 and Mar 20, I suppose that where the two cameras per week value came from. I apologize for that Jarred. I was under the assumption that there were only a few cases before that though.

 

[Peter Rollins]

Well there goes your credibility Curt. Nice to see you finally come clean though.

 

[Nils J. Nesse]

Can this have something to do with it? http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=14805

We also decided to make our own connectors, I don't know if you guys know that I used to design connectors for a living but anyway... We decided that rather than spending $30K on connectors we would instead spend it on tooling and make our own. We are close to having the first 4 pin connectors squared away - need to fix the ugly strain relief and get our nice little logo on there but they are working out perfectly. 5000+ cycles and no problems. The best part is that they are 100% lemo compatible so lemos will fit our receptacles and our plugs will fit their receptacles. Hope you guys like black

 

[Jack Mosor]

Hey Guys, Let's not blame VF for this problem, and deal with it, or try to mod it to different connector. Red picked professional type of connectors which I'll give them a Big Plus. Inspect your Camera after every job, include Cables, brackets..... On the other hand I don't believe this problem is only caused by twisted connector.
(There are many film cameras with Lemo and Fischer connectors and I have not found any major issues in past.)

Guys lets try to find a solution, and not to cause more issues. (because it's a costly mistake)

Peace

Jack M

 

[CVB]

Can this have something to do with it? http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=14805

We ditched that idea a long time ago... samples were great, production was garbage.

 

[Leo Ticheli]

For sale cheap; one Origo, two cables...

For sale cheap; one Origo, two cables...

Hey Guys, Let's not blame VF for this problem
Jack M

No, let's do blame VF. And not just for this. I find it difficult to understand the loyalty some hold for View Factor until I remember that there are those who pay good money to be beaten with whips.

My Origo is going in the trash. Of course, Jack, you're quite welcome to buy it from me, it comes with both short and long cables.

How does half price sound? I have great respect for those who put their money where their mouth is...

Best regards and good shooting,

Leo

 

[Pawel Achtel]

Curt,

I have sent you an email. Reply was not received. Let's hope we can resolve this issue promptly.

 

[John DeBoer]

My Origo is going in the trash. Of course, Jack, you're quite welcome to buy it from me, it comes with both short and long cables.

Leo:

Do not be hasty.....check the cable!!

We own over 50 of them....(long story there involving a 57 camera shoot with remote start stops....)

To date we have had one fail, and it had water damage. All cables work, we have checked them and none rotate. The issue is to check your cables....if yours has the problem, let Kurt know. Its pretty simple to check.

John DeBoer
Director of HD Sales
SIM VIDEO INTERNATIONAL

 

[Leo Ticheli]

Thanks, John, I don't think "haste" is an apt term for View Factor. I waited almost a year for them to deliver after paying in full before sanity got the better of me.

I don't own 50 cameras; I own one. I can't afford to risk plugging in an accessory which could potentially brick my camera.

I do appreciate your efforts; surely a man with fifty cameras needs an extra Origo; happy to sell mine to you for half price. Same warrantee VF gives if it fries your camera; "good luck with that."

Best regards and good shooting with all 57 cameras,

Leo

 

[Pawel Achtel]

I'm with Leo and Jarred on this.

Curt and John,

Does VFS have product liability insurance? As you may be aware, you can not disclaim liability if substantial amount of users of your product had exactly the same damage due to reasonable and intended use of your product. It just doesn't float.

But, let's try to find a solution that will have a positive outcome.

 

[Mark Toia]

I have a solution.

Can you guys at RED make these leads up and sell them to us, Then we know they are right.

We do use our VF cables a lot, Every shoot infact.
One has died and after checking the connectors we cannot find the problem at all, looks and tests perfectly, but it will not start run any of our cameras. The other VF units test perfectly also but do trigger all our cameras.... Crazy shit. It's got our Tech scratching his head for sure.

Curt I will be emailing you soon about repairing or replacing this one if you don't mind.

Regardless of this problem RED, these little units are needed and most of us use them daily in RED world. They are a good little design and like I said, used daily and needed.

I'd love for you guys to make and equally efficient version so we don't loose our warranties when this after market problem fault appears in our cameras.
I understand that RED ONE is going to be discontinued shortly and hence the hesitation in tooling up for something that has a short shelf life, But it would be helpful for the people that wont upgrade to EPIC etc.

Thanks guys...