Anton Bauer power and the RED camera family.

[Robert Hart]

With the SI2K, the Anton Bauer Titan mains power pack/battery charger works fine with the SI2K. The product is a power pack which fits on a standard battery gold mount. An Anton Bauer gold mount battery then sits on it. When no mains power is applied to the charger, the battery power is routed through it to the camera-recorder. When mains power is connected, it supplies battery-level power to the camera-recorder. When the camera-recorder is turned off, the power pack then re-charges the battery. If there is a battery fitted and the camera-recorder is running off mains power and some clown hangs a toe in the power cable or plugs in a heavy light and trips a breaker, the power pack seamlessly switches in the battery. --- My question is, does the RED camera family play nice with the Anton Bauer batteries and the Titan power pack or do things go wrong? I ask because there may come a need to supply seamless power to an under-resourced Scarlet camera next year. As I already own and use the Anton Bauer kit for the SI2K, it would be a pity not to be able to use it on the RED cam instead of getting hold of stuff from elsewhere. Any advice would be appreciated ESPECIALLY if there is a risk of something getting a bit crisp and smelly inside the RED cam which I do not want to ruin for the owner.

 

[Jay A. Kelley]

I have not had any luck with the Titan and RED ONE or EPIC.

Sorry

Jay

 

[Alexander Thomson]

I've used the Tandem 70 with a Hytron 140 and we tried to see if it would automatically switch from AC power to battery power and it didn't. It did, however, automatically start taking AC power rather than battery power once the AC was plugged in. And it of course, did pass through the battery power when there was no AC power plugged in. So the only thing that didn't work in my case, was the battery acting as an instant backup if the AC was pulled. The camera just shut down.

 

[Robert Hart]

Alexander and Jay. Thank you for your replies. I sort of wondered about a hostile interaction between RED's own battery switching arrangement and Anton Bauer's arrangement. Did either of you have the side-handle battery fitted and operating at the time? - Would the RED's own switching system divert to the side-handle battery on sensing a power change or momentary low state at the Anton Bauer source and then switch back to the Anton Bauer when power level stabilised? The SI2K is a little more simple and brutal. It is an either/or setup. Either the AB/V-Mount pack on the back or the industry 4pin XLR input from the side supplies power. If there is a source connected on the back, the 4pin XLR input appears to be disconnected by internal electronic switching, I guess to avoid cross-feeding between sources and possible battery damage. Maybe more delay could be written into the RED firmware to allow the RED to "float" across a momentary low state. The downside might then be that the RED's own responsiveness to a sudden total power loss at main battery would become compromised - one of those have your cake and eat it things.

 

[Paul J Steinberg]

I'm a career-long Anton/Bauer user. I had the Titan charger/power supply with my F900 (back in the day) but was finding it would overheat under heavier loads (Miranda downconverter + onboard monitor running.) The newer Tandem 150 is a much better solution for higher draw cameras. I use it all the time with my Epic. The load is greater than 70W (at least with the Pro I/O attached) so the Tandem won't charge a mounted battery while the camera is running but it will seamlessly transition between shore power and battery when you plug in/unplug the power while a battery is attached.

 

[Robert Hart]

Paul. Thank you for your response. Both chargers ( 70w ) for the two SI2K cameras get quite warm when recharging a 140watt Hytron. I stop the charge after one hour, let it cool then restart the charge. I was a little concerned using the battery and charger on a Scarlet might convert the camera into one of those "bricks" people now refer to almost as a fashion statement. The SI2K is fairly content to use whatever power you can get hold of so long as it does not drop below 12VDC too much. A colleague powered his SI2K through Thailand and Laos on several motorcycle batteries. I was curious about his choice at the time. I don't know whether he was swapping through local motorcycles to recharge them or if he got hold of a mains-powered charger over there. I think he sold them or gave them away when he returned to Australia. I understand the Epic/Scarlet family are fairly robust as to battery power. I wanted to make sure the owner is not being over-confident. It is one thing to break the top E string on your mate's guitar tuning up, quite another to "enbrickenate" someone else's camera.