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  • 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 :)

BeSteady FOUR Thread

Andy White said:
Personally, I don't think it's worth pushing ahead with the next batch (I'm in this batch) until EVERYTHING is 100%.

As PC and others have said, we're out of season now - and I'd rather wait for the unit to be fully functional AND all the extras, cables and promised accessories to be ready - it just makes more sense than trying to push units out of the door (and then having them come back).

Focus on getting Carey and the first batch fully functional - test 'seriously' at BS HQ... ie do a few days of rigorous testing (with a fully loaded Epic) and make sure it performs as it should...

Start taking the bull by the horns and QC properly - otherwise units will constantly be going backwards and forwards in a state of flux and repair.

Lastly, start taking comms seriously, it's been said a 1000 times before, but bad news is better than none. If this means pushing back into later delivery dates, so be it - just communicate on a regular level.

My 2 Cents (or 2 pence - UK based :)
Click to expand...

Exactly, next batch needs to be perfect on all points.
ETA on the cable situation, please?
 
And Peter, while you and the rest of the BeSteady team sort all these things out, can you please have someone contact DHL in Poland? My returned BS4 has been there waiting for you to contact them since Monday. I mentioned it to you on Monday but apparently nothing has happened since.

I will be most upset if it is returned to me un-repaired a second time!
 
I'm puting post that was put on our forum.

Hello everyone,
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Whew, I know you all are in the flames right now and I do understand. I wish to give you the most accurate information that I have on the current situatuation with the FOURs. I have so many tasks right now that it is hard to keep track of everything but I will do my best.

All the FOURs that were detected malfunctioning from the first batch are either here getting done (the European units) or close to delivery - the US units are in Europe and will be in our hands in a few moments. The cabling problem that was found happened to be the exact issue we predicted to cause all the mayhem and is fixed as of now. The fix is applied to all returned units and all the upcoming units. It takes time, I must admit, since the ultimate fix require disassembling and reassembling the units back. There is very limited manpower right now in our company and the assembly team has to perform the tasks of building and upgrading BeSteady PLUSes, build new FOURs and repairing the first batch FOURs. All that is on the heads of 5 people. That is also the reason the PLUS upgrade wait times have been extended lately as many of our customers noticed which coupled with a recent shortage of PLUS main board supplies generates a lot of additional work and stress for me.

The initial FOUR technical problem is something that no company out there may predict precisely. It is an early product problem, a childhood problem. It takes a lot of effort and awareness to effectively address such problems with such a sophisticated product. The FOUR introduced features that no other competition gimbal has and new technologies are common to have launch problems. Yet, we address those super urgently with a small team of specialists and even though everyone wants the Beast now or never, we cannot physically make it faster. I know you have all been waiting for over a year and so did we - the project just kept growing and growing and the result is something we are really proud of but it also has a huge drawback of never ending stress and pressure.

We are however very confident of how the FOUR performs when it is fully operational. On Thursday, October 30th 2014 we had the first ever shootout and direct comparison with the magnificent Mōvi M15 in Frankfurt, Germany at Teltec.de. The Ronin was also there but was just out of the competition. The FOUR was fitted with the latest firmware, with all the RC and Thumbstick functions operational, Inverted Mode, etc. and there was absolutely nothing we would be ashamed off. The M15 and the M10 had over a year to get to the trouble-free state they are currently in and we are almost there within over a month from the first production model leaving the assembly desk. And it will only get better. The performance is already there but we aim at the reliability the Mōvi provides and we are VERY close. The firmware updates are direct, effective and simply working, the unit runs smoothly everytime we launch it and the model from Frankfurt was in the hands of a number of people, constanlty being picked up, turned on and off, inverted or not and it was flawless with the camera and most of the equipment on it powered directly from two small BeSteady batteries.

So to update the current situation:
  1. 1. The first batch units literally take time but the European ones are leaving in a few moments to their owners, the US ones are getting cleared from customs as I write and will be fixed this and the following week.
    2. Peter is updating the shipping list times to reflect the time it takes to refit ALL units with the proper solution. He should post it here and possibly on Red User Forum as soon as he has it.
    3. All the time and grief you are all in right now WILL pay off the moment you take a 100% working FOUR for a spin. It is simply on par with the M15 and that is not my hyped opinion but the words we heard from people who were happy to come over to Teltec, Frankfurt last week. There is going to be a gimbal comparison article in the Video Aktiv magazine of German camera market covering this event (the guests were also filling in surveys on the gimbal that were there (M15, FOUR, RONIN and DreamWalker - a small German-built Alexmos gimbal). There is already a post out there from different source: http://www.film-tv-video.de/newsdetail+M5f63f811df7.html
From now I will try to find a nick of time to post any new stuff I am aware of about the FOUR should Pro or anyone else from our team go dark. We do not intentionally keep you in the dark - we want to get this done and cleared as quickly as possible with the limited time and manpower we have available. The pressure is indescribable and I do not wish anyone to feel the same way. Personally the only thing that keeps me in the loop is that we are so darn close that it would just not be reasonable to give up at this point. It would feel amazing and supportive beyond all belief if each and every one of you would feel the same for this few more weeks, even though the circumstances for you are not bright at all. Thank you!
Click to expand...

Peter
 
Don't forget about the "quirks":

BeSteady FOUR Quirks

While there are many, many positives to list about the BeSteady Four, I thought it would be useful to list some of its quirks so that Max and team can be aware and possibly address some of the issues.

1. The stand -

Personally, I like the concept. But for the life of me, I cannot understand why there is not a simple locking mechanism that locks the two vertical tubes into place. This could be achieved very easily. As it is now, you have to step on the center where the tubes intersect and pull the gimbal up off of the stand, OR you need a second person to hold the vertical tubes while you pull the gimbal up. If there were a simple way to click the tubes into place, it would eliminate that problem. Also, it would be nice if you could offer a riser plate, with various industry standard holes, that mounts to the bottom of the stand for those of us who want to mount the stand to a tripod.

2. The quick release plate -

It took me over an hour to figure out how to get the camera onto the camera shelf. I call this a "quirk" instead of a bad design because once I "figured it out" (through trial and error), I could mount the camera to the shelf in seconds. The trouble (quirk) is that there is a small center piece with rails that needs to float freely in order to align it correctly with the baseplate that mounts to the bottom of the camera. This is very touchy because if you tighten the knob (which loosens and tightens that tiny center piece) too tight, the rails won't line up, and if you loosen the knob too much, the center piece becomes "unseated" and shifts, making it impossible to line up the rails. It is like holding a butterfly: hold it too tightly and you kill it, hold it too loosely and it flies away. I'm not saying this design is bad, or needs to be changed. But you, at the very least, need to have a thorough explanation/video showing how to mount the quick release. God forbid someone is on set spending over an hour trying to figure out how to mount the camera to the camera shelf. :(

3. The roll axis adjustment knobs -

These are very quirky. Yet, they make it easier to balance the camera than on the MōVI. The reason they are quirky is because you can tighten them down with a decent amount of force, but if you tilt the rig too far (roll) the whole set up will slide. So, you have to REALLY tighten them down very strongly in order to keep the camera sliding at the roll adjustment point... but then you're stuck trying to loosen them later in order to put the gimbal in its case and it will be very difficult because they had to be tightened so much. The same butterfly analogy applies here too. Very touchy. Quirky. Bad design? Not necessarily. As said, roll axis on the BS4 is easier to balance than on the MōVI. In fact, fore/aft, COG, roll and pan are all easier to balance on the BS4 than they are on the M15. Especially COG and pan. Pan axis balance is almost impossible to do on the M15 (with a heavy set up) without a second person there to support the weight of the camera. The BS4's pan axis is ingenious. I had it done, by myself, in literally 10 seconds. Same with COG. The numbered lines, and the lack of a top mount, make it 20 times easier to balance than the M15. I had it balanced in 5-10 seconds on the BS4 - several minutes on the MōVI.

4. Camera plate hardware -

Since you are not using a cage (top and bottom) to mount the camera, it is essential that you mount the camera to the quick release baseplate with 2 screws. 2 screws locks the camera in firmly. 1 screw does nothing but allow the camera to shift. You guys sent 0 screws. Please send out the necessary hardware (2 screws - 1/4-20 & 3/8-16) in order to mount the camera firmly. I had to grind down a 1/4-20 screw in order to fit and use a makeshift 3/8-16 screw from my existing tripod mount. Again, please send out these necessary screws with all future units so that everyone can secure their camera to the baseplate using 2 screws. (This is not a quirk, its a necessity.)
 
The test in Germany, was it performed with an Epic plus basic kit to run on an average shoot? This was a RED group buy, it seems a few of the issues could have been avoided if it had been tested with a rigged Epic. If not I'd recommend a full test with an Epic before kit is sent out again. The Epic rental cost alone would be significantly less then the time and money to return because of weight and size issues.
 
Yes Piotr,

please reply to my emails.

Thank you,
 
If the moderators wouldn't shut me down, I am ready with the Polish jokes.

David
 
David E. Rogers said:
If the moderators wouldn't shut me down, I am ready with the Polish jokes.

David
Click to expand...


Here's a good one: The Polish invented the Movie Projector

"The first thought upon reading this might be: "Who are you trying to fool? Everybody knows that it's the Lumière brothers that invented the movie projector”. Well, nobody is going to deny that. The thing is that a year before the Lumières patented their invention, a Polish inventor called Kazimierz Prószyński finished working on his so-called pleograph, which basically worked the same way as its French successor. So why didn't Prószyński get international acclaim for his devise? Nobody knows, really. Being in fact the first person to ever build a machine able to project images, he should be on the pages of every history book. Especially considering the fact that he also constructed the first ever hand-held camera, which he called an aeroscope."
 
Carey Lee Coffey said:
So why didn't Prószyński get international acclaim for his devise? Nobody knows, really. Being in fact the first person to ever build a machine able to project images, he should be on the pages of every history book. "
Click to expand...

Maybe because he wouldn't communicate with anybody who wanted to buy his technology? :)
 
BAD NEWS here. Received the FAULTY unit yesterday. IMPOSSIBLE to make it works.
Same results in this "repaired" unit. Only shake and odd behavior. Desperate !!
What we gonna do?

PLEASE Carey or some others who achieved to make this thing work. Please, we need some help.
Thanks
 
OK

Friendly moderator-warning here.

It's now 2 weeks overdue for the sponsorship thing, and it seems to me BS4 have started to migrate most of the info to their own site.

By now I really need a good argument not to close this thread down (and thus also new threads popping up on this subject)

Thoughts?
 
Gunleik Groven said:
OK

Friendly moderator-warning here.

It's now 2 weeks overdue for the sponsorship thing, and it seems to me BS4 have started to migrate most of the info to their own site.

By now I really need a good argument not to close this thread down (and thus also new threads popping up on this subject)

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Reduser is the link in in the chain that connects us Redusers and BeSteady. I don't think it's fair to remove that link and break the chain. This is a Reduser group buy. It should begin and end on Reduser.
 
I get that point.

I also get that Mövi is a RU sponsor and these are competing products

And I get the point that reduser (the forum) has nothing to do with the arrangement of this and has become a bit weary of groupbuys (while aware of the value of them) due to this and other group buys that went wrong.

Piotr said he would arrange with the sponsorship, but as far as I can see, that has happened.

I did promise to close this thread down two weeks ago, but didn't as I thought there was some progress.

Now I see the no-sponsorship happening, Piotr pointing at the BS forum and also an increased level of posts which seems like this might go on for a while...

I'll PM piotr and se what he says, and ask Ramsey if anything is happening, but this is not going the way I hoped when leaving the thread open.

But I think you are adressing the issue by saying it should begin and end here.
As that implies RU (the forum) as a part of the deal.

It is not...



G
 
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