GROUP BUY - Digital Sputnik DS1

[Tim Daust]

FWIW i got my two DS1s last week. I know they're ploughing their was through all the orders, so the silence just means they're busy.

Not had that much time to play as i'm totally overrun right now, but they are awesome lights and the softblade accessory is a really neat idea. Think they ought to do a larger version was well...

cheers
Paul

you got yours already?

I am still waiting? have not heard anything...

 

[Jacin Lowe]

My order got processed today. They said I should have it by Next Friday.

 

[Cicero A]

What are the barn door options? will these oly work with the Digital sputnik barn doors? if you must use the DS barn doors, can you no longer use the diffusion panel? as its clips are held in in the same place the barn doors clip into the light
by the way. love the lights, and their customer service is truly top notch

 

[paulcurtis]

you got yours already?

I am still waiting? have not heard anything...

Yup. A few weeks back. They're working through their list. I think others are arriving no?

Drop them a line, they're communicative!

thanks
Paul

 

[paulcurtis]

What are the barn door options? will these oly work with the Digital sputnik barn doors? if you must use the DS barn doors, can you no longer use the diffusion panel? as its clips are held in in the same place the barn doors clip into the light
by the way. love the lights, and their customer service is truly top notch

I don't think the kit includes any barn doors actually. I just double checked - is it supposed to?

You're right in that those clips hold the diffusion but i suspect that it looks like the barns doors on the site have the same channel in that the diffusion slots into. So you could use both. But i can't test it as i don't have any...

I don't think they were in the group buy though - we do get the soft blade accessory which is super cool, although crying out to be made in plastic to make it lighter

thanks
Paul

 

[Phan Duc Cuong]

I was late for the group buy. Any one wants to skip the deal ?

Thanks,

 

[Cicero A]

For those who have received their units, am I the only one having wifi connection issues?

First, I tried with my iPhone, and it didn't work. quick call to the tech person at DS, and was told that for some reason t-mobile iPhones don't really work with the unit. luckily I have an iPad, but with the iPad, sometimes the signal never shows, or it shows and when I try connecting to it, my iPad says that I can't connect to it. kind of an inconvenience, when each time I set up the light, it takes about 15 minutes of trouble shooting and connecting/disconnecting before it works correctly. maybe I'm doing something wrong?

 

[Cicero A]

I don't think the kit includes any barn doors actually. I just double checked - is it supposed to?

You're right in that those clips hold the diffusion but i suspect that it looks like the barns doors on the site have the same channel in that the diffusion slots into. So you could use both. But i can't test it as i don't have any...

I don't think they were in the group buy though - we do get the soft blade accessory which is super cool, although crying out to be made in plastic to make it lighter

thanks
Paul

barn doors were not included in the group buy, I sent for a quote of the barn doors attached with a message to DS about purchasing their barn doors and here was their response

For the barn doors to work you also need to have a diffusion box. The diffusion box gives enough distance to the diffusion so that the light seems as single source. The barn doors attach to the box and limit the bleed of the light the will not shape the light as barn door on a fresnel lens.

The box with the barn doors is 290 USD. the box attaches to the front of the light instead of the clips.

so in order to effectively use them, you also have to buy the diffusion box. luckily, it's not super expensive

 

[Jason Bodnar]

Any news or updates on payment and shipping? I sent an email to Kaur as well but not heard back. last update 4/24 I have heard a peep after...

 

[Jason Bodnar]

FYI,

Kaur emailed me back tonight and said they would likely get to my order next week or the week after. I am 80-81 on the list and emailed them back same day we received instructions upon GB close. Hopefully that is good news for a bunch of us.

 

[Jacin Lowe]

I have my lights now and i think i was like 25th or 30th on the list. Just be advised they are shipping from Estonia.

For those who have received their units, am I the only one having wifi connection issues?

First, I tried with my iPhone, and it didn't work. quick call to the tech person at DS, and was told that for some reason t-mobile iPhones don't really work with the unit. luckily I have an iPad, but with the iPad, sometimes the signal never shows, or it shows and when I try connecting to it, my iPad says that I can't connect to it. kind of an inconvenience, when each time I set up the light, it takes about 15 minutes of trouble shooting and connecting/disconnecting before it works correctly. maybe I'm doing something wrong?

So i think i understand what your issue is here Cicero. I have encountered issues with the wifi setup as well. I will be doing an extensive review video on the lights soon. Hopefully we can address a few of the little niggling issues. Also im going to aim to talk about the wifi setup more due to lack of documentation. I couldnt find much on the wifi settings and what each thing does and explanations to stuff. So i just did a bit of fiddling and found out some cool tricks. Anyways look out for the video in the next week or so.

 

[Barry Cheong]

Was just emailed my invoice for processing. I was #70-71 on the list, but probably was a little slow on my email confirmation

Looking forward to getting mine. Look forward to hearing other people's feedback!

/b

 

[Tim Daust]

just paid for mine and should have them in 7 days or so

so excited ! Thank you !

 

[Tucker Harrington]

I received my kit and here are a few quick first impressions from playing with the lights (though not on a shoot yet).

They’re impressive. Solid build quality. Simple setup. And they’re very modular. You can detach the power/wi-fi box and the tripod mount. Gives you some rigging flexibility, but you can also see how with a few of these lights you can form bigger units in different configs. Come to think of it, its a nice fit philosophically with the modular RED. The softblade is nice, compact diffusion.

The iPhone app is well done (but it doesn’t natively size for iPad, just 2x mode). I didn’t have any connection issues. The lights are super fast and responsive to the app, faster than using the onboard button/dial on the light for some reason. And I haven’t seen any dropouts, although I’ve only tried connecting directly to the light’s wi-fi. I haven’t tried connecting the lights on a network.

I like how they implemented color control. You always set a base color temp, and then you can layer another hue on top an change its saturation. So its like adding a gel on whatever base light you want. They have shortcuts to jump to pure RGB/CMY, but you can side to any hue.

My only criticism so far is the documentation. What’s in the box is pretty slim. The only PDF I could find on their site is for the DS-3 which is applicable but has a different power unit, so unclear how much is really different. And thankfully the app pretty much just connects and works, but more documentation there would be nice too.

 

[Ivan Verlaan]

Thanks for the info Tucker!

In the iPhone app, are you able to group the DS1 units together, so that you're controlling 2+ at once, rather than dialling in RGB values for each?

Thanks,

Ivan.

 

[Tucker Harrington]

Great question. I’ll try it tonight. I’ll need to connect them to the same network too see them in the app at the same time. So far I’ve just been connecting to the individual wi-fi signal from each.

It also comes with a “Y” style adapter cable which I'm guessing is to daisy chain and group them at a hardware level when you physically attach the lights side-by-side to make a bigger single source. I haven’t experimented with that, and that’s another place where some documentation would sure be nice.

 

[Barry Cheong]

Just got mine recently. Put them on a job washing a white cyc with some color. Really nimble and small package. Can't say much more until I spend a little more time with them!

FYI - I'm planning on going Live on Instagram this evening (June 26, 9pm EST) to do a show and tell and to take any questions (I'll try my best to answer!). You can check me out at @barrycheongdotcom.

 

[James Latimer]

Just got mine and echo Tucker's thoughts. The wifi took a while to set up and name and allocate a channel to each light but I think I'm good now.
At the moment the DS1 PSUs all operate independently and even with a DMX cable, they won't run as one unit until firmware hits next month. Again I would like more documentation too.
Need to play around a lot more but initial thoughts with 4 lights.

Pluses:
-Tiny lights, relatively high output.
-Very well constructed.
-Amazing colour spectrum.
-V-mount for use anywhere.
-Once set up, app is a joy to use and can save fixtures and settings.
-Hard lights that with the diffuser can have up to a 76 degree spread.
-Easily mountable on inexpensive photo light stands.
-Modular, so you can mount 3 side-by-side for significant output.
-Included Softblade is a slick soft-source.
-With diffuser box and barn doors, it becomes a single-light source which is shapable.
-Included Pelican case is cut beautifully.

Minuses:
- Syncing the lights with the app is an almighty pain to get set up without instructions.
- Dial on the back of each light prone to slipping when middle-clicking, thus resulting in pressing the wrong command often.
- Diffuser box/barn doors/diffuser panel can be a bit tricky to attach. Wish they snapped on easier.
- Included PSU cable is too short to mount the lights high. The power brick will hang in the air and pull on the PSU. Need to invest in 5-10m cables which are proprietary and expensive.

Overall I'm super excited about having these and looking to put them through their paces soon.

 

[Ivan Verlaan]

Thanks James!

This is an excellent point:

"Included PSU cable is too short to mount the lights high. The power brick will hang in the air and pull on the PSU. Need to invest in 5-10m cables which are proprietary and expensive."

Can you please expand on how it's designed? It seems like there is a short 2' "DS Light Module Cable" running from the module to the PSU/v-mount. This is designed to be mounted directly behind the light module, far up from the ground... but then you would have a dangling AC power adapter, right? What sort of connector does the AC adapter use? Could that be swapped for something longer on a budget?

It seems that you could use one of these 5, 10, or 20m "DS Light Module Cables" to leave JUST the light module up on the stand, and have the v-mount/PSU, and AC adapter all on the ground http://us.digitalsputnik.com/shop/cable-for-light-module-10m/... but at $235 per 10' cable, that strikes me as very expensive.

I'm basing all this on some poking around their (somewhat scant) website, so really appreciate any first-hand info!

 

[Tucker Harrington]

What sort of connector does the AC adapter use? Could that be swapped for something longer on a budget?

Ivan, you're right about the design and the possibility of getting an expensive, longer "Light Module" cable as one solution to put the brain module on the ground.

Correcting my earlier post - the AC plug is a Neutrik powerCON. Looks like you could maybe get an extension here? http://www.neutrik.us/en-us/lighting/powercon/powercon-true1-cable-connectors/

and even with a DMX cable, they won't run as one unit until firmware hits next month.

Thanks, James — good to know!

Here are a few more notes from experimentation, just in case they help anyone out with some of this stuff that isn't clear.

To get multiple lights to work together get them on the same wi-fi network. To do this connect your iPhone to the wi-fi network the light is transmitting by default (what it calls "Access Point" mode). Open the app and under the menu select Device Configuration. From there you can set the light to join a different network under ("Client" mode).

Now once you have your lights on the same network the key is to set up two “Fixtures” in the app. By default both of the lights will fall into Fixture 1. And any settings you change affect both lights simultaneously. So they start out grouped.

Notice in the app, next to the fixture, name it says 0/1-10 on the first fixture and 0/11-20 on the second fixture. Its basically saying it can have 10 lights in a fixture. Pick one of your lights, and on the on-board light menu go to the DMX ADDR menu. The last line is a number like 00627:1. When you select it, it only lets you change the last number. Change that last 1 to 11 and now the light will fall into the second fixture in the app and you can control them independently.

Sounds complicated, and it suffers from some unclear naming (like 00627:1) but once you get it working is really easy to group or ungroup lights.

The last thing I noticed is that the responsiveness of the light to the app is a little slower and more sluggish when the lights are connected to a network in Client mode. When you connect directly to the light in Access Point mode it is instantly responsive.

Again, I love these lights. But I think people are going to struggle with some of the setup without instructions.