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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 :)

How do you power a microforce zoom motor off RED

Michael Totten

Michael Totten

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currently the cables are "RS" cables. Is there some kind of an adapter?
thanks in advance.
Michael
 
thank you everyone : )
DigitalFX, I'm curious where did you get your custom made Preston cables for Red ?
I'm in LA. Abel ?
 
I got P-tap adapter cables made because I've heard stories about those back lemo ports not being able to handle much draw.

Good to know they can handle a Preston =)
 
Colin Sheldon said:
I got P-tap adapter cables made because I've heard stories about those back lemo ports not being able to handle much draw.

Good to know they can handle a Preston =)
Click to expand...

P-Tap off Battery here too. Not sure the lemos have a fuse.

Robert Torrance
Robert Torrance Camera
818-843-0600
 
By any chance does the Start/Stop switch work if using the Preston Cable?

I've got the Y cable that gets power from the DTap- works great except no Start/Stop function. Would be nice to enable...

Love to hear if it works?

Thanks.
 
I bought one from Preston with my first Red.
Sadly, Preston no longer offers the cable. I think they feel it could be a liability issue.
I have one and it works great. As I have more Red cameras now, I've had to find a workaround that involves an Arri 24v Preston cable. Stanley at CSC New York made up some pigtails that take the Arri RS 3-pin and make it the Red 4-pin. Works great and triggers.
I always send out a Microforce with a standard 12v Fisher plug cable as a backup, with a Fisher to P-Tap adapter and a 4-pin bypass cable to go to a battery.
Cheers,
Harry
 
Problem with Microforce thru RED Lemo-4 port is that a micro-current fluctuation thru the Microforce can make the RED's power port shut down as a safety measure. Some times it's totally fine, sometimes it's a problem. Only way to know of your controller would work was to try it. We were able to send some controllers to Preston and they modified them enough to get the REDs to accept them, but it was too much of a question mark floating out there in the world of which would and which wouldn't work that Preston backed off the whole thing.

I long ago suggested to Preston that they replace the Y-cable with an X-cable, where power would come from the P-Tap but there was still a connection to the Lemo-4 for run/stop. It would be expensive so Preston apparently didn't think enough people would want them.
 
Mitch,
I had an X-cable just like you are describing made for my Pro-35 almost 10 years ago. Still works great. Power from the P-Tap, trigger from Arri RS (which P+S thankfully included on the Pro), and motor and controller connectors as per usual.
Don't see why that wouldn't work for Red as well.
Cheers,
Harry
 
I have the d-tap cable from preston which is fine for power but no trigger. I use the view
Factor origio connected to the back of the camera for on/off trigger
 
From a rental house point of view I've always thought it'd be ace if some one like element technica made a box that had about 4 RS sockets, and a 4-pin MM socket and a cable that went to the p/D tap and another that went to the 4-pin lemo and a BNC connector so you could bolt it to the cheese plate and power your cinetape, downconvertor, lens light, Preston (with Run enabled to the lemo), etc and have a single monitor power and video signal cable from the MM socket. basically an accessory solution box that would use existing Arri accessories that most of us have anyway and the 3 and 4 pin fischer connectors are small and elegant. A preston microforce cable is summat like $200 so it's a bit of an ask to buy one for Red, one for Sony, one for Aaton, and so on ad infinitum
 
we have these mounted on all our Red M-X cameras along with a 4 port D-tap splitter attached to the top.
 

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