Monitor cable quality

[Christoffer Glans]

So I've had my Red Epic for around a year, but I haven't done many things with it since I've been stuck in editorial for longer than expected. Still my monitor cable started to loose connection and in different angles it just shuts of the monitor. How come a cable that's been pretty much inside the camera case get bad so quick? These cables cost a lot for such low quality, is there any other company making better cables maybe? More robust quality?

 

[Phil Holland]

Sounds like you torqued it at some point. I've seen crazy, crazy things done to LEMO cables over the years. Including ripping out the port on the SSD Side Module because somebody didn't know how to disengage the cable. Also have seen cables attached to camera while getting wedged into a case or stuffed into a backpack tightly. The most weird is pretty much people putting stuff on top of a connected cable when stowed, pressing down on it for long periods of time. This is pretty much why in my original Mysterium-X Data Sheets I wrote a whole thing on how to properly use LEMOs.

I have a RED One cable I still use regularly and one LCD/EVF cable from 2011 that's still my main cable. That one came with me for 4 months of shooting this year. Never had an issue.

 

[Peter Lyons Collister ASC]

I've had pretty good luck with my cables over the years. I had one Red One monitor cable with a bent pin after I loaned the camera to a college but that was user error. But I will say that own about 6-7 cables just for backup, different lengths and also I own two coiled cables from an outside vendor. Mainly because they look cool.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

Sounds like you torqued it at some point. I've seen crazy, crazy things done to LEMO cables over the years. Including ripping out the port on the SSD Side Module because somebody didn't know how to disengage the cable. Also have seen cables attached to camera while getting wedged into a case or stuffed into a backpack tightly. The most weird is pretty much people putting stuff on top of a connected cable when stowed, pressing down on it for long periods of time. This is pretty much why in my original Mysterium-X Data Sheets I wrote a whole thing on how to properly use LEMOs.

I have a RED One cable I still use regularly and one LCD/EVF cable from 2011 that's still my main cable. That one came with me for 4 months of shooting this year. Never had an issue.

I've seen this too, also did my fair share of "figuring things out" when Red One was released, but this time around this cable has been used indoors, never really with any other setup than regular monitor mounted on the camera. It's been in the case and I've never unplugged or plugged it in improper ways. Essentially, this cable has been taken care of like a newborn, still the problem just happened. Epic MX had one year warranty because it was a trade-in, got the armor for my Dragon upgrade in april, but this gear I bought with my MX in august 2014, so I recon that the warranty is out :undecided:

*sight* problems just keeps coming in for me. I've not done many jobs with my camera yet and it feels like it's made out of glass. How the hell can I even work with it if gear like the cables are this fragile? Do I need to get backups for every gear I have? :/

 

[Nick Gardner]

I have all of my original evf/monitor cables from red one days. The cables are fine. people abusing them just once will ruin them.

Nick

PS -yes, you should have a back up of every reasonable mission critical component. Ie - all cables should have back ups, have a 4 pin to red lemo cable so you can power it off of something else if your system dies, more than one card reader, more than one battery charger, etc.

 

[Ulf Krentz]

What Nick said, I also did not experience any cable issues. I´d also second to have a backup of those little things. If you´re working on set with models and crew it´s crucial to have a plan B, including to have access to a second brain in a short time. That´s probably one of the main reasons to rent from a bigger place and as an owner operator develop good connections either to another owner or such a rental place. Remember, everything will fail, you just don´t now when.

Cheers,

Ulf