non red v-lock battery behaviour

[Lee Kelly]

It seems quite common for non red v-locks to behave strangely with Epic and Scarlet. With mine, I need to power up the camera via the redvolt/side handle and once its up and running i can then plug in my v-lock and everything is fine, until i power down and have to re do the steps above. No big deal.

I recently updated my firmware, not the latest latest one but the one before 3.something. now (sometimes) when i plug my v-lock in the camera just shuts down. Not in the good way where it tells you its shutting down, the kind of way where it just turns off! Then next time it works fine and then the next time it still works fine and then the next time it crashes again. No reason.

Has anyone else had this issue?

I should say that it didnt do that on the previous firmware i was running. Not sure if these things are connected or if its just a little workaround ill have to get used to.

Am I alone?

 

[Nino Tamburri]

Hi Lee,
My Epic does a boot cycle thing occasionally. When it Boots to the first stage (2 red lights) then just shuts down. It has been doing it intermittently for the last few firmware updates. I cant really nail what it is that causes it, but ive found that resetting by holding down the power button for a few seconds and having an SSD mag inserted helps it get going.
Im not sure if you camera just crashes after its finished booting, but ive never had that happen. I use a w00den Camera v-lock plate and GlobalMediaPro 160wh VLock batteries, and its a great combo. Give me a call if you want to discuss

 

[Matthew J]

What brand of non red v-lock batteries do you have? I found that the older Batteries4Broadcast batts I have had to have some of the pins de-powered to work on the R1 and Epic. Basically, I took my meter and metered all the pins on one of my RED bricks and then cut the wires inside my B4B batts to match. Now, all my batteries work great. Just something to consider.

 

[Lee Kelly]

Thanks guys,

I have been using these big 'light pro' batteries via an old red one belt clip v-lock plate and the converter cable which converts from red one power cable to epic power cable. Anyway, I had a guy check it out and disconnect the data pins in the cable and its all working fine now.
I had been doing some testing with my water housing with water plug-able power leads and testing if i could un-plug in the water, letting the redvolt in my side handle kick in but when i re-plugged the v-lock the camera would crash and not let me boot up unless the thing was unplugged again (using redvolt to power up) but then id plug in the v-lock and it would crash. Long story short, it meant i wasnt able to use my v-locks in the water which was stupid!
Its all sorted now though. I can keep my redvolt in for a redundancy (if v-lock died in the middle of a take) and use the v-locks for long shooting times in the water. It still crashes from time to time when i plug in the v-lock but then sometimes doesnt crash ha ha so its just one of those things you need to work around.

 

[Ted Parkes]

When I got my Scarlet I went straight to the V-lock since I already owned a bunch... Had all kinds of crazy things happening only to discover they were 14.4v not 14.8v . I picked up a couple of the GlobalMedia 14.8v batteries and everything has working perfectly.