Powering Dragon with d-tap tp 6-pin lemo cable? Is it safe?

[Stian Eriksen]

Hi,

We're in the process of building a POV-rig for our Dragon.
Both camera and battery will be mounted on a motorcycle helmet using a custom built carbon fibre rig attached to the helmet.
We're going to mount the camera facing straight down, pointed into a 45 degree mirror in front of the operators face. This to acheive "true POV".
We'll place the battery at the back of the helmet for counterbalance.

For this we need an extension cable for the power, and as RED does not sell a male-to-female 6-pin Lemo, we've had to think of other solutions.
In my search I came across this: http://woodencamera.com/D-Tap-to-Epic-Scarlet.html

I've read that it's not a good idea to power the camera via d-tap. I can understand the obvious reasons. The d-tap could fall out easily and we wont get any percentage reading from our battery. We can still read the voltage though.
What else could happen? I assume that wooden camera wouldn't sell these if they have any chance of damaging/bricking the camera. We're using GlobalMediaPro Li230S-R batteries.

What are your thoughts on this dear community?

Thanks in advance for any halpful answers!

Stian Eriksen
www.helmet.no

 

[Matthew Quinn]

i use a cord like this for my gimbal, works great have no fear

 

[steve green]

I use the same cable and it works perfect. Voltage info reads out as well.

 

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

Just make sure it's impossible to flip the d-tap. Or maybe I had a 2nd AC fry a Scarlet years ago by forcing the d-tap plug in upside-down. Took the camera out of commission for weeks while RED fixed it and cost production $1500 for the repair. I thought RED bodies were "reverse-polarity protected" but that just means that it won't fry the whole camera, only the power board which is still a $1500 repair... I hope weapon bodies have better protection.

 

[Simeon T Geyer]

I use that cable on my gimbal setups a lot.
No problems so far. Yes, the P-Tab cables aren't the stickiest, but nothing a strip of gaffa can't solve.
ABout frying your cam:
Yes, never PUSH a connector.. if it's not going in smoothly there might be somethign wrong!

 

[Robert Berger]

Same here! Have the same cable For my dragon when i use it on a rigg on a car and Gimbal shots
best Robert

New RED showreel on www.camlight.nl

 

[Werner Jauch]

A different suggestion, use DSMC battery belt clip, and design rig to attach it to back of helmet? http://www.red.com/store/products/battery-belt-clip-dsmc