Red 7 inch touchscreen Monitor having issues powering in Cold Conditions

[Joshua VP]

I was up near the North Pole shooting in pretty cold temps, 32 degrees Fahrenheit and a few degrees below. My touchscreen monitor really started acting up on me. Not firing up, staying black for long periods of time. The camera was turning on/starting up, because the side handle showed data... I would plug/unplug in the LEMO adapters and sometimes nothing.. It got to be a little frustrating cause I was missing some of the action. Eventually, It would fire, after about 5 mins of waiting - force shutting down and restarting again. Once it fired up, then I was forced to leave the camera on full time in order to not deal with this issue again.. Anyone else have issues like this?

Camera:
Red Scarlett Dragon
7 inch touchscreen monitor.
Red Brick battery and Red Volt
Side Handle

Thanks,
Joshua VP

 

[Alex Bros]

I've shot Dragon in arctic and other cold conditions, and I found it's a good idea to keep the camera running all day. I also recommend taping a couple of those hand-warmers to the back of the screen. Monitors can fail to fire up in severe cold or just have lag/ghosting issues, and the Dragon sensor likes to be a bit warmed up before it starts to really perform. No experience with the 7" but the 5" touch did better in the cold than any other that I've tried (TVLogic 5.6", 7", SmallHD 7"). Also the single cable interface, and lack of a battery mount on the back makes it ideal for taping said hand-warmers on there.

 

[Joshua VP]

That hand warmer idea is brilliant. Thanks again for the quick response Alex. I'll be sure to try that out with Gaf Tapping hand warmers to the back of the monitor, and to make sure I bring enough batteries to power the Brain for the full day..

 

[Alex Bros]

No problem. And figure out some kind of hot swap system. Wether it's using the sidehandle, or a block battery and a Scatterbox (what i used). Even turning the camera off to change batteries can be a problem as when you reboot it the fans blow at 100% for a few seconds (to make sure there's no obstructions in the air path) and that can cool the camera down enough to cause a problem or atleast make you have to wait (anywhere from 5-30 minutes or more, depends how cold it is). When I was up in Inuvik we had a block run out when were shooting some B-roll for fun out on a frozen lake, and it took 20 minutes and 4 of us taking off our parka's and throwing them over the camera to warm it back up.