RED cables poor quality

[Robert Horwell]

RED cables. EVF, DRIVE, MONITOR. POWER,I have never had so many cables from one manufacturer fail. I have FF and camera kits that i have had for many years with cables that have been used time and time again and very rarely do i get a NG cable, bUt the cables from RED have almost become consumables. Why is this? i took one apart and the soldering was scruffy, two of the wires had come away. I always know when they are about to go as the little flexible plastic collar comes away from the connector.

 

[Brigham Edgar]

I must say they look really good and feel great, the newer versions especially. But I also have gone through quite a number that end up faulty even though they still look perfect. Got a box of them, so consumable is pretty close!

 

[Yannick Verry]

Is there any warranty on cables ?

 

[Rob Anderson]

As I'm reading your post, I'm thinking to myself, "Well, so far no cable failures. But the little flexible plastic collar thingies have come off on a few..." Doh.

 

[Kevin Wild]

We recently had 3 of the collars come off. I called my rep and they fed ex'd 4 to us at no charge, just shipping costs. So...+1 for their responsiveness, but hope the cables don't die.

 

[Bob Gruen]

I once opened a failed one up to see if I could repair it and I can tell you that there is a lot going on inside these cables. What really kills them is twisting of the cable at the connector base. One tip to extend the service life is to simply pay attention to any twisting force at the cable connectors. For example, I like to leave my cables on the camera and tuck the monitor down in front of the body, but I also unplug the monitor cable at the monitor and drape it over the camera body instead of allowing that 1/2 twist of tension to work on that connector while stored.

After seeing one of these opened up I really don't see how they could be made any better.

Bob

 

[JanneJansson]

Not had a cable fail, but several of my cables have had lemo connector poorly tighten including the one in my epic camera, and they have unscrewed and bits have fallen off. I think the lemos should be lock-tighten or glued.

 

[Mark Pugh]

WORD OF WARNING:

I had a very small issue come up with a Red One: it wouldn't jam sync at 25fps. fine at 24...
Red's diagnosis was that it was impossible to definitively say what caused the issue, but the only one they could suggest was a shorted or damaged cable that was connected directly to the CPU. Most likely an EVF/LCD cable.
To fix the issue, the CPU needed replacement.
Cost with labor: $5400.

It might not be obvious that a cable is becoming bad, the camera doesn't warn that a cable may be damaged via an on-screen warning, and as far as I know there is no available device outside the factory to test one of these cables. I don't think that's good enough, considering the damage that a bad cable can cause.

After my experience, I'd probably pay a few hundred dollars for a cable tester with a bunch of LEDs indicating proper connections from pin to pin.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

Heh heh heh I like it , I think we will use that to name our grown up version of this cable tester that we test the cables with in manufacturing.. it costs as much as a car and is bigger than me.

Power and Monitor are the 2 ports i think would be enough for something for the field. Looking into it.

Not sure if this is still in the works, but it's probably one of the better ways to deal with cables in the field that see a lot of abuse. But even testing cables straight out of the box before you plug them in might be wise. It's possible the cable tester idea had to go to the back burner due to a lot of other things on their plate right now. But I liked the idea then, and I like it now if it's possible.

 

[Robert Horwell]

I once opened a failed one up to see if I could repair it and I can tell you that there is a lot going on inside these cables. What really kills them is twisting of the cable at the connector base. One tip to extend the service life is to simply pay attention to any twisting force at the cable connectors. For example, I like to leave my cables on the camera and tuck the monitor down in front of the body, but I also unplug the monitor cable at the monitor and drape it over the camera body instead of allowing that 1/2 twist of tension to work on that connector while stored.

After seeing one of these opened up I really don't see how they could be made any better.




Bob

Bob i have cables with my Aaton, had cables with my SR3/2/1 and wireless genio FF KIT that are years old, they never let me down. they have had plenty of use. The RED branded cables have almost become a consumable to me.

 

[Mark Pugh]

Thanks for the Jarred quote, Steve. Nice to know red are getting around to a cable tester. Hopefully it appears before too many more CPUs get fried.

 

[Yousuf Abbasi]

Ive seen newer RED cables with like a braided cloth-type cover (not the plastic cover). I havent tried them, but they look higher quality. Is there a way to replace all my plastic coated cables (LCD, Drive, Battery) with the cloth-coated ones??

 

[conrad gaunt]

WORD OF WARNING:

I had a very small issue come up with a Red One: it wouldn't jam sync at 25fps. fine at 24...
Red's diagnosis was that it was impossible to definitively say what caused the issue, but the only one they could suggest was a shorted or damaged cable that was connected directly to the CPU. Most likely an EVF/LCD cable.
To fix the issue, the CPU needed replacement.
Cost with labor: $5400.

It might not be obvious that a cable is becoming bad, the camera doesn't warn that a cable may be damaged via an on-screen warning, and as far as I know there is no available device outside the factory to test one of these cables. I don't think that's good enough, considering the damage that a bad cable can cause.

After my experience, I'd probably pay a few hundred dollars for a cable tester with a bunch of LEDs indicating proper connections from pin to pin.

Red Europe can test red drive cables.. hopefully i'll never likely need one again.. im all ssd now

consumables is on the money

Red should publish a list of ballpark repair costs imo, so people running rental businesses can make informed decisions, but right now doing that doesn't seem to be one of our options

my soundcard got replaced during the epic-x upgrade, no reason given, working fine on a job the day before ..very expensive..couldn't be bothered to ask why frankly. my philosophy is to just log the frustration and buy cameras from another manufacturer later down the line . i buy as much non-red accessories as possible nowadays frankly. The 20% deposit on my blackmagic was less than my last red drive main board replcement.. go figure