Scarlet-W not powering up via Helix battery

[Tim Milgram]

My Scarlet-W that I received today won't power up via my Helix Jr. The response I would expect to this would be "it's drawing too much power" which I understand is most likely the case... except for one thing. A month ago I went to the RED store in Hollywood to test and see if I can power a Scarlet-W off my gimbal. They did not have the Scarlet-W available and let me test it out using the Weapon 6k that they had. Using the 2-pin lemo to RED cable I bought from the Letus website (http://letus35.com/red-power-cable-for-helix/) this setup worked *FLAWLESSLY*. I finally had the light weight RED setup I've been dreaming of, without having to be tethered to the camera.

I'm pretty bummed out that this isn't working. Can anyone who knows the differences between Weapon and Scarlet-W please explain why this is happening? The Scarlet-W begins to power up (fans come on) and then after about 1.5 seconds it dies down. Any thoughts?


:mellow:

 

[BrandonChristensen]

What firmware are you on? If it's the release build, it might have the same problem a bunch of us had with the 3rd party V-Mounts.

The camera doesn't get an exact read out so it freaks out and shuts down. They have fixed that, so it's possible this is the case.

 

[Tim Milgram]

What firmware are you on? If it's the release build, it might have the same problem a bunch of us had with the 3rd party V-Mounts.

The camera doesn't get an exact read out so it freaks out and shuts down. They have fixed that, so it's possible this is the case.

It had v6.2.55 when I first tried it yesterday, but I upgraded it to V6.3.6 (beta) today and still the same issue. The trouble when two devices don't work together is it can be either one or both that are causing it. The fact that Weapon works and Scarlet-W doesn't is really peculiar/frustrating but also doesn't rule out something about the Helix potentially being the problem as well.

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

Do you have another helix or another cable to test with? That'll help isolate the issue. But I have a feeling it's firmware related and not hardware related.

 

[Tim Milgram]

Do you have another helix or another cable to test with? That'll help isolate the issue. But I have a feeling it's firmware related and not hardware related.

Unfortunately I don't have another helix or cable, but I plan on going to the Red store again and trying it with the Weapon again to confirm that nothing has changed and that the Weapon still powers up.

A few more symptoms, in case anyone might have an idea:

1) When I turn on the Helix the green light next to the plug on the Scarlet-W *does* light up.
2) Unplugging the 4.7" LCD increases the time the fans go on before the Scarlet-W "gives up", from about 1 second to 2.5 -3 seconds.


It just seems that the Scarlet-W has some kind of boot-time power requirement that the Weapon doesn't have... I will compare side by side with the Weapon again shortly and take note of which firmware that is on as well.

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

Interesting. The touch screen point caught my eye. Is there any chance that the DSMC2 bodies pull significantly more than 60W on startup compared to DSMC1 bodies?

I could see how that would be an understandable design decision. It's probably terrible for the camera to power off because lack of power. So, having a simple fail safe at startup would make sense I guess. But these issues you are facing will probably pop up more and more.

I don't have any experience with the Helix so I don't know, but do you know what the max power it can output? Is it significantly more than 60W? And I would be slightly surprised if the Scarlet-W had a different boot up requirements than the Weapon bodies.

 

[Tim Milgram]

Interesting. The touch screen point caught my eye. Is there any chance that the DSMC2 bodies pull significantly more than 60W on startup compared to DSMC1 bodies?

I could see how that would be an understandable design decision. It's probably terrible for the camera to power off because lack of power. So, having a simple fail safe at startup would make sense I guess. But these issues you are facing will probably pop up more and more.

I don't have any experience with the Helix so I don't know, but do you know what the max power it can output? Is it significantly more than 60W? And I would be slightly surprised if the Scarlet-W had a different boot up requirements than the Weapon bodies.

Yeah I've never tried it with anything except the Weapon (not sure which kind... it had the swirls in the exterior). I know this is a pretty niche use case but I'm hoping maybe someone from RED sees this thread and comments.

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

Yeah I've never tried it with anything except the Weapon (not sure which kind... it had the swirls in the exterior). I know this is a pretty niche use case but I'm hoping maybe someone from RED sees this thread and comments.

That would be the 6k forged carbon fiber body. As the top of the line model that's prepped for an 8k sensor, if anything, that body should pull more power than the Scarlet-W, not less.

Hopefully Mr. Phil Holland will come to the rescue!

 

[Phil Holland]

Hopefully Mr. Phil Holland will come to the rescue!

My first question in this case after reading everything is we need to know a bit more about the batteries and perhaps even cable.

Also, Tim, what expander or module are you plugging this into?

 

[Tim Milgram]

My first question in this case after reading everything is we need to know a bit more about the batteries and perhaps even cable.

Also, Tim, what expander or module are you plugging this into?

Hey Phil! Thanks man, I appreciate the help!

Letus Helix Jr.
Battery: http://www.letus35.com/helix-juice-box/
Cable: http://www.letus35.com/red-power-cable-for-helix/

Plugging into the Base Expander module.

Green light comes on right away when Helix is switched on.

Hitting the power button on camera:

Without 4.7" lcd plugged in, camera attempts to turn on for about 3 seconds as fans are in their loudest state, then fans turn off and very quiet clicking sound comes from camera until helix is shut off.
With 4.7" lcd plugged in, this 3 seconds is closer to 1 second or less, then fans come off and same clicking sound as above.

 

[Phil Holland]

And Tim, the camera does power on as expected using the supplied AC Adapter?

 

[Tim Milgram]

And Tim, the camera does power on as expected using the supplied AC Adapter?

Yep, works perfectly.

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

My first question in this case after reading everything is we need to know a bit more about the batteries and perhaps even cable.

Also, Tim, what expander or module are you plugging this into?

Lol! Ask and you shall receive! Thanks for chiming in Phil! Always appreciate your expertise.

 

[Daniel Stilling]

I just purchased a Helix and I can confirm that it works with my CF Weapon. The batteries that came with the (used) setup last for about 30 min.

 

[Tim Milgram]

I just purchased a Helix and I can confirm that it works with my CF Weapon. The batteries that came with the (used) setup last for about 30 min.

I wish you were in LA man, we could test and see if Scarlet-W works with yours.

 

[Josh Becker]

I, too, have a Helix. Really interested in seeing the results of this. I was just past the cut off for the Scarlet-W allocation halt, so I have to wait until June for the camera. Hopefully this is all worked out by then because I was really looking forward to a similar set up!

 

[Rakesh Malik]

I, too, have a Helix. Really interested in seeing the results of this. I was just past the cut off for the Scarlet-W allocation halt, so I have to wait until June for the camera. Hopefully this is all worked out by then because I was really looking forward to a similar set up!

Same here, though with the new slim Blueshape (and upcoming Red) v-mount batteries coming soon, I'll probably just go with some of those and extend the operational time of the system by powering the gimbal and camera independently.

 

[Tim Milgram]

*Update*

Had my Helix Jr. serviced by Letus. They replaced the board inside as mine was one of the early ones and they thought that might have something to do with it. It didn't. When I got it back I had the same symptoms.

Yesterday I went to the Red Store Hollywood to run some tests. Their Weapon, once more, powered up just fine. Their Scarlet-W had the exact same symptoms as mine (fans on for 1 second then off). So did their Raven. Then we tried their Epic and it also powered up.

So the only two cameras, for whatever reason, that can't start up with the Helix battery are Scarlet-W and Raven. I'm worried that because this is a more niche issue that there won't be a fix for this any time soon. Spending 18k on a camera is no joke... sadly I've had a Scarlet-W for a full month now and haven't used it once.

 

[Cameron McKinlay]

Anyone else with a Helix having this same issue? Hopefully Brent can chime in as We still don't know what the actual power draw is from the S-w or the Raven yet. but I would find it hard to believe that smaller less capable cameras are MORE power hungry than their substantially larger and more expensive counter parts.
Hopefully someone can shed some light on this.

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

Anyone else with a Helix having this same issue? Hopefully Brent can chime in as We still don't know what the actual power draw is from the S-w or the Raven yet. but I would find it hard to believe that smaller less capable cameras are MORE power hungry than their substantially larger and more expensive counter parts.
Hopefully someone can shed some light on this.

My thoughts exactly. It seems hard to believe that the lower specc'ed cameras might draw more power.

However, I was just reading the "5k is actually Scarlet-W 6k in disguise" thread and this particular post caught my eye (emphasis mine.)

Jarred is pretty clear that this is done to increase yields, something semiconductor manufacturers have been doing for decades, of course. Yes, it is a 6K sensor, but it goes into a Scarlet W instead of a Weapon because the 1K lookaround has some defect or poor frequency/power characteristics. Instead of throwing away these semi-defective chips, they can simply be reused in a Scarlet W, lowering costs and increasing yields. This is the same reason, for example, a GTX 970 has 1664 cores @ 1.05 GHz; while a GTX 980 is 2048 @ 1.15. It's the same silicon.


I'm not saying every Scarlet W sensor is like this, so it may partially be a product differentiation strategy too. Either way, it is safe to say that Red cannot just "activate" the extra resolution, not for every Scarlet W. The 6th K is simply broken.

I was aware that this is how the sensor manufacturing game was played, but I never considered the fact that the ASICS fall under that same umbrella. So, what if the chips that preform poorly are in fact the ones that go into the scarlet-W and the Raven, just like it is with the sensors? Looking at it from that perspective, it actually makes total sense that an issue like this would pop up eventually.