Tilta Dual BP to V-Mount plate

[Tom Hanmer]

Is anyone using the Tilta bp to vlock plate. I haven’t found any proper reviews for it and as it is not Red approved I am a bit hesitant. It is the only plate that I have found that can power my accessories and the komodo together. 2 x lemo, 2 x dtap and usb. Would be good to hear peoples’ thoughts.

 

[M Harvey]

I own it and like it, and I rarely use Canon BP batteries any more-- it's very convenient to power both the camera and external monitor from a single source. (And I've occasionally built it up with more stuff, such as a focus motor and teradek.) It's lightweight and compact and, as you note, has a good amount of outputs. The horizontal position of the battery suits my set-up well-- I use it with mini v-lock batteries, and the set-up is barely larger than with BP-975s.

Haven't had any issues with it since I started using it in November, though it's annoying to get the "unapproved battery" screen on start up (that you have to tap to acknowledge), and I really wish you could get a readout on battery strength. I gather those are Red issues and not Tilta issues, hope that Red sees fit to approve the product.

 

[Tom Hanmer]

Really useful reply, thank you.
Thought those were the main 2 issues, interesting that the problem stems from Red’s end. Possibly one day will be sorted.
Planning on using it to power monitor, rt motion, paralinx and occasionally iphone. Do you unplug everything when changing batteries or do you think just unplugging the sdi is ok?
Looking for some minipaglinks to power everything. Seems to get round some of the problems, % battery display and hot swappable if needed.

 

[M Harvey]

I've just been unplugging the SDI. I'm not aware of recommendations to do more, but please let me know if there's a better practice-- it'd be easy enough to do if necessary.

 

[Tim Szczesniak]

Something to note, unlike the Core SWX plate, there's no pins to feed voltage info to the camera so I'm not positive it'll ever be able to do so. Just food for thought.

 

[Tom Hanmer]

Haven’t seen any official advice to unplug everything but have seen a few people being extra cautious. Just wanted to know how cautious you were being given that it is an unsupported plate. Much easier to just unplug 1 sdi cable from the back of komodo than all peripherals.

Interesting that the tilta plate seems not to physically allow voltage information to be transmitted.

Have just weighed the 2 canon and 1 sony battery that I have been using to power the komodo and monitor. The mini paglink are lighter so depending on the weight of the tilta plate may not end up being a lot heavier but have the convenience of only charging one type of battery and being able to power other accessories as well.

 

[M Harvey]

Something to note, unlike the Core SWX plate, there's no pins to feed voltage info to the camera so I'm not positive it'll ever be able to do so. Just food for thought.

Thanks, Tim-- so I stand corrected, it's not about Red holding off on enabling a capability pending official approval. I still like the plate, but would have loved that capability.

 

[Paul Leeming]

It works really well and with the right sized V-mount batteries (I use the Hawk-Woods Mini V-Lok ones) it makes a really tight package. Other than the annoying bootup press OK to confirm non-approved battery plate, I've had nothing to complain about.

HTH!

Cheers,

Paul

 

[Nils Ruinet]

Agree with what others said so far.
Works great, pretty compact, and good way to power accessories.
Compact 98wh vlocks like Hawk-woods or FXlion are a perfect fit.
And yes, the warning message when booting the camera sucks, as does the fact that you don't get a way to at least monitor your voltage.

 

[Tom Hanmer]

Paul and Nils
Thank you for your replies.
Having thought that I would stick with Canon batteries to keep things small and light once you have to power external monitors etc the Tilta plate makes a lot of sense. Only one type of battery to think about and better run times.
Ordered last week, it arrives tomorrow. Definitely think it will make things more convenient.

 

[Tyler Stewart]

Anyone experiencing what was posted in the facebook group? A friend of mine showed me photos he saw of people's Tilta adapters actually coming apart due to excess weight from v-mount batteries? The images I saw were of the GDU 98wh battery which is only 1.2lbs. I havent set mine up yet due to that and have also purchased the Core SWX plate.

 

[Paul Leeming]

Link? Seems like an unlikely scenario, maybe they knocked it and it broke?

 

[Tyler Stewart]

Link? Seems like an unlikely scenario, maybe they knocked it and it broke?

I would include the link, however I am still waiting for approval for the group. My friend is on set today so I will try to upload as soon as possible. He did say that others in the group said they noticed the same issue but I personally haven't seen anything here about it, so I wanted to ask.

 

[Tim Szczesniak]

Likely a small batch QC issue? I had one for a minute, it's built decently well, no play whatsoever in it.

 

[Rick Cook]

I've had mine since November. It has no play and does not feel like its about to break apart at all. Maybe if you really smashed it, dropped it or super forcefully slammed a vmount on hulk style?

Off topic, I once saw an AC slap a Vmount on a Sony F55 with such might he split the camera body in two at the point where the Recorder module mounted. It was pretty wild.

 

[Tyler Stewart]

Link? Seems like an unlikely scenario, maybe they knocked it and it broke?

Finally found the link. They say it was just on a tripod and the "weight" of the battery did it. Honestly, after hearing so many people say they aren't seeing this happen.. seems like it could be a QC issue.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/REDKomodoUsers/posts/644872969729117

I will say, when I connect my GDU 98wh v-mount to the tilta adapter I do notice a bit of play. So I just started using the Core SWX since I have both. That was a much more secure fit.