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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

VFS Inclino, Imperio, Origo News ??

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What disturbed me most was not the silence, but the actual updates, dozens of them and, none honest.
 
I still believe in Curt's project. Believe me or not.

My thought is that there are some problems (maybe new ones) and Curt doesn't have any more to say or to do, except work hard and start shipping something good.

Let's wait.
 
come on Curt! Jim made his big announcement, why don't you? It's about time you tell us everything... No more excuses. Just tell us the truth. Thats all we want... I want to believe, but 15months is a long time. Time is money and I've already spent enough money on renting wireless FF to purchase two of your units.
 
Miltos Pilalitos said:
I think we should arrange it in a way that every few days someone from the forum will call him and ask for an update and then come here and post the news.
Click to expand...

I guess that's another tactic to keep everyone calm.

In all honesty, I'm very happy with my unit. By all means, I'm not trying to piss anyone off either. Just trying to let folks know that it's a great unit.
 
Corrado Silveri said:
I still believe in Curt's project. Believe me or not.

My thought is that there are some problems (maybe new ones) and Curt doesn't have any more to say or to do, except work hard and start shipping something good.

Let's wait.
Click to expand...

Well said, i agree...for the moment:)
 
Ok update time.

As many of you know we have been working on this for quite awhile. We started shipping units a few months ago in limited quantities and have had a lot of feedback on bugs and other hardware related issues. We have been correcting problems and taking action to fix these issues before sending out more orders. This is probably not what you want to hear at this stage in the game but we are committed to making these right even if that means that we're going to get cancellations.

The two biggest things that came up were that the Inclino motors would calibrate then not respond afterwards and that the motor vibrated too much at very high speeds. The first problem turned out to be a tuning error that I was able to fix after a few days of debugging.

The second problem (vibration) turned out to be a little harder to tackle.
The reason for the vibration is the same reason that the noise levels were drastically reduced - the cycloidal drive. The way the drive works is by wobbling a couple flat disks that are made of steel and using that motion in conjunction with an output hub to create a gear reduction. The side effect is that the inertia of the disks cause vibration when the motor is ramped up to full speed on the input (3500 RPM). The solution I found was to change the material of the disks to aluminum instead of steel. The aluminum weighs approximately 3X less than the steel so the inertia at high speed is drastically reduced causing very little to no vibration. The aluminum disks are getting a plating called electroless nickel with PTFE (The coating is also used in aluminum bearings for aerospace applications). This coating ensures that the disks withstand the wear that is encountered over the life of the product. We are in the process of testing this solution thoroughly before resuming shipments in about a week.

I've also been spending a lot of time revising firmware on Impero to make them more reliable and at the same time finish up the last remaining features that were promised. The wireless protocols have been totally re-written to eliminate random beeping and glitches. I've also modified the protections on the bootloader section so we will no longer have bricked units in the field.

Other features that are going to be in place:
-Lens limits (for setting soft stops rather than auto calibrating)
-Knob limits (adjust range of travel on the control knob)
-Digital clutch (correlate actual lens position with the knob position)
-Damping adjust (for crisp / smooth real-time control)
-Speed/Accel adjust (for auto positioning movements)

Last feature I'm working on today and tomorrow:
-Torque adjust (modify torque that the motor uses for stiff/light lenses)

I know many of you are growing impatient/concerned and we understand that. We had a choice of continuing to ship garbage or fix the problems that we were seeing and have at least a few happy customers. As soon as I have finalized the firmware I will send out emails and instructions to existing customers on how to upgrade.

If you have questions then by all means give us a call. We are doing our best to answer emails and phone calls but it takes a lot of time and I am the one doing the heavy lifting in that regard. Lately I've been on the phone a couple hours a day with customers and that is definitely taking time away from finishing firmware and testing/assembling.

After the drivetrains we are testing pass our tests I will post and email shipping schedules for the remaining customers. I hope that you can all give us a bit more time to get our ducks in a row and ship a great product.

-Curt
 
Curt, Thanks for the update.

I have a project starting next week that I would love to test out the wireless FF on. It is a local project that I'm doing for free so I don't mind having beta firmware as long as the hardware is the shipping version.

Thanks!
 
Thanks for the update!! It makes a huge difference when you give us an update... Even if its bad news. I will wait, but not too long... Hopefully I will get my unit this month.

Shotaro Kirishima
 
Fair enough Curt, and i still support what your doing in getting it right and not shipping crap. Good on you for having that ethic on this front. Thumbs up.

But still, why oh why can't you learn from your one MAJOR mistake and give us some regular updates. The two hours a day from calls is probably because you can't be bothered getting on here and posting an update once a week...and that's all it would take, not every bloody month. The update was great and what i expected but unless i see some more updates, something like once a week or so...even just a paragraph or two...i am done, sorry. I have priced up the Bartech and i'm just now giving you a little more time to see if anything changes. Mid to late December is my timeline to take advantage of our Governments bonus 50% tax break (ends 31 dec) as with this if i got the Bartech it will work out pretty much the same as your Inclino in the long run.

Good luck, and i do mean that in good faith.
 
Hey all,

Just a question for Curt or anyboady who knows the answer...

I bought a Motor Kit a year ago and also own a birger mount.
When I will get my Impero unit (hopefully soon, not talking about the inclino here), will I get a cable to operate the birger mount in wired mode? (in case bluetooth fails for any reason)

OR, do I need to get one from birger ???
 
C.K. said:
Hey all,

Just a question for Curt or anyboady who knows the answer...

I bought a Motor Kit a year ago and also own a birger mount.
When I will get my Impero unit (hopefully soon, not talking about the inclino here), will I get a cable to operate the birger mount in wired mode? (in case bluetooth fails for any reason)

OR, do I need to get one from birger ???
Click to expand...

You should check with Erik at Birger Engineering on that. Shoot him an email or give a phone call. There are differences in the cables and I don't know which (possibly both?) that you would need.

p
 
Still finishing up the firmware for this next release. I'm trying to add a couple features that should make the boot-loader work a little better (better error checking), also finalizing the calibration current selection code. There will be three current levels to choose from... its been a little bit of a pain to get it to work right without causing problems in other areas of the motor firmware.

C.K. - Eriks cables are quite different from ours. He is using a cross-over design for the serial data. We use a straight-through. Not impossible for us to make one for you but I'd suggest you get it from him.
 
looking forward to it...
Thx
 
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