IR Port Cover

F

F6Film

New member
I have several HVX200s with broken IR Port Covers (Student Use). I have been told by Panasonic Broadcast that the Port Cover is not sold as a part by itself (it would require replacing the entire side cover which it is affixed to). This would be approx. $170 + Labor for each. While this may not seem to be that much, it adds up quite fast.

My question is has anyone who has broken their IR Port Covers come up with a cost effective fix?

Thank you.

Matt Efsic
Equipment Tech - Brooks Institute
Ventura, CA
 
Matt:

Yes, the solution is to beat students who abuse gear with tire irons. It's cost effective and will serve as a good cautionary tale.

Or better yet, make the sudents pay for the damages. It drives me nuts when people use gear that is not their own and thrash it. The production company I used to work for had twenty cameras and the same thing happened with adult professional DPs and camera ops, they would treat the gear like crap. How stupid do you have to be to not take care of the gear owned by the people signing your paycheck?

Seriously,

I had my HVX200 worked on by a very good old school European camera tech in Los Angeles. My HVX200 had been subjected to the prop wash of a helicopter in very dusty and dirty conditions and had dirt, grass, dust EVERYWHERE so he had to take the entire camera apart to clean it. I was guilty of the damages but I was put in the postition I was in by the safety officer on the shoot so I had no choice, stand here or you are in trouble. No parts charge and a $1,000.00 labor...ouch.

He said that if anything goes wrong with the lens, the lens assembly must be replaced. Not the lens element, the lens assembly which includes the optical block, lens, etc. And they are costly. The point being, small prosumer cameras like this are made up of sub assemblies that are manufactured as whole parts. The larger, more expensive cameras are built traditionally with separate parts for everything but not so with cheap prosumer stuff. Cannot think of any cheap and easy way around it, definitely not anything cheaper than $170.00.

Good luck and remember that your students will take better care of their gear if you threaten them with grevious bodily harm than if you shrug and just say, "oh well" and have Brooks pay for it (my wife is a junior high teacher, we know how to deal with kids ;-)

BTW, a Brooks student came and interviewed my wife about a year ago for his student film. He used a DVX100 and treated the gear very well from what I saw. And his shots in the finished doc looked quite good.

Dan
 
Thanks Dan,

I had already proposed a variation of the "tire iron" solution; however, it was rejected by my supervisors (something about lawyers). We do charge students for damages that they cause to the equipment, when it is checked at equipment return. The damages that I was describing are not able to be charged to any specific student, and I believe we will have to eat the cost of the repair.

Thanks for your insight, and your comments on the work of our students (I am also a Brooks Grad).

Matt Efsic,
Equipment Repair Tech
Brooks Institute - Ventura Campus
 
Right on Matt. Too bad that you cannot charge, but that's the breaks I guess.

Yes, I was impressed with the kid and his work, he seemed to have a good future as a documentary filmmaker.

Take care,

Dan
 
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