Lens Motor for Red....

CVB

CVB

Well-known member
Hi all. We've been working behind the scenes on a new lens motor for our motion control system and we've decided that theres enough of a market to make a stand alone system that will work on the RED camera .

Motor stats (subject to change):
  • Top speed at output gear: 200 RPM
  • Torque at output: 210 oz-in
  • Voltage/Current: 24V@0.6A per motor
  • Communications: Serial/Ethernet/Wifi
  • Weight: 225g
The system can be configured with the included remote or via a web interface using your laptop/pda. The system can store and recall a large number of preset positions, velocity/acceleration values can be changed easily on the fly, data can be backed up to a computer for later use.

The setup, which will be showing at NAB 07, will consist of 3 lens motors, break-out box, remote control, all necessary cables/gears and storage case.
 
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Very nice looking stuff. Will you have Wireless remote control options too?

Will they be compatible with exsisting follow focus systems such as the BFD?

- Mikko
 
Mikko,

Currently we are making our own wireless remote. The BFD is a great deivce but we took a route that give much more flexibility.. as far as I know the Bartech uses a regular RF radio that is limited to several channels, our system is full 802.11b so you can encrypt the data and never have to worry about channels again. The other advantage we offer is that our remote is significatly smaller than the BFD and the breakout box that sits on the camera is very small as well. If there is a huge contingent of people that would like this system to work with the Bartech I suppose we could work something out.
 
Hi Curt,

I didn't get a chance to run into to you today.
Motors lookin sweet.
Any chance these will be available in black to match the red camera?
 
Thanks for the positive feedback guys..

tonacidigital said:
Any chance these will be available in black to match the red camera?
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Of course!

Brook Willard said:
Woowoo, looking great! Any word on the remote interface and displays?
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I have a few designs worked out.... I'll do some renderings later in the week and post them. I'd really like to get feedback from everyone on features that they would like to see (ie auto limits, lens libraries, lense calibration)
 
CURT,

Your set-up is looking bad-ass, dude. When you consider the receiver design, will you design a proper mounting plate or even screw holes or something? The BFD receiver I rented from Birns & Sawyer had a mouting plate but no way to screw it on which was a pain in the ass. We ended up taping it to some other 15mm rod plate thingy.

HELL YES to a smaller focus controller than the BDF. It's too big for your pocket and it sucks to have it on a lanyard around your neck. When it's that chunky it gets put down between shots which is not so bueno.

I assume wireless capability is a benefit if we want to program focus pulls for a time-lapse or something huh? Laptops and indie film production don't always play well together but I can't wait to see this in action.

Can these motors be controlled by your mocap unit?

How much for the setup with only one motor rather than three?
 
lordnumberzero said:
When you consider the receiver design, will you design a proper mounting plate or even screw holes or something?
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Yup.. got that on our list.. I'll be in touch with Jim to get mounting information and integrate that into our design. I want to make this work across multiple cameras so there will most likely be a fairly generous amount of mounting options.

lordnumberzero said:
HELL YES to a smaller focus controller than the BFD. It's too big for your pocket and it sucks to have it on a lanyard around your neck. When it's that chunky it gets put down between shots which is not so bueno.
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Ours is about the size of a cell phone. Its all solid state so theres nothing to get broken. I know everyone is used to the big dial with markings but for our application it ends up being a problem. When you have the ability to have the lens go to setpoints that are pre-programmed you want the user interface to be at the same position as the lens... the dial would have to be motorized to make sure its at the correct position. We decided that solid state (ie no moving parts) was the way to go.

lordnumberzero said:
I assume wireless capability is a benefit if we want to program focus pulls for a time-lapse or something huh? Laptops and indie film production don't always play well together but I can't wait to see this in action.
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The wireless is so you can have a focus puller remotely pull focus for you without cables. Our system won't be able to control the camera unless Jim has something up his sleeves in the form of an SDK so us third party guys can take advantage of it. I recall Jim talking about wifi at some point. The laptop is only needed to program the units or tweak settings such as easing/velocity or database management - otherwise you can just use the remote unit to control everything.


lordnumberzero said:
Can these motors be controlled by your mocap unit?
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Yup... first and foremost we designed it to be used with our motion control setup. We are also including inputs for step and direction so you can use it with a kuper moco system (this firmware might not ship with the unit but we will have some cool upgrade features in place)

lordnumberzero said:
How much for the setup with only one motor rather than three?
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With one motor the system would be $3500 - this is an estimate but generally we will be charging about $1K per motor.
 
Very nifty device you've got going there, when available, I'd love to have the chance to test it out possibly? And if it's a winner, I'd hand over the dollars!
:beer:
 
Shipping in April 07 (NAB). We'll have several units ready for beta testing in late Februrary/early March. I'd be more than willing to go on a road trip and let you try it out. :)
 
I was wondering with red, will it be possible to video out using wifi somehow (Maybe a 720p version of whatever you are shooting) and have that playing back through the laptop so that the a focus puller can actually see what's being shot and alter focus accordingly on the same screen?
 
The motor we are using is brushless DC so the noise is minimal compared to stepper motors. We will publish noise data as soon as we get a chance to test the new protos.

Homer- that's a cool idea. The tough part is the level of cost and complexity that streaming video would add. Its not impossible to do though.
 
Hey, CVB, that's a very attractive looking dongle you've got there.
Sorry for my ignorance, but is it for automating focus-pulling?
Also, I'm sure you're doing everything you can as far as price goes, but selling a 5.5k accessory for a 17.5k camera might be a little chancy. I suppose 3.5k is in the ballpark, though.
Why might you need three instead of one?
 
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