le 29 mai 2015

I use the Came-mini for around six weeks with the couple GH4 / 12-35 mm Panasonic. After a few hours to adjust to have a satisfactory behavior I had a hardware that works properly.

There are some days I had a problem with the Roll axis that was no power! after dismantling I realized that the power cable was broken. In fact there is no slip rings for supplying the Roll motor but simply a cable which twist over the roll rotations that are free. In my case the cable was twisted about 8 laps and it ruptured.

When using the system you have no idea how many already completed rotations. These rotations can be made off when you calibrate the mini-cam or simply by putting it in its carrying case: one makes a 180 ° rotation for the set up and when we remove also have another 180° rotation. ..if it is in the opposite direction no problem we return to 0 but if it is the same direction you have one more turn at the cable rotations.

I raised this issue at the company that makes the mini-cam: Cam-Tv. It is recognized that the problem could happen, but the only solution he proposes is to connect the mini-cam with SimpleBGC software to see how many of rotation on the Roll axis !

content of the reply email Cam-Tv:

[highlight]Hello Christian,  Thanks for your email. Hope You Could Understand That It will shows clearer How Many Times you turn it When You connect it to the computer. as the attached photo, the number on the bottom of Each axis shows the angle, more Higher the corner, it shows more times you turned, you just need to turn the roll or pitch up to the angle is “zero”, When It’s zero, it’s the normal status. Then just keep it is not turned too much times.[/highlight]

The worry is that this solution (difficult to implement in the field) is not valid at all. Everyone can try: made 2 turns on Roll axis without power and then connect your system. You will see that the Roll  axis displays still 0 !

Finally Came-Tv does not offer solution …
After reading various reviews about this company she appeared to me as serious. It would appear that either do nothing.

Finally the company is not serious and unreliable.

Absolutely avoid if you’re handyman.[hr]

le 4 juin 2015

I contacted Cam -TV whether this Slip Ring  could get on the Came-Mini .
They made the following response .

[highlight]Our technician say it can’t be added the slip ring so far, and our technician are doing their best to improve the came mini in the future.
But if there is any problem in your future of your came mini, you can contact with us directly, we will do our best to help you to solve.[/highlight]

Following an email regarding my dissatisfaction I received the following answer more encouraging. May be a solution in 50 days !

[highlight]Thanks for your email
and hope you could understanding that we are doing the improvement now, there will be improvements on the board and the instructions. that will solve your problem, but it will be ready after about 50 days, you could contact with us then if you need, and we will do test for you for free.
Thanks for your understanding in advance.[/highlight]

[hr]

7 july 2015 

GOOD NEWS !

Few days ago Came-TV offered me a solution to fix the problem . An effective and easy solution to implement. I received the part and installed it in less than 2 minutes.
This works very well . FYI the problem was only about Roll axis and there are no problem with twist cable on Pitch and Yaw axis.

The rotation on axis Roll is now limited to about 340 °. It’s enough to ??use Gimbal in 2 modes : camera below or above.

Thanks to came-TV for bringing this solution.

More information on this video from CheesyCam

[hr]