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Beam Splitter on Aaton LTR 54 broke. What now?


Christopher Campa

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Does anyone in the group know where I can source a replacement beam splitter for an Aaton LTR 54? My camera had one that worked perfectly, but it seems to have shattered (the glass bit) and so I need a replacement.
Alternatively, does Visual Products install their own beam splitter for their HD tap on the LTR? I was in communication with them prior to the beam splitter breaking about them fitting an HD Tap onto my camera, so would I be amiss to just send it in, or would they need the glass piece in order to fit their tap?
Any help is appeciated, thanks in advance!
 
 
 
 

IMG_2853-min-min.jpg

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I tried to get a new beamsplitter for my LTR7 but it could not be arranged (and even if did, would probably had cost a fortune so would not had money for it anyway).

the Aatons don't tend to have lots of spare parts available anymore.

I think the most practical solution would be to get a new beamsplitter pellicle made in a optical company specialized in making industrial optics (optical windows, lenses, etc). Then someone would install the new pellicle to the original holder and you should get the camera working again pretty well. I would expect this type of newly made pellicle costing couple of hundred usd with the installation to the holder

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lenses are much more difficult to make than flat glass surfaces so I would try to get a new beamsplitter made out of scratch rather than trying to get a original part which probably cannot be found from anywhere. Making precision cut and ground flat glass products is what the industrial optics companies do every day and should not be a problem to make a new pellicle as long as you have the exact dimensions for it

Edited by aapo lettinen
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Pro tip: Whenever you have to get a part custom made, always price out getting two, maybe three. 

The setup charges are often the largest cost of a custom piece. Once the setup is done having the 2nd or 3rd part run is usually much less expensive. Depending on the exact part, if you need it, there's a fair chance someone else needs one too, and by selling your spare you can effectively recoup some of the cost of the NRE.

I'm always amazed when I do a custom electronics design and the client only asks for one. The NRE design cost itself is usually 80% of the bill, the actual fabrication ... is just a board. It's not unusual for me to quote something like "1 unit $2500.  2nd unit $1000, subsequent units $500 each"

  

 

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Can you measure the thickness of the beam splitter with a micrometer (or a caliper if you don't have a micrometer)? Metric, not imperial. It's a French camera ? Thank you

 

It's thicker than a pellicle beam splitter - and you wouldn't have the space for a frame (necessary for a pellicle beam splitter) anyways. But thinner than any off the shelf beam splitter I've seen.

Beam splitter in my XTR Prod:

beam.JPG.47d5781201b54a55e34269160903e1cf.JPG

Edited by David Sekanina
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1 hour ago, Steve Switaj said:

Pro tip: Whenever you have to get a part custom made, always price out getting two, maybe three. 

The setup charges are often the largest cost of a custom piece. Once the setup is done having the 2nd or 3rd part run is usually much less expensive. Depending on the exact part, if you need it, there's a fair chance someone else needs one too, and by selling your spare you can effectively recoup some of the cost of the NRE

I am usually calculating one part for tests which can get surface damaged or scrathed during fitting and measuring and is thus not suitable for final installation, two parts which get accidentally broken in the tests or installation WHEN something goes wrong and can't thus be used even for tests, one part is actually used for the final device and one or two spares which can be used later if needed.

So the minimum batch size for making pretty much anything custom is 5 or 6 pieces by my opinion and one would have one or two pieces to sell from that batch + getting one for one's own camera. So I would calculate the final price per beamsplitter by dividing the cost of the batch of 5 or 6 by two or three.

personally I am trying to order anything in batches of from 10 to 20 if possible but depends on how much the items cost a piece..

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