Aapo Lettinen

or could be aged caps on the crystal which don't have the right capacitance anymore. Or could be both. In any case I think it is the timing reference being off and nothing else wrong with the motor. It is normal for crystal to age and drift and need changing after some decades and the caps will age too even if ceramic which are pretty long lasting. the crystals have estimated aging and drifting values on the datasheets, they all do age and drift more or less. the crystal itself on the crystal sync motor is easy to find and usually possible to change by a person not specialised in crystal sync electronics. the crystal sync devices themselves are often very complex and difficult to tune and repair but if only checking the crystal and its capacitors it could be easy enough for some "normal" electronics repair person to do. If the motor is easy enough to open enough to get to the crystal, it depends on the exact motor model how easy or difficult it is. some motors need almos complete disassembly and some are pretty easy.

did not watch the video but that small of a difference might be caused by the crystal aging too much. If it really keeps sync but just runs a little too slow / too fast and the amount is the same all the time. Crystals can often be changed, might be more or less work depending on the construction of the motor (how much it needs to be disassembled to get to the crystal itself) . Some circuits may have calibration trimmer for frequency adjustment which could be off but I have very rarely seen that on crystal motors so probably it is just old crystal being a little too old

The final CNC machined support bodies of the NPR motor. Very very sturdy, I could stand on it no problem. This is the part holding the weight of the camera and the "skeleton" is machined out of single piece of aluminium which makes it very strong. the camera side mounting plates were sent to final machining now. I will next order at least half of the needed support bodies.

Some people have asked me about making new electronics for the GSMO camera. Is there anyone here with a gsmo which has non-working electronics and need to restore it in working condition? price range would be something between 1100 and 1500usd for the update and about half a year or so to develop it but would know better if there is orders for this kind of system 🙂

mattebox hard mattes to mask out any out-of-frame stray light possible. might help a little

the mirror timing is kind of a matter of taste, has pros and cons how it is exactly adjusted and possibly modified when modifying the gate. I think the most common issue with lenses is that the back element is relatively large and far away from the gate so that the mirror can mask the stray light inside the cavity more easily. so the asymmetrical mirror causes a "shadow" of the stray light which is slightly darker on every other frame when the mirror is on the camera right side, slightly closer to the gate and lightpath when the shutter is open. It is pretty much a matter of tons of testing and when finding a more problematic lens then deciding if wanting to use it anymore. but first maybe checking that the mirror is not badly out of sync, a technician can look your camera to see if it can be better than it is now. Hard mattes should help a little with the flicker issue I think but would not eliminate it, maybe just saving a shot or two every now and then. if being brave enough it is possible to diy adjust the mirror timing if wanting to just try different settings and fine tunings. A camera tech can do it better but it being like me who can't wait for cameras being shipped back and forth then it is interesting to try diy repairs 😄 these screws hold the mirror timing locked and one can fine tune it if loosening them carefully and altering the timing a little. Not recommended to remove any gears for larger adjustments because that will likely cause more harm than good and they are very time consuming to get back to correct alignment, the spacing and everything. So flicker fine tuning possible by those two screws, other stuff dont touch 😄

There is very simple way to determine if the cause is the mirror. The mirror swings to left for one frame and to right the next frame. So mirror flicker is every other frame slightly underexposed/slightly overexposed. If your scanned film shows this alternating higher-lower exposure on adjacent frames then it is the mirror. Open the scanned clip in resolve, slowly move forward frame by frame and look on the waveform scope if the waveform slightly jumps up or down the same amount every time you advance a frame forward

The acl has asymmetrical mirror swing and certain lighting conditions + lens + settings combinations may suddenly cause visible flicker, or not. Should not happen often/all the time though. If your camera visibly flickers all the time get the mirror timing checked. The acl is built that way to make it smaller. People are fine with it most of the time. But if it starts to give you trouble then get it checked and retimed or modified further to reduce the issue to acceptable level. If it is just one lens giving trouble then trade it to some other lens. If most lenses do that then it is the camera body itself

Two days left to order at the normal price 😮

yes Panasonics have very different look. they are great for documentary and mixed format stuff but the codecs etc are not super handy for narrative production and still camera body is not optimal for that kind of stuff either. When they at some point get cfexpress and internal raw codec to their full frame cameras it will be better codec-wise but proresraw is still not very optimal for fast-moving productions because it does not work with resolve and no one wants to edit anything serious with premiere and fcpx lacks the good enough grading features so it needs to be transcoded to really work efficiently with it. so on most stuff one either shoots normal prores or similar easy-to-manage codec, or if exclusively using resolve for anything then can user blackmagic raw. the Pyxis might be much better deal if they get the imager updated and some framerate stuff more attractive. There is still the issue of Blackmagic generally making unreliable products but I hope they will improve eventually so that the end user does not need to do the quality control which really should be done in the factory instead of shipping non-checked cameras which might or might not work

It looks like it is good time to wrap the 1-speed CP16R project for good. There was very little demand for it after all ( I sold two kits and installed one to my own camera). And frankly speaking I want to get rid of the bits and pieces I have saved for this project and only save the essential stuff needed for possible repairs of the existing systems. I am concentrating on Eclair and Arri motor projects for now as there is more demand for them and I am able to finance the projects better than these Cinema Products systems which seem to create lots of losses and there is fewer active users. It is still possible to order custom made crystal update kits for the CP16R of course, for example multi-speed ones with basic display and shutter parking etc, but there is minimum order amounts for custom work (typically from 2500 to 3000 usd minimum order paid upfront and one would get maybe 2 or 3 kits with that price depending on features). Custom work has the advantage of being able to affect the features and user interface if you have special features in mind. The disadvantage of custom stuff is that it is not possible to order single ones (well it is but it would still cost the minimum of 2500 or 3000usd so as well you could get two or three and sell the rest to others).

yes looks like a lost loop or more generic pressure plate issue

One week left to order at the normal price. I will need to send the first final mechanical parts to cnc machining next week which is why the prices will go up 2nd October as it will cause me extra costs if needing to order multiple batches of parts. So like mentioned before, I really need to know the exact amount of motor orders soon! if being late then the higher price needs to be paid so that I can cover my extra costs. Payment schedules can be negotiated and it is possible to pay these in 3 parts if needed. It is just that I need to get all the custom mechanical parts made in batches of 5 or more to get good price on them and I am only ordering the exact amount needed to save resources on other parts of the project (the mechanical parts are expensive enough that I can't stock extra ones, could lose thousands of dollars if doing so)

Buying cool new tech is easy. Writing and making good movies is very hard and risky too. Often it is much easier and efficient to brag with all cool new tech than to try to make the movies better. Shooting on imax but not caring the movie to have any point other than earning money... Indie filmmakers do this a lot too, the cool new tech is much more important than even getting the movie finished :)

Scripts are still sh*t. That has always been a problem with high budget features and for the matter most other stuff too... with very few rare exceptions. They did that in the old times too, people just remember the rare good ones and have forgot all the rest which was not good stuff. Just like with old music, no one cares to remember there were tons of crappy mediocre stuff too, they just remember the greatest hits...then claiming than all the music of the 80's is pure gold, for example 😄 About the question if audience notices camera differences... often the differences are pretty subtle and are more about the workflow and personal preference of the filmmakers. Audience does not notice the difference between master prime and panchro and one can intercut film and digital no problem as long as they are graded to match colour and contrast wise close enough. In the 2000's they did this on most night scenes without issues. the thing people do notice is bad sound mix and unnatural skin colours. Though they may get used to the colours (people shot stuff with the original Red One without anyone complaining) but if they cant hear what the characters are saying that will always raise tons of complaints no matter what the super artistic intentions of the director might have been