2009Follow Focus forum
Power supply tripping when operating focus motors on camera sleds
17 years old. Gear and prices may have changed since.
What the thread found
- Rapid focus motor movements or hitting lens hard stops can cause sudden power loss on a camera sled, which resets by cycling the power switch.
- The issue is typically caused by instantaneous current draw exceeding the battery's maximum output capacity, triggering its protection circuit.
- Internal power wiring in some sled posts uses very thin gauge cables that create voltage drop under high current demand, even if not causing visible damage.
- Upgrading sled post power wiring from thin coiled cables to thicker gauge speaker cable (approximately 1.5mm² or AWG 15) can resolve the problem.
- Paralleling multiple batteries together using P-tap connectors increases available current capacity and can prevent tripping.
- Focus motor controllers can draw abnormal amounts of amperage that may exceed what some camera sled power systems can safely supply.
- Battery thermal overload protection circuits can activate during high current demand situations and cause temporary power loss that recovers within a minute.
Depends on
- The solution of upgrading wiring applies specifically to sleds with accessible screw terminals and may not work for all sled models.
- The exact current draw specifications of the focus motor system were not provided in the discussion.
- One participant mentioned never definitively identifying the root cause of their similar issue.
- The effectiveness of paralleling batteries depends on whether the specific battery plate has P-tap connectors available.
- The discussion focuses on one specific sled model from 2009 and may not apply to more recent equipment.
Gear in this thread
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