LANC Terminal Problem

[Robert Watts]

I have been using Zoe by Bebob Engineering for almost 4 years with my GL2 before using with the A1 starting in December. It seemed to work fine until the last month or so when it started working intermittently (I would turn the camcorder on and off or unplug a few times and it would start working again). At first I chalked it up to cold weather but now it is warm and on Friday it would not work at all. I video mostly soccer games and found the Zoe very useful for zoom control. I tried Zoe yesterday on my GL2 and it worked fine. Is it possible there is a setting I am missing that changed or do I need to send the A1 back to Canon? Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

[Mike Teutsch]

Originally Posted by Robert Watts

I have been using Zoe by Bebob Engineering for almost 4 years with my GL2 before using with the A1 starting in December. It seemed to work fine until the last month or so when it started working intermittently (I would turn the camcorder on and off or unplug a few times and it would start working again). At first I chalked it up to cold weather but now it is warm and on Friday it would not work at all. I video mostly soccer games and found the Zoe very useful for zoom control. I tried Zoe yesterday on my GL2 and it worked fine. Is it possible there is a setting I am missing that changed or do I need to send the A1 back to Canon? Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

Robert,

I also thought that I had a bad LANC port on my Canon, an XLH1, but found out it was the LANC cable. It worked most of the time to start off, but eventually worked hardly ever.

I was about to send the Canon for repair when I used the LANC controller on a friends Sony for a movie shoot. When I hooked it up, it worked fine, but only for a few minutes. When it quit working, I moved the cable around and found that if I held it in just the right position that it worked. Finally I could not get it to work without holding on to it.

I picked up another LANC and it works just fine with my XLH1 and with my friends Sony.

I disassembled the Varizoom LANC controller and checked the cable for continuity. I found that one of the wires (center section) was not making contact at the plug itself. Of course you could move the wire around, but that is not too great.

I contacted Varizoom to get a replacement cable, but they refused to sell me one. They want to charge me a bunch to send it in for repair. Or, I could buy a 10 foot LANC extension cable for $20.00+ shipping and cut the end off!!!!!!! I ended up buying a short LANC extension off of ebay and will repair it with that.

Needless to say I will not buy anything from them again, and will sell all of my Varizoom equipment.

So, before sending in the camera, try a different LANC controller.

Long story, but maybe it will help you out.

Mike

[Robert Watts]

Mike,

Makes sense, I will check out the cable today. Thank you.

Bob