Fixed my FS-4 problem and found a great battery! Also external charger

[Matthew Fink]

Ok, so disregard my last post, i'm an idiot.

I forgot to set the clip frame overlay to 0, it was set at 30 frames...now it works flawlessly...

Also, I found a battery thats small portabl powerful and comes with a charger...the stock battery is 11.1v, 850mAH - and lasts for around 90 minutes...lets just say it lasts for an hour to be safe...the battery I found is 14.8v and 4800mAH!!! and its small and light...it weights only 12.9oz - so with this bad boy, going by 1 hour on the regular battery, I should get minimum 5 hours of recording time - probably closer to 7...here is a link to the battery; http://www.batteryspace.com/index.as...OD&ProdID=2000

Also on focusinfo.com they do have the external battery charger but its like $179 or something...so I would much rather get the about batter and come up with a mounting solution (I like the one I believe Jon came up with, the metal L bracket). The battery should be here tomorrow or friday and as soon as I have it put together I will take some pics.

Also, newegg.com has some great deals on 100gb laptop drives - thats my next purchase - it's about $150 if that for a hitachi drive.

Let me know if anyone else has tried these batteries or made a successful mount.

Thanks!

-Matt

[Ray MacLellan]

Really interested in your extended battery solution Matthew. Look forward to seeing how it pans out. I recently purchased a extra power supply for my titanium G4 and I am curious if this universal power supply will work with the Fs4 Pro as a AC unit and battery charger. Lost my original on location.

The the output from the universal power adapter his 15- 24 V -- 90w max.
www.igo.com is there web site.

I don't want to plug it in until I'm absolutely certain it will work.
If you can shed any light on this it would be much appreciated.

Thanks Ray J

[Todd Kivimaki]

Matthew, that battery will work fine for you. I purchsed one like it and it powers the fs-4 forever. Also the nice thing about the battery is it will both power and charge your fs-4 at the same time.

Here is some more info on the batteries http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=43420

-Todd

[Matthew Fink]

Ok,

So I got my FS-4 working great...upgraded the HD to 100gb with out a hitch...took about 10 minutes to do, no need to format, it will format it right off of the screen on the FS-4.

Got the battery - it powers the FS-4 forever. With my 433 minutes of recording time - the hard drive ran out before the battery did...about 10 hours later the unit was still powered on, I finally turned it off.

As far as mounting goes...industrial strength velcro and velcro straps. It works great and it quick to move.

I am shooting all day this weekend, I will update and let you know how it goes...I will buy a second one if this works out!

[Don Boosinger]

Matthew

Which drive did you use?

thanks

Don

[Matthew Fink]

I used the 100gb (5400rpm) hitachi travelstar- which happens to be the same exact drive that was used in the fs-4 already just a larger version.

Any notebook drive will do - just make sure it is ATA-6 and minimum 5400 rpms..newer ones run at 7200rmps which is nice but 5400 is sufficient...oh and make sure it has a minimum 8mb cache also...

It's an easy swap, but if you don't know much about computers be careful because you could easily destroy your fs-4 or the drive or both. Before I went into my business full time I was a fulltime computer technician so it was a piece of cake for me.

Good Luck.

[Don Boosinger]

Swapping the disk should not be a problem for me. I did notice a pair of wires at the top of the FS-4 – and another set on the side. The ones on the side seem not to be a problem but the ones at the top seem rather short – were they hard to remove?

Guess I’ll get one ordered today – might go to the 7200 they seem more available.

Thanks

Don

[Matthew Fink]

No, they were very easy to remove - you just need to take it easy and dont yank, pull or push to hard. To plug the short one back in all you do is pretty much lay each side of the device next to each other and there should be enough slack to get it back in.

The 7200 rpm will work good...like I said I have the 5400 and have used it with out a problem (well tested it out at least).

[Dan Euritt]

the 7200 rpm drives may use more power than the 5400 rpm drive, so check that out... power useage could also vary by manufacturer.

[Brian Fischer]

Matthew,

I saw in your profile that you use a Canon GL2, and was wondering if you use the FS-4 in slave mode, whereby you can start and stop recording on the FS-4 from the record start/stop button on the camera without a tape in it. I use a GL1 myself, and have thus far had no luck using this feature. I contacted support at Focus about this issue, but have yet to hear back from them.

Just wondering, and would appreciate any insight you might have.

[Don Boosinger]

Brian

Try this: on the FS-4, go to the “Functions” menu and highlight
“FA Tapeless” then go to the “Control” menu and high light “Tapless” then return to the start up menu and you should see “E STOP 1-“ on the first line. At this point control is turned over to the GL-2 and can be controlled by the start/stop button. Please note that on the GL-2, under the “System” menu “DV Control” must be set to “ON”. Not sure about the GL-1 – I’m just guessing that the menus are the same?
Hope this helps….

Don

[Brian Fischer]

Originally Posted by Don Boosinger

Brian

Please note that on the GL-2, under the “System” menu “DV Control” must be set to “ON”. Not sure about the GL-1 – I’m just guessing that the menus are the same?

Don,

Thank you for this information... There in fact is not a "DV Control" setting on the GL-1's menu. Perhaps this is the culprit? I'll refer to the GL-1 manual for more about this though... Thanks again.