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New Chinhda Cart in development


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This is fantastic news, particularly for Cart-Fanatics like me! Thank you, David, for posting so many wonderful images and descriptions. Your explanation of the use of 80/20 material is right on... what it will provide I think is a high degree of customizability and add-ons, either done by Chinhda or by the user. I think it is reasonably priced as well.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi David,

Chinhda's small cart development looks great and I'm interested. I've built 2 carts from ITEM extrusion that's similar to 80/20 and have been thinking about a new cart to replace my 2001 vintage ladder style cart.

Here's a few observations.

1) I'd like to occasionally remove the base and wheels and pack up the cart for air travel. I liked the way this French cart folds in half for travel but I'm not sure the ITEM or 80/20 extrusion would be the best material for this though. Anyway, can the wheels and base section be removed or reassembled in say 10 minutes?

post-303-0-21304400-1313914082.jpg

2) In my current cart, I replaced the original steel 2U steel drawer, steel shelf and steel rack rails with an ITEM subassembly. I did this so I could assemble and wire most of the electronics outside of the main cart frame. My new sub rack, complete with drawers weighs less than the steel components it replaced. Fully assembled with electronics,, my sub assembly is heavy and a bit of a pig for one person to lift on it's current mount points. Getting to my point, the Chinhda cart appears to be made from a 80/20 profile similar to the ITEM 30mm profile. I made my sub assemblies from a lighter 20mm profile. Strength wise the smaller profile is fine for the sub assembly and the uprights can be used as rack rail. You can see my Venue and Metric Halo rack width case's mounted in the 20mm profile slots. Just noting this as the Chinhda prototype appears to have both compact and rack width sub assemblies. The rack width version seems to have mounts on the inside edge of the 80/20 profile requiring more engineering than just using smaller profile. I don't know if 80/20 make a 20mm equivalent.

post-303-0-68896000-1313914904.jpg

I don't have a picture of the installed sub assembly. It's sitting on top of one of Rob Stalders carts in the picture above and replaced the steel assembly in my cart below:

post-303-0-97894100-1313915140.jpg

There's a tendency to have equipment mounted high and close to the rear on ladder style carts and use weight, usually in the form of gel cells on the base to keep the cart from tending to tip backwards. With the sub assembly at the top, the instability is possibly more pronounced if there's no gel cell. I note this as this as every now and then I get out my original ITEM ladder cart for playback duties and without any weight in the base it feels a little to easy to tilt backwards. As we move to Li Ion batteries, there's going to be less weight in the base. A lightweight cart could be run off a V-Lok or two. Probably just a matter of where the rear wheels are mounted.

David M

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Hi David,

Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences with the ITEM material and small carts in general. I'll print out your message and photos and share them with Chinhda.

I know he is working on developing a folding mechanism for the cart to facilitate transport. I don't know yet how that will go. Anything is possible when you have a machine shop, of course, but there are issues of ease of fabrication and hitting price points that need to be factored in. I'll post updates as new information becomes available.

David

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David...My Main Chinhda Custom Cart is just great, couldn't be better....this MId Size Cart will be a great addition...I'll contact you directly with what I intend to locate on this cart...the remove-able parts to jump into an insert trailer are nice...might be too big of a removable unit... depending how many people need to ride inside and where you need to put it....so Bag set up might still be necessary...but strapped outside might work..last week i was going from one set of gear on the Chinhda cart outside....right into the insert truck/trailer with another set of gear in a bag with hardwired Cubs in the Car we were pulling.....then doing tight insert shots with the bag and a CMIT over the shoulder.. while they changed the camera exterior rig...then dropping the bag into a driving car with 2 Cubs...and TX to a chase vehicle with SMQ IFB...I use a T4 on my cart tuned to the same Freq. as the SMQ IFB TX on the bag...so it's seamless transition for people wearing R1a's..And since we were using Red Epic's I didn't have to worry about getting any Audio on to all the Cameras...LOL....but I used my Ambient Master Clock with GPS to Jam both my recorders, the slates, the Lock Box It Boxes on the RED EPIC's..(Great that RED EPIC's have a 4 Pin Non Standard TC Lemo....Ground/Red Remote/Gen Lock IN and TC IN on the Lemo) We finally got the cables from the Camera Rental House Fed Ex Saturday about 4 hours into the shoot...:) but clapping TC Slates Old School still works...:) I continuously get complemented on the Chinhda Cart..

The Mid Size cart will work great...for some of the Smaller Shoots...just making it easier to get in an out...etc. Thanks for turning me on to the JW Blog...Jeff Jones

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  • 5 weeks later...

Hi

David thank you for sending me the link.

I have a idea for that cart. It should be possible to put the recorder with direct attached controller like the 788t with CL- 8 in a degree position. hmm so you mix confutable and se your meters. Like the natural position. That the sub shelf can be removed is great. Ah shelfs in different depth would be cool, too. I'm going to post some drawings soon.

Cheers Chris

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