My Nomad 6 delivered recently. I tested extensively at home without detecting any problems. I took it out on my first job last week and had some serious issues.
In the middle of recording a scene it stopped processing audio. I heard an audible pop, as if it was shutting down but it kept recording silence. A warning came up: "dangerously low external voltage". At this point my voltage meter read 0.0 and the interface was haywire. My NP1 battery had been reading 14.5 volts or so before this incident and I had internal batteries installed. I had tested the internal batteries previously by hot swapping an NP1 and the until didn't miss a beat.
I swapped out CF cards and the power cable and put in a fresh battery. I got the unit to work again but similar meltdowns happened several times over this 4-day shoot. Sometimes that same low voltage warning came up. Other times all audio just cut out with no explanation and I had to reboot. I was able to back myself up and luckily no meltdowns took place during critical moments but it was wildly stressful.
I spoke with technical support at Zaxcom but they were not helpful. They say it's my external power issue which is not making sense. If my external power is too low shouldn't the unit switch to internal power before ceasing all audio processing and freezing up? Another strange thing that happens occasionally is the unit won't turn off when I hit the power switch on the side of Nomad. This makes me think there is something wrong with the internal wiring related to power. It has occurred to me that perhaps the external voltage threshold is higher than I thought. Perhaps I should not let my batteries get below 14.6 volts? Not sure this explains everything though.
Anyone experience anything like this? Also, I installed the latest firmware update in the middle of this shoot, from 8.9 to 9.2 I believe. This did not help.
Any input on this is much appreciated. Is this a Zaxcom factory fix or something I can prevent?
Thanks
Greg Miller
San Francisco, CA
