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NEW: Ambient | NanoLockit


VASI

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32 minutes ago, ryanpeds said:

I was able to see them at NAB so I was already knew how big they were. They are a fantastic size. I'll upload a picture in my hand

The next question will be how big is your hand! A picture would be very helpful if possible thanks. 

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I've been using 2 for the past couple of weeks and they're great! They're definitely bigger and heavier than the tentacles. Having said that, they fit very nicely on the Sony AS7 we're using for B camera, with no complaints from camera dept. Don't miss the screen at all. I'm using a tiny Lockit as a master for the ACN and get all the visual feedback from the LED at the top.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

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  • 2 months later...

I bought 2 Nanos and am really happy with them. The camera department still ask for a Tentacle every once in a while but usualy they like the size.
The only thing I don't really like or understand is the fact that the Nanos switch on after charging, when you unplug the usb-cable. Does anyone know if there is an option to disable this function?

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On 31/07/2017 at 6:39 PM, tonvogt said:

I bought 2 Nanos and am really happy with them. The camera department still ask for a Tentacle every once in a while but usualy they like the size.
The only thing I don't really like or understand is the fact that the Nanos switch on after charging, when you unplug the usb-cable. Does anyone know if there is an option to disable this function?

 

 

I agree, this is annoying. I've contacted ambient about it. Let's see what they say

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And here is what they do:

(or me, to be exact as it is a blunt copy and paste to my email answer @thope)

"the Nanos will come on automatically when connected and stay so in any condition. Very much like a mobile that’s on wouldn’t turn off after charging this is not going to change as they would otherwise shut down when powered externally while connected to camera. However, we are evaluating an option so they can be configured to power down after external power has been disconnected."

 

Many  productions use them with external power and a C-Jam Master - they just stay on camera and do not need to be taken care of in any way, not even power on/down. They come up with the camera and are ready to be synced, as soon you do, AC can do what they want - TC will always be there on spot. Have to power them down after charge is a trade off but cannot be avoided without risking they got shut off while on camera with external power and resulting TC inconsistencies.

 

 

I know, you guys here are savvy enough to deal with LockitToolbox and take care of TC well enough - Still, the Nano was  designed above all to also help and guide the even most inexperienced and intimidated by the daunting timecode task. Doing support and troubleshhoting on timecode and sync here at Ambient since 1994 I know that most problems originate from untis not being kept on camera or not being powered on accidentially. The ACN with C-Jam, auto framerate and autopower helps to eliminate these problems in the majority of applications.

 

 

 

 

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On 31.7.2017 at 1:57 PM, pindrop said:

It indeed is, however, and since this is a NanoLockit labelled thread, I think it is just fair to add a "displayless, one button Time of Day TC Jam sync", "automatic framerate adjustment on jam", and "jam and go by cable without menu acrobatics" with a "Yes" on Nano, oh, and a full metal aluminium enclosure that lasts a life time.....

Well noted,  without intention to make the Ultrasync One small - which it physically btw. is ;) We decided against some features and pro others with simplicity of use in mind.

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2 hours ago, Klaus said:

"the Nanos will come on automatically when connected and stay so in any condition. Very much like a mobile that’s on wouldn’t turn off after charging this is not going to change as they would otherwise shut down when powered externally while connected to camera. However, we are evaluating an option so they can be configured to power down after external power has been disconnected."

But my phone stays off when I charge it and it was off before. So maybe the easiest option would be for the Nanos to stay in whatever condition they were in before being charged. 

And then introduce a menu option (or whatever) that will make them turn on automatically when external power is applied?

On 31.7.2017 at 1:57 PM, pindrop said:

 

Perhaps they should add to their list: 

has the stupidest connector: yes | no | no | no etc

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1 hour ago, Constantin said:

But my phone stays off when I charge it and it was off before.

Point taken.
We're still wrapping our heads around the best and most intuitive solution.

So, probably it's just going to be an "Auto Power" tickbox where "On" does what it does now and "Off" requires manually starting under any condition.

 

 

 

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10 hours ago, Klaus said:

Many  productions use them with external power and a C-Jam Master - they just stay on camera and do not need to be taken care of in any way, not even power on/down. They come up with the camera and are ready to be synced, as soon you do, AC can do what they want - TC will always be there on spot

 

I don't think anyone would have the need to power these externally from the camera and have them power up/down as the camera does. Infact, this would be a bad thing to do. The nano's have such an excellent battery life that there's never a need to do this, and doing so would actually make problems more likely. They get turned on at the start of the day and do their thing all day without worrying about battery or wether its on or not. That's what's so great about them.

 

Thanks Klaus for your prompt and thorough reply. Much appreciated!

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  • 2 weeks later...

We just got our brand new Nano Lockits and made a test on set. Here are our first impressions about them.

 

Tested amount of devices: 3

 

Test criterias:

 

• Charging time 

• Battery life 

• ACN network range 

• TC drift amount

• Setting parameters

• TRX Mode

 

----------------------------------------

 

• Charging time:

 

It took 2 hrs to full fill each battery. (after making them all empty)

 

The device turns on automatically when you plug usb cable for charging. Unable to turn off this feature.


• Battery life :

 

1st NL survived for 30 hrs,

2nd NL survived for 32 hrs,

3rd NL survived for 35 hrs.

Unfortunately there is no way to see the actual amount of the battery. Leds shows us only if it is full or still charging.


• ACN network range:


We tested ACN network range at outside of the city where there are nobody living near 6 kilometers. The frequency spectrum was really clear.

 

Jamming with one button was so easy and quick. We were able to jam all 3 NL without any problem. Maximum distance that we measured was 23 mt. They were not responding incoming signals when the distance is more than that.


• TC drift amount:

 

TC drift was 0,5 frame between 3 NL during 24 hrs (working with 24fps). That was almost perfect.


• Setting Parameters

 

There are two ways to change NL settings.

1. connect to a computer (no mobile phone or tablets)

2. connect with cable to a device having target parameters. Fps also can be changed with an incoming TC signal.

If you don't have a computer on set and if your away from your recorder you can only use RTC and can not change FPS.

 

At the second day of the test, one of NL's lost its RTC and started to flashing red light continuously when you turn it on. You have to understand what's the problem because there is no manual saying that it is because of RTC has been lost. We plugged it on a computer and reset its RTC then flashing led turned to red-green (normal)


- TRX mode:

 

We followed instructions in Quick Setup Guide to set all NL to TRX mode and we had a problem: 2 of them stopped responding, 1 was able to switch to TRX mode.

 

We spent 1 hour and tried everything to reset these 2 NL in order to make them work again. Finally we plugged the usb cable and suddenly they started working. But we cannot found the reason. Everytime that any of these 3 NL is lost, we start charging it and everything becomes normal.


If the distance is more than 23 meters, the signal gets lost and NL switches automatically to TC Generator mode. You cannot observe anything on flashing leds saying that the mode has been changed.

 

The problem starts here: when you come back inside of the range, it is still using its TC Generator. If the TC has been changed when you're outside of the range, you are unaware of what has been changed.

 

As an example... If you have 1 camera and 1 recorder running both in Rec Run mode, if you start shooting inside this 23 meter range and you finish outside of the range, your recorder will continue recording even if the camera has been stopped.

 

Same thing as; you all started shooting inside of this area and the camera goes outside and returns to this area, same thing happens.

 

Solution: to disconnect and reconnect master NL solves the problem if the slave NL returned back inside the area. If it is still away, nothing to do..

 

CONCLUSION:

 

I saw that there is no User Manual explaining technical datas like range, distance, capacity, frequency, pins etc. The box includes only a Quick Setup Guide which is not sufficent for most of the TC users.

 

If you want to use them online like Rec Run mode or like Playback TC, or you're planning to trigger cameras or recorders, be sure that all devices are really close to each other.

 

If you want to use them as seperate TC generators they are really solid, you can trust on them.

 

Cheers..

 

Cihan A.

Prod. Sound Mixer

Istanbul - TURKEY

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Hi Nagnila,

 

I have been using the Nanos since February when Klaus sent me some pre-production models to put through their paces. I now have 10 on 2 films. A full charge gives about 35 hours use. More importantly, charge them for perhaps an hour and you can get a working day out of them. If I read correctly, you are using them in a very specific basic way in that you and jamming one and you then hold the green button to jam the others? The Nanos are intended to be very low battery consumption so when you jam the other Nanos, it is only a short range operation. I and many of my colleagues are using Nanos in an 'Ambient Clockit Network', an ACN - which we were doing with tiny Lockits and ACL204's before. You can use a Master Lockit as the master which has the advantage of constant jamming over a much greater distance and iPad / iPhone integration so that you can set the master and keep an eye on all the network components. A smaller and cheaper alternative is to use a Tiny Lockit as the master. You set the Tiny from a timecode source and the Tiny will constantly jam the Nanos and any other Lockits set up as slaves, but without the iPad / iPhone integration. It is a really good system.

 

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Hi TJW,

 

The aim of these kind of tests is to inform users or people who want to buy this device with specific datas, so they will be able to choose the right device for them.

 

These tests and comments may help companies to see the expectations of the users and that's how they may improve their sofwares and hardwares etc.

 

A detailed test takes huge time on set, and can be very risky sometimes. To write results here also takes serious time.

 

These were NOT personal opinions, these were all test results as I mentioned above. If you have your own experiences about them we will be glad hearing from you all, but this must be with a rational way, not telling about some close friendships with company members.

 

- for example you can tell us about distances and ranges that your you're using & satisfied.

 

- of course you can use them with Master Lockits or Tiny Lockits, but this does not change the Nano's capabilities. In TRX mode you're range is very limited...that's true

 

- we also have several sets at the moment running with different brands of TC systems but that's not the point and no need to say that I think...

 

Apologize if I misspelled some words..

 

Kind regards,

Cihan

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Thanks to both Nagnila and TJW for the helpful info.   I've had a couple Nano's for a while and while the user manual has a lot packed into it - it's pretty brief and there's some missing information.  For example- I was wondering what their effective RF range was!

 

A few more tips.

 

-Maybe I missed it, but there's seems to be no documentation for the fact that when you turn the output volume of the Nano down, it will alternately flash green and orange to let you know that it's below line level.

 

-If you plug the Nano into an active bidirectional Timecode jack on a camera or mixer, it will rejam, even if it has been jammed previously.   I've had to build a number unidirectional timecode cables to fix this issue, as it doesn't seem that unidirectional 5 pin lemo to 5 pin lemo are very common- most of the ones available for purchase are input AND output simultaneously... although looking around online, it seems that unidirectional cables may be more common in Europe...

 

The included 5 pin lemo to 3.5mm TRS cable is wired interestingly - with TC output going from the pin 5 of the 5 pin lemo to the TRS tip,  which is to be expected, but also the TRS ring is connected to pin 2 of the lemo, so TC could be sent from the ring connector to the Nano.

This may be confusing to read- basically it's a bi-directional cable with tc output on the tip and input on the ring.  I guess you could make a unique breakout cable to use this function if you were really short on lemo connectors and had no other way to jam your Nano by wire...

 

As has been discussed above- when you first get them - it's quite easy to take the units off charge and put them away without turning them off- the auto power on function is a little counter intuitive, and if you put them away for a couple days they will die in their storage bag.  If you then fire them up, thinking they are ready to go, they will start, but only last a minute or two before shutting down.- If you see a double blink when you pull them out of storage, you may be in trouble, since you can't just change the battery!  If this happens, get them on charge fast and hope that the lighting setup takes way longer than usual...

 

 

Anyone else have any undocumented tricks and tips?

 

Cheers,

Brent Calkin

 

 

 

 

 

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Thanks everybody for the input.

 

Range: well you won't find a specification even with radio mike systems as it is depending on so many parameters. 23m of what nagnila experienced is very low and usually we see doubler the range in typical environments (we had 50m at NAB showfloor and that is something)  - Still, it's 2.4GHz and can be compromised by anything else in that band.

 

The guide: Intentionally kept as instructive and compact as possible to keep the mandatory settings ready at hand but I admit it could carry more information - but then, who reads manuals? ;)

 

What is (also) not included  is, that the Nanos automatically kick in a low noise ampplifier for better reception range when powered over USB. We will have a power adaptor from typical set level voltages to micro USB soon.

 

The orange indicator to visualize a padded output was in fact introduced only after manufacturing and shipping the first batches and QSGs were printed - we have meanwhile included a separate sheet with revised LED blink patterns and eventually revised the whole QSG, ready for download at nanolockit.com.

 

TC in on ring: stay tuned a little while and it will make much more sense.

 

Bidirectional cables: we were indeed not aware that this would be an issue and will introduce the jam lock as on our bigger Lockits in an upcoming firmware.

 

Auto power: same thing. While we still think it is a good feature and appreciated by a few productions equipped we understand it is not for everyone - but what's the LockitToolbox good for if not to introduce options and tickboxes?

 

Again, we absolutely appreciate your feedback, feel free to post it here or on the Lockit Timecode User's group on facebook.

 

@nagnila: It puzzles me one of your unit lost its RTC, there is a remeining capacity of a whooping 4% to keep that running. Please let it run completely empty and if the problem reoccurs apply for a service ticket, please.


 

 

 

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24 minutes ago, Klaus said:

The guide: Intentionally kept as instructive and compact as possible to keep the mandatory settings ready at hand but I admit it could carry more information - but then, who reads manuals? ;)

 

to me the obvious solution seemed always to have a quick start guide with everything you need to know to get up and running in a hurry (and is easily readable for the novice user) and a full featured tech manual with all the knitty gritty info about power draw, pin assignment, even schematics of circuits etc.

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  • 2 months later...

Is there a way to set the RTC on the nanolockit with US style user bits? I set the RTC when I first got it with the Lockit Toolbox and I was confused for a while when I checked the settings on the nanolockit with my Nomad12 and it kept telling me it was June 10th instead of October 6th. I personally prefer the EU style, but when in Rome...

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