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Varavon Motorroid, best motor solution for sliders
  • 52 Replies sorted by
  • Is there anything special/different about this variation of the slider?

  • Is there anything special/different about this variation of the slider?

    What do you mean?

  • Yeah, she put her name on it. :)

  • Looks like mine is about ready to ship. I have a small Varavon slider that I'm going to set the belt for but I also have an inexpensive 48" slider that is difficult to use. Hopefully the rope trick will work with it. Has anyone tried that yet?

  • Mine finally got here and the power supply is European and it's missing the small screw that goes in the adapter plate. Neither is a big deal and I hooked it to the Power Supply for my Lilliput. Works great. Now if my battery will just get here.

  • @peternap I think all power supplies have the European adapter. Mine does too but all you need is the cheap 110v plug to switch it over. As for the small screw, all it is, is a 3/8 camera plate screw. I didn't even know I was missing one till all the sudden, Varavon overnighted me one. I was just using parts that I had on the table anyways. I thought it was pretty cool that once they realized they forgot a $0.50 part, they sent it out! Let me know if you can get the limiter stops to work. Mine do not press down the little white tabs on the end to deactivate the motor. Varavon still hasn't responded back about it. Maybe I just don't have the belt tight enough but I have it cranked down pretty tight. It seems tighter than the instructional video.

    Still a fine looking and smooth motor add on, don't ya think!

  • @vicharris I'm not worried about the parts. They can be had for almost nothing. So far I love the thing. I didn't even bother putting the limiters on.

    I am going to put a clip of some kind on the belt so I can tale it off of the adapter plate without cutting the wire ties. That way I can have a seperate belt for each slider.

  • @peternap Good idea. Let me know if you ever do try out the limiters and if they work for you.

    Also, what battery did you get? I'm running it off my ATC power supply for my camera but don't want to do that all the time.

  • @peternap Perfect! Thanks sir.

  • Ordered mine last week with separate battery off eBay. Should have everything by the first or second week of April. Looking forward to posting some tests.

  • For ~$500 I am very happy with the combo of the Lite 600 slider and Motorroid unit found here http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1029/catchit-deals-varavon-day#Item_1

    My battery is giving me problems but I bought a cheap one off ebay so not at all the fault of Varavon. (if anyone has a suggestion for a decent and right priced battery let me know.)

    One suggestion to Varavon is to have the Motorroid unit attach to the slider with more than one screw. If it were attached with two screws on each end, rather than one, I believe it would be more resistant to loosening. This wasn't a major issue, but was something I noticed.

    Above is the first video I did with the slider and it added a ton of production value to the short film. I probably overused the slider because I was excited about adding that slow, steady, cinematic motion to my shots. Combined with a 90 degree plate I was able to get nice looking pseudo-jib shots (the camera moving vertically instead of horizontally) in the garage and over the stone wall. I'd also suggest getting a good ball head to go between the camera and the slider to quickly be able to level up any shot. Huge benefit. The best part of using the motorroid is its ability to slide the camera very slowly, and very steadily. When I use the slider without the Motorroid, I cannot move the camera as slowly and steadily, and the "high production value" look is lost.

    Just my 2 cents.

    Donnie

  • @donniewagner ....I just bought one of these...AA batteries are available everywhere on earth. Put in some good Lithium AA batteries and you're good for a while.

  • Just took delivery of a Slidecam S200 (6.5ft of slider) and the Motorroid - first impressions are excellent. Working well with Naztech 15000 mAh Powerbank battery. I'll post some footage as soon as I use it in anger. I can already see how a small fluid head would work better than the ball and socket I'm currently using.

  • btw, can anybody recommend a flat bottomed fluid head for these varavon sliders?

  • @jaecjaec

    I am not so sure about value.

    I suggest to check usual 717 Weifeng and also Benro heads first on ebay.

  • May be not the least expensive, but for the price, they are very well made, very smooth, and that snap in/out system have us sold. Just bought a bunch, and so far no issues yet.

  • What @Vitaliy_Kiselev said. That head he's talking about is sold by many companies. I have two and I think one is from Cowboy Studios. It's what I use and it's a damn fine fluid head for the price. I also have another one on a lightweight tripod when I'm using just the camera and nothing else rigged up.

    Actually I just looked it up and every company has the same number as the model number, 717...funny.

  • I did a pretty extensive video review of this motorized slider. And how it works with my BMCC and GH2

  • Should the varavon motoroid work with the konova slider also, since the varavon and konova are so similarly built?

  • @marx92

    May be, but it is made for Varavon sliders.

  • Just a heads up, this thing is too noisy for narrative work when you're recording audio. Also all Black Magic cameras pick up some sort of frequency interference when they are on it.

  • @vicharris

    Can you post video example, just small unedited part with lavalieres used at normal distance?