Building out a Pyxis

11/27/2024 in film making
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Some minor tips and tricks from my B-CAM (Blackmagic Design Pyxis) buildout - relatively more restrained than the A-CAM buildout.

Full rig
Full rig
Cheese rod up front
Cheese rod up front

The Ursa Cine top handle is just fantastic and matches up with the Pyxis and its XCLS cage perfectly. I'm experimenting with a cheese rod so I can mount my monitor mount to it directly ("yo dawg" etc.).

FIZ rod up front
FIZ rod up front

Top rods are a great place FIZ motors, keeping them out of the way of any lens supports on the bottom rails.

Back gak
Back gak

The gak in the back consists of:

  1. My custom five-way 2-pin Lemo power distribution, screwed into the back of the XLCS cage
  2. A Teradek (this one with a custom aluminum plate I milled to adapt its whackadoo bottom hole pattern to a standard 15mm rail block)
  3. A Blackmagic 12G-SDI to 4K-HDMI converter (downstream of the Teradek, for the SmallHD 702 monitor, powered by the camera's rear USB)
  4. A Tentacle Sync timecode box
  5. A SmallRig V-mount battery plate (plus Shark Fin plus batteries)
Back side
Back side

I routed an additional three-way 2-pin Lemo distributor from Alvin's Cables to the side, for the FIZ system and monitor.

However. Just when I thought I was done 3D-printing for the Ursa Cine, I discovered that the rods on the XLCS cage are set down so much that they interfere with my MiniQRB plate's mechanism.

I fixed this with a little 3mm spacer plate between the MiniQRB plate and the cage.

Spacer plate
Spacer plate

Feel free to grab the STL file or the original Fusion360 f3d and run your own. Note that I print these with black carbon fiber PETG and that holds up pretty well.

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