cPRO software 2.0 
 cPRO 
 By Clemens Hönig 

 on 4/4/19, 5:21 PM • 1,161 views
The first software update for the cPRO has just released. What improvements do you like? Share your thoughts...


 Fabio 

 On 4/5/19, 7:43 AM
I’ve been shooting with the new firmware for about a week now and I’m pretty happy with it. First of all, it has showed to be stable and that’s the most important thing when you are shooting on a tight schedule, as is the case (I think is the case in almost every production nowadays).
among the improvement I liked the most, here’s the top five
- when you block one axis that you have on a lens file (let’s say the iris), the number on the display turns red. It may seem a minor improvement but it’s not. I like to block the iris during the take (unless I need to change it because the dop asked to do so). So, if the iris is blocked and you move the slider, when you hit the block button again, the iris will automatically switch to the new value. So, if you accidentally hit the button during the take, it can be an issue. But now you see clearly wether the axis is blocked or not.
- now on one of the main pages you have the status of the motor highlighted with different colors, also very handy, cause you can have a quick look to it just before to hit the Rec button
- you can now set limits on the motor (let’s say on the focus one) and use the whole rotation of the knob between those two limits. You can also do the other way around.
- now you have to hold for some second the assigned button to calibrate and a message on the display advise you to do so. It took me a little to get used to it, but it avoid unnecessary calibrations if you accidentally hit the button
- network functionality, I actually didn’t test it properly yet because I don’t have two hand unit on set but it’s definitely a major improvement.
good job guys!




 Aidan Gray 

 On 4/5/19, 4:31 PM
Updated yesterday without any issues - really digging some of the subtle improvements, and I haven't gotten a chance to test some of the larger ones... My favourite subtle improvements, are inline with Fabio. I really enjoy that they split Iris & Focus motor status onto a different page from the Zoom & AUX motor status - it declutters the screen a little bit, which is greatly appreciated. I also really dig the thumbwheel encoder as a 4th axis option - I briefly mapped it to iris just to play with it, and it actually felt really good... I would love to be able to use it as a 4th axis to control the pan of a rangefinder or something similar, so I might play around with that at some point. Another subtle improvement that is nice is the addition of the "hold to calibrate" for the "Cal All" user button - I have on several occasions, accidentally calibrated all the motors by hitting that button, which can be super annoying in gimbal or steadi situations so this is a nice improvement! 

Only bugs I have to report currently are that I can't seem to get the Control Limits to function properly, which is a shame as its what I was looking forward to most in the new firmware... I've only tried on the knob so far, but I'll check again on the Iris later. I also had a weird problem with the cPro set to max torque where it gave me a "Cal Timeout" error despite being able to calibrate the same lens pre-updated and having auxiliary power run to it via DTap.. I rebooted the motor and hand unit and haven't been able to replicate the bug since. 


All in all, a great update! 




 Philipp Uhl 

 On 4/6/19, 3:39 PM
I tried to do the update today but something apparently didn't work out correctly:
Like described on the website I did the update on the hand unit first. The thumbwheel did still work after the update however, not like described on the download page, which already made me wonder if something went wrong.
Then I connected the cPRO motor with the CAM (7p)-LBUS Cable, but the motor isn't recognised by the hand unit and remains powered off. In the firmware update menu, the list for the LBUS Devices is empty. When I turn the hand unit off however, the motor turns on and shows "UNDER VOLTAGE" with both buttons on the motor blinking Red/Green.
Also, I found that the bug with the REC-Button triggering the user buttons randomly, still exists on my hand unit after the update...
I'm stopping by the cmotion office on Monday or Tuesday anyway to pick up a cable (thanks for the cteam airdrop btw!), so I would like to bring my unit with me and let you have a look at it...
 

 Clemens Hönig 

 On 4/6/19, 5:50 PM
Hi Philipp, you need to have extra power through the motor for the update. Powering it through the hand unit only doesn’t work. About the Rec button: There was a problem with some hand units, but the software should solved it. If the problem still remains, I would recommend to put the rec function on the BB1 for now, and contact me directly for any bug reports: clemens.hoenig@cmotion.eu 
thanks!
 

 Philipp Uhl 

 On 4/7/19, 4:53 PM
Hi Clemens!
Thanks for the reply! I didn't think about adding another power source because in the manual it says the CAM-Lbus Cable "Provides power to LBUS daisy chain" and when the hand unit is powered off, the motor indicates it does get power, so I was confused a bit, sorry...
Even with additional power I can't do the update though. Am I doing something completely wrong here?
 Hand Unit is on sw v2.0.3. I connect Hand Unit and Motor with the CAM-Lbus Cable. Then I power the motor with the Lbus-D-Tap Cable, now the Motor gets recognised. In the Firmware Menu I select the Motor. In the update page it says the current firmware is v1.3.1 and the new one is v2.0.3 I click update, and at the bottom of the screen it says "Wait for Controller". This is followed by a "Lbus user disconnected"-notification shortly after, and at the same time at the bottom it says "Communication Timeout". When I go back, the list of Lbus devices is empty now. After power cycling both the hand unit and the motor, it reappears in the list, but when trying again this keeps happening.

 I already tried reformatting the USB-Stick, downloading the update file again, performing the update on the hand unit with the new downloaded file a second time, but this keeps happening.

Did I do something stupid? I don't want to try a lot of other things on my own now because Im afraid I could damage something...
I feel kinda stupid for not being able to do this simple update.... 😅 Also because it seems that I am the only one having troubles, am I?



 Clemens Hönig 

 On 4/8/19, 12:03 PM
Hi Philipp,
Alternatively please try to update the motor through an LBUS to LBUS cable.
So hand unit - LBUS/LBUS - cPRO motor - to power via CAM connector
That should work for the update.
 

 Philipp Uhl 

 On 4/8/19, 1:02 PM
That was the solution, thanks a lot! :)
Thank you for the always perfect support!!
 

 Bill Robinson 

 On 5/3/19, 4:54 PM
Hello I have recently purchased the cpro and am happy with the purchase. The feature that I was waiting on the most before purchase was the motor limits function to spread out the wheel for better control of longer lenses. While this new feature works well enough it does not allow more e to spread the wheel with a pre marked ring selected. I have to first go to plain ring to access this function losing valuable time . Can this be addressed in the next firmware update?
 

 Bill Robinson 

 On 5/4/19, 5:06 AM
Hope in the future you can set motor limits while using a premarked ring instead of loading a blank ring. Also would like to see more premarked rings maybe a 6’ and a 10’ for long lenses. Further a lens data and rangefinder overlay like the teradek and small had set up would be nice.


over all I dig the Cpro



