RED cables poor quality

[Mark Pugh]

Thanks for the Jarred quote, Steve. Nice to know red are getting around to a cable tester. Hopefully it appears before too many more CPUs get fried.

[Yousuf Abbasi]

Ive seen newer RED cables with like a braided cloth-type cover (not the plastic cover). I havent tried them, but they look higher quality. Is there a way to replace all my plastic coated cables (LCD, Drive, Battery) with the cloth-coated ones??

[conrad gaunt]

WORD OF WARNING:

I had a very small issue come up with a Red One: it wouldn't jam sync at 25fps. fine at 24...
Red's diagnosis was that it was impossible to definitively say what caused the issue, but the only one they could suggest was a shorted or damaged cable that was connected directly to the CPU. Most likely an EVF/LCD cable.
To fix the issue, the CPU needed replacement.
Cost with labor: $5400.

It might not be obvious that a cable is becoming bad, the camera doesn't warn that a cable may be damaged via an on-screen warning, and as far as I know there is no available device outside the factory to test one of these cables. I don't think that's good enough, considering the damage that a bad cable can cause.

After my experience, I'd probably pay a few hundred dollars for a cable tester with a bunch of LEDs indicating proper connections from pin to pin.

Red Europe can test red drive cables.. hopefully i'll never likely need one again.. im all ssd now

consumables is on the money

Red should publish a list of ballpark repair costs imo, so people running rental businesses can make informed decisions, but right now doing that doesn't seem to be one of our options

my soundcard got replaced during the epic-x upgrade, no reason given, working fine on a job the day before ..very expensive..couldn't be bothered to ask why frankly. my philosophy is to just log the frustration and buy cameras from another manufacturer later down the line . i buy as much non-red accessories as possible nowadays frankly. The 20% deposit on my blackmagic was less than my last red drive main board replcement.. go figure