Leaf DCB II Live back on Sinar P

[Andrew Philip]

This is a repost, duplicated from the "digital camera, backs .." etc section ...

I recently bought these on auction, which at the price it seemed worth the risk, to use with a Sinar P:

Leaf DBC ii Live Back
Sinarcam colour filters etc
Expolux shutter
Power supply for back
Power supply unit for Expolux
Mac with control card and software installed
Software on disk for Leaf DCB/Catchlight, and dongle for Colorshop software
Assorted serial cables for stringing these together:
2 into 1 cable that connects Expolux Power supply to computer and Sinarcam;
cable to connect Sinarcam to Expolux;
cable connecting Leaf back to power supply.

I have had it all up and running to some extent, but it is very temperamental, and I have been unable to find much info even to know whether I have set it all up correctly. Images taken most successfully have had very compressed dynamic range and have been very underexposed. I seem to have no control over the shutter although it has occasionally made sounds when plugged in. Shooting with the bellows removed it is apparent that the shutter is not doing anything. I also have no control of the filter wheel from within the software - ie can't advance or home the wheel, or choose any filter colour to be in position. However when taking a colour shot, the wheel does advance through the RGB positions. When shooting B&W however it always does it with the red filter in place, not the clear. As I have no idea what a normally functioning one of these is like, I don't know where to start troubleshooting ... but clearly all is not well.

So, sorry for the essay ... my questions are:
1. Can anyone help with advice / documentation?
2. Do I have everything I need to be using this gear? I can see no way in the software to be setting shutter speed, which would seem quite key ...

thanks - any help at all much appreciated!

Andrew

[thsinar]

Dear Andrew,

I will check with our product manager, if he still has the documentation for this setup. Give me some 2 or 3 days.

Best regards,
Thierry

This is a repost, duplicated from the "digital camera, backs .." etc section ...

I recently bought these on auction, which at the price it seemed worth the risk, to use with a Sinar P:

Leaf DBC ii Live Back
Sinarcam colour filters etc
Expolux shutter
Power supply for back
Power supply unit for Expolux
Mac with control card and software installed
Software on disk for Leaf DCB/Catchlight, and dongle for Colorshop software
Assorted serial cables for stringing these together:
2 into 1 cable that connects Expolux Power supply to computer and Sinarcam;
cable to connect Sinarcam to Expolux;
cable connecting Leaf back to power supply.

I have had it all up and running to some extent, but it is very temperamental, and I have been unable to find much info even to know whether I have set it all up correctly. Images taken most successfully have had very compressed dynamic range and have been very underexposed. I seem to have no control over the shutter although it has occasionally made sounds when plugged in. Shooting with the bellows removed it is apparent that the shutter is not doing anything. I also have no control of the filter wheel from within the software - ie can't advance or home the wheel, or choose any filter colour to be in position. However when taking a colour shot, the wheel does advance through the RGB positions. When shooting B&W however it always does it with the red filter in place, not the clear. As I have no idea what a normally functioning one of these is like, I don't know where to start troubleshooting ... but clearly all is not well.

So, sorry for the essay ... my questions are:
1. Can anyone help with advice / documentation?
2. Do I have everything I need to be using this gear? I can see no way in the software to be setting shutter speed, which would seem quite key ...

thanks - any help at all much appreciated!

Andrew
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=181789\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

[Andrew Philip]

great, thanks very much

[yaya]

Andrew hi,

I searched in the company and thanks to Rick Adshead at Leaf America, who has been involved with the product longer than all of us together, we have some information that may help you resolving the problem (or if not, at least you'll know it's a dead end for sure).

Here's what Rick says:

There were several versions of Sinarcam/Expolux. But all of them had control over the shutter. Early versions had a separate monitor (Expolux, based on Palm III) with direct controls. Then came a dedicated board for the Mac (Nubus only) that provided the control of the shutter with a separate window on the Mac Monitor. Then came direct control of the Shutter and Aperture from within Leafcapture software.

Lets assume that you have a real Sinarcam and not an Expolux shutter. In this case you should get LC 7.0 which will support DCB 2 and will provide direct support for the shutter. The power supply for this Sinarcam might say “Expolux” but a real Sinarcam 1 will be contolled directly from the Leaf SW. A serial cable between the Sincarcam and the Mac’s serial port provided this connection and is required.

If you have a real Expolux shutter and not a Sinarcam 1 then it will be MUCH more difficult, to the point where it will be impossible to figure it out remotely".

Also, have a look at the attached document, this should help you determine whether the Expolux you have is the original one or a Sinarcam 1.

Thank you Rick and Andrew I hope you find a solution soon.

Yair

[thsinar]

hi Yair,

thanks! With that information and the items list with the connection diagram I had sent Andrew, he should be able to figure it out.

Best regards,
Thierry

Andrew hi,

I searched in the company and thanks to Rick Adshead at Leaf America, who has been involved with the product longer than all of us together, we have some information that may help you resolving the problem (or if not, at least you'll know it's a dead end for sure).

Here's what Rick says:

There were several versions of Sinarcam/Expolux. But all of them had control over the shutter. Early versions had a separate monitor (Expolux, based on Palm III) with direct controls. Then came a dedicated board for the Mac (Nubus only) that provided the control of the shutter with a separate window on the Mac Monitor. Then came direct control of the Shutter and Aperture from within Leafcapture software.

Lets assume that you have a real Sinarcam and not an Expolux shutter. In this case you should get LC 7.0 which will support DCB 2 and will provide direct support for the shutter. The power supply for this Sinarcam might say “Expolux” but a real Sinarcam 1 will be contolled directly from the Leaf SW. A serial cable between the Sincarcam and the Mac’s serial port provided this connection and is required.

If you have a real Expolux shutter and not a Sinarcam 1 then it will be MUCH more difficult, to the point where it will be impossible to figure it out remotely".

Also, have a look at the attached document, this should help you determine whether the Expolux you have is the original one or a Sinarcam 1.

Thank you Rick and Andrew I hope you find a solution soon.

Yair
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=183325\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

[Andrew Philip]

Thanks for all the help. It is starting to come together, and I suspect now that all I'm missing is the serial cable that runs from the Sinarcam to the Mac.

I'll describe what I've found in some detail: After looking at all the pictures/diagrams, what was described to me as the expolux is actually the auto-aperture controller, which looks similar but with less extension at the top .. and obviously with no shutter. Then there is what I believe to be a Sinarcam 1, which is the one designed to work with the Leaf DCB II Live back. (Apparently the Sinarcam 2 works with the Sinarback, and the Sinarcam 3 with another back, so the 1,2,3 designations were not so much revisions as versions of essentially the same camera - does this sound accurate?) In this case, the Sinarcam contains both the filter wheel and the shutter, and both of these are controlled from the Mac via this missing serial cable. So then the cabling I have starts to make sense:

1. The Leaf back: There is a dedicated power supply with one cable running to the back, and a shutter release, which are the only visible connections into it. The connection between the back and the Sinarcam is via 2 sets of 6 contacts on the interface between the two. Mechanically the Leaf back mounts directly onto the Sinarcam.

2. The Sinarcam: has one visible input, which runs from the RS232 Expolux power supply, and a similar looking output, which connects forward to the auto-aperture controller. Both of these cables are designated 522.21.021.

3. The Expolux RS-232 power supply: This is turning out to be the brains behind everything. At the moment I have just one cable, which loops out of the RS-232 power supply, essentially through a dedicated card on the mac, and then connects to the Sinarback, and then out of the Sinarback to the aperture controller.  

So [RS-232] ----- [PowerMac 9600] ---------------- [Sinarback] ----- [Aperture controller].

The first cable here is one piece, what I described before as a Y-cable. All connectors so far are flat SCSI-like clip in connectors. From what I can tell, the cabling above powers all the devices and gets image data back to the Mac.

What is missing then is another serial cable to connect between the Expolux power supply and the Mac, from a DB9 connector to a RS422 connector on the old PowerMac 9600 I'm using for this. This cable seems almost impossible to find.

So, referencing Rick Adshead's comments (thanks!) I seem to have this situation:

"Lets assume that you have a real Sinarcam and not an Expolux shutter. In this case you should get LC 7.0 which will support DCB 2 and will provide direct support for the shutter. The power supply for this Sinarcam might say “Expolux” but a real Sinarcam 1 will be contolled directly from the Leaf SW. A serial cable between the Sincarcam and the Mac’s serial port provided this connection and is required."

So I need:
1. The serial cable (DB9 connector -> RS422 mini-DIN connector)
2. Leaf Capture 7 (I currently only have LC 5, which was installed when I bought the system. It does seem to have controls for setting shutter speed, but of course without the cable I can't test this yet)

If anyone can point me in the direction of either of these, it would be much appreciated!

Thanks again for all the help.

Andrew