Ursa Mini Pro Overheating Issue

Hey Folks,

I wondered whether any of you have had any overheating issues with your UMP so far.

With mine I had two shoots at 24°C and 28°C outside temperature and had the camera failing, meaning:

Audio meters frozen, camera doesn't record audio anymore.
No more playback available.
Both SDI-Outs go black.
Record-button seems to trigger record, but sometimes no file is created.

I did already have the camera at Blackmagic Support and today got it back, saying "return of non defective RMA".
I tried to recreate the failure using a standard hairdryer and succeeded. Failing temperatures were 43°C Camera body and something about 45°C on the inside (measured via IR-thermometer).

What really startles me is that there is no such thing as a message from the camera that says "camera overheating" and that this doesn't just occur when the outside temperature is above 40°C (which is the given border) but that the camera apparently is not able to cool its inside to below 45°C when outside temperature is significantly below 40°C and there is sun shining on it. I mean, I'm not talking about Africa, the Sahara or Mexico - I'm talking about a 24°C outside shoot in the middle of Munich, so middle Europe. I really can't afford to send the camera back another time as those two weeks of not having the camera really beat me up already in terms of organisation of rentals and likewise.

Btw: Why does it stop work at 45°C - my BMCC once reached about 80°C on the body surface thanks to covered ventilation and still worked phenomenally.
BM however apparently either changed the screws after inspecting the camera or didn't even open the body which gives me quite something to think about....

Anyways: Has anyone experienced any similar issues/can anyone else reproduce the issue?
Thanks a lot in advance!

I had a shoot yesterday with temps around 26-28°C. It was a 4 hour non stop shoot at a small beach and didn't notice any weird behavior. Though I was thinking the excact same thing. I was a bit worried, but all went fine.

A camera overheating message would be a nice thing to have.

Anyways: Has anyone experienced any similar issues/can anyone else reproduce the issue?
Thanks a lot in advance!

I've never heard of any Blackmagic camera overheating. Ever. They just don't.

I always laugh when I see comments on places like B&H about a camera overheating. It's usually something else that users attribute to overheating.

I'd say there's something else going on. You need to take it back to BMD.

JB

Sounds more like a problem with the electronics or a bad soldering which becomes flaky as soon as it gets warmer.

I did a series called The Warriors for 12 weeks. We had 4 Ursa Minis.

In some parts of the Australian country the average daily tempreture was 43 Deg C / 109 Deg F.

https://flic.kr/p/VdALWQ

https://flic.kr/p/VBncwH

We had no problems using multiple cameras over many weeks of shooting in very difficult conditions. I doubt it's the camera itself overheating. As Robert says, perhaps a fault that's triggered by the camera heating up to a normal tempreture.

JB

Alright, so you guys suggest me sending the camera back once more to BMD, hmmm?

Well, it seems there's no way around this. Yet, as I wrote, I can deliberately produce that error by just heating up the camera to 45°C. BMD knew that and sent me back a "non defective device". Now I got a camera that overheats and have to shoot with it 4 times the next 2 weeks.

Anyways, what to do if they send me back that camera once more?

Ask for a replacement. They are really good about understanding that intermittent issues are impossible to fix. If you send proof, as in send them a little footage where the problem happens that they can see and hear, they will replace it. But you have to ask.

[Tim Schumann]

Our cameras are rated to 40ºC operating temperature as it says on the tech specs on our website but they will be able to operate above this as John mentioned - they were shooting continually in 43º+. I'm sure they were putting the camera in shade where possible as this is common sense when using any type of electrical equipment in such heat.

Wolf, I've asked our support technicians to do some further testing with your unit and if we find a thermal issue we will happily replace it. What you are describing is not a known, or common issue with any of the URSA camera family and our track record for thermal regulation is very good.

However, we would under no circumstances recommend you pointing your hair dryer at your camera as this is not an accurate simulation of an ambient temperature environment.

Hello Tim,

if I want to recreate a situation that resembles a 40°C surrounding plus sun incidence on one of the surfaces, i find it pretty accurate to heaten up the camera with a dryer from one side. Therefore I had the dryer set to about 70°C placed about 1m away from the camera which resulted in an airstream of about 55°C towards the camera in order to slowly heaten it up.

I mean there are three heating effects in standard use on that camera.
1) Heating by usage - camera components produce heat
2) Heating by absorption of IR Radiation from sun incidence
3) Heating by surrounding air temperature, which is the ambiet temperature + the contribution of the IR Radiation outgoing from the camera. This is on basis of the black surface of the camera acting as radiator, too.

All those effects in total add up to a camera temperature WAY above the 43-45°C body temperature where my camera begins to fail.

So when I tried to reproduce the error, I especially was controlling the surface temperature and the temperature of the ventilation elements on top with an infrared thermometer and made sure the camera temperature never exceeded 55°C on the insideo or 50°C on the outside - those are temperatures you easily get on a hot and sunny day on a black surface (compare it to a black car and you know what I'm talking about).

Yet even if my test didn't fully resemble the actual situation outside on location, it still reproduces the exact same error that I got on a 24°C and a 28°C outside shoot - and that means that apparently the error occurs when the camera isn't able to keep the camera below a certain (43°C) temperature - which is why I called this an overheating phenomenon.

Anyways, I got in contact with your support already and it seems, I'll send it back to the UK tomorrow or so.

[Tim Schumann]

I had the dryer set to about 70°C placed about 1m away from the camera which resulted in an airstream of about 55°C towards the camera in order to slowly heaten it up.

What you are simulating is a 55ºC temperature with winds from a single heat source that are directed at the camera. This is not a realistic test and is not recommended.

I can see from our support system that you have now opened up two separate tickets with two different support staff under two different email addresses without mentioning your previous tickets. If you would like us to help you with this then you need to co-operate with us.

Hello Tim, I can assure you that everything is in order by now.
The first support ticked was created without me asking to do so and I don't know why it does actually still exist. After about a day without any reply from the first one of your colleagues who had answered very fast before I then decided to call at your support center and was communicated with and supported just the way you'd expect it when you buy a several thousand euro camera. By the way: I did mention the serial number and told the guy I phoned about the email-support communication that already existed. However - both colleagues know that this case does exist and already talked about it asfaik.

You might probably understand that even if I'm not a professional, having a non working camera or not having a camera means losing time and money. I am only having one shoot this week (38°C today in germany, I couldn't even leave my house without the camera failing under the immediate sun incidence) which I am now renting for. This is something I could be ok with, if there wasn't the 2 weeks period I had been waiting for my camera to get repaired, 5 days ago. Nevertheless, I see that you can't be responsible for the behaviour of either your distributor or the reseller, but in fact - due to no cameras in stock - those can't help me out with a loan camera.
However, now that I'm in direct contact with your technical support manager there is a chance of this procedure taking over a week without me getting a loan camera once again - and if I wanted to get the money for renting one, I am advised to go and sue my reseller. Once more I understand that you can't get me a camera you don't have, so this either isn't critics to you but far more directed towards your company's decision to not have a loan or backup stock for just those cases. I mean, I was told twice I could have one if there was one available, so I take that as granted .

Now to make that clear: I am pretty content, almost pleased by the way your phone support (a special shoutout goes to Chris Robison) did a great job at getting things to happen fast and correct. Yet the fact that in three months of ownership I never had a fully working camera and for almost 4 weeks didn't have any camera at all did and still does really disappoint me. I mean that camera got a guaranteed service time of 1 year? Now 3 months are gone and it never really worked right from the day I got it in the first place. This is why in some places I might have been a little unobjective, but I hope you can understand that disappointment after 3 years of having not a single problem using your gear before this camera.

Anyways: Every of your support-workers got the videos where I am reproducing the error using that heater and a detailled description of the problem; first of all I tried to resolve the problem by contacting my reseller who sent it to the distributor. Meanwhile I have been desperate to find anyone who had similar issues and with an outreach of over 10k Film professionals in total I found - correct - none.

But the first thing I got to hear is that the way I reproduced (not saying this is a test that leaves no other conclusions) the error (which indicates that the error is temperature-induced) might damage the camera and that it wasn't an error but just usage outside the recommended temperature area. Yet the same error appeared first when using the camera in 25°C surrounding but shone on by the sun - which is clearly inside the recommended temperatures.

So two things: first: I do have a degree in physics and do work a lot with very sensitive electronics in my everyday life. We both know that almost any but very few specific measurement electronics that is designed to work in an ambient temperature of 40°C (no matter if sunny or shaded) shouldn't get damaged by running for 3 mins in a 55°C environment, which in fact isn't correct because this 55°C is only induced from one side, so there is still thermal dissipation towards the other side that is significantly cooler than 55°C. Additionally I don't think I need to tell you that the surface of that camera can easily get 60°C or hotter if used for just 15 minutes on a 35°C sunny day and therefore you'd have to put warnings on the camera if it can get damaged by sun incidence that easily, anyways. And after all the entire camera (even the inside) didn't get past 50°C during my entire test, because the camera failed so early. Yet I can't say how hot it got during the outside shoot on the first day (at 24°C), though.

Second: Being a physicist I can hardly be contend with sayings like:
[quote=Tim Schumann] This is not a realistic test and is not recommended[/quote]

I can guess from simple reason that you wouldn't recommend people to point hair dryers at their cameras. This is obvious as some of those dryers heat up to around 90°C and those 90°C+camera heat dissipation by processors etc. could melt solderings and really damage electronics. Yet as I mentioned above I didn't want to simulate whether the camera would work at 55°C but see if the error I had experienced twice in a sunny outside shoot - which doesn't appear without sun, could be reproduced by heating up the camera- and it could (without getting close to a temperature that could damage any intact electronics).

Finally I once more wanted to point out how much I appreciated the support I got from your colleague Chris Robison - that guy really helped me a lot and is now trying his best (I assume ) to get the camera to you as fast as possible and helping me with the questions I got.

Thanks a lot for that!

Ok, so today I recieved a replacement from Blackmagic and as far as I can tell by now that camera doesn't have any issues concerning heat - at least I didn't experience anything comparable up to a body temperature of 55°C (which I managed to get from just letting the camera run in sunny environment).

I didn't get any real information what the problem actually was but within less than a week I got the new camera and can probably even pull off the shoot this weekend on the camera. (I still believe in a defect that led to an overheating issue, but as said before, I never experienced any intact BM camera overheating before, either)

A far better way to perhaps test overheating it to wrap your camera in a jumper or blanket for a few mins. That will get it nice and toasty.

Blocking the airflow intake on the bottom will more naturally overheat your camera than a hair dryer.

I'm still saying the camera doesn't overheat, but you must have had a fault that shows up under heat duress.

JB