Freefly MoVi Wheels: Wheel control for fluid professional gimbal camera movements
[16:26 Fri,26.October 2018 by Thomas Richter]
Freefly has introduced the MoVi Wheels crank-head control system, which allows fluid professional camera movements by gimbal. The system is fully modular: a cheeseplate can be equipped with up to three massive steel crank heads, each of which is responsible for a different axis (tilt, pan and roll) of the camera movement. The control via crank head (like the Mini-Worrall or ARRIHEAD 2) is popular for professional camera work and enables extremely smooth slow and fast camera movements due to its mass inertia.
Via CAN network cables, up to nine crank heads configured for different tasks can be interconnected via cable, for example for controlling zoom, aperture and focus. The individual crankheads together with the controller unit are connected to a MoVi (Pro) or Mimic controller, which is then responsible for transmitting the control signals to the gimbal. Each movement of the head is transmitted directly to the gimbal and translated into a camera movement. The friction of the heads can be adjusted from zero to fully blocked by means of the adjusting screw.
The Freefly MoVi WheelsController with three crank heads costs about 4,000 dollars, one costs about 1,500 dollars. There is also a more expensive version (about 300 dollars per head) with crank heads made of heavier brass. In the future, a version with lighter heads, which are not solid metal, but have cut-outs, will also be launched on the market.
DJI offers a similar crank head controller since April - the DJI Master Wheels (DJI Master Wheels). However, it also integrates a radio remote control and is therefore significantly more expensive - the controller with three crank heads costs 8,000 euros. An alternative to controlling various gimbals like the Ronin or MoVi are the Alpha Wheels.
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