This guide shows how to safely power Portkeys monitor. If you are looking for greater power flexibility for a BM5 series or LH5P series camera monitor, check out these power tips below. The Portkeys BM5 (BM5ii, BM5 iii, BM5WR) and LH5 (LH5H, LH5P) series camera control monitors only offered support for Sony NP-F style batteries. What’s more, there’s a 5-pin “aviation” power input/output port. You can use the included D-Tap to 5-pin power cable to power your monitor from a V-Mount/Gold Mount battery.
Tip 1: Power Portkeys monitor with a Sony NP-F style battery
The camera uses the popular and affordable Sony NPF style batteries. For the longest run times, a large NPF-970 series is an excellent choice.
There is a battery plate behind the Portkeys monitor, which can be installed with a Sony NP-F style battery. You can use SONY NP-F970/F960/F750/F550 battery to power it. When power is on, the indicator light is green. According to a quick battery life test with a Sony NP-F970 battery at maximum brightness (2200nit), we got away with approximately one-hour battery life. These theoretical tests don’t have much sense to all users as you usually don’t always shoot at full brightness for this amount of time without switching off the monitor, but it gives you a rough idea. In “normal” real-life shooting conditions, we found the battery performance to be good.
- Maximum Power consumption of BM5WR: 13W
- Maximum Power Consumption of BM5 III: 16W
- Maximum Power consumption of LH5P: 10W
There is a USB Type-A port at the bottom of the monitor that you can use to power the older version like LH5H via a power bank (5V/2A).
Tip 2: Power Portkeys monitor with the included Power Cable
You can use the included D-Tap to 5-pin (LH5P) or 4-pin (for BM5WR) power cable to power your monitor from a V-Mount/Gold Mount battery. Also, you could use the included 5-pin to barrel connector cable to power accessories, this port can feed a 7.4V camera accessory if you power the monitor with a Sony NP-F battery.
In short, the PortKeys monitor has plenty of input/output power ports, which is nice, as some much more expensive options out there don’t offer that much.
Tip 3: Prevent damage to SDI outputs when connection power cables
Under certain conditions the SDI outputs of cameras can be damaged through a power surge. This problem can occur with all types of power sources including the camera’s accessory power outputs, a power splitting box or an external battery. This problem can also occur when the camera or accessory are in the power on or off state. This can be avoided by connecting power and BNC cables in a particular order and by using shielded power cables and high quality undamaged BNC cables.
To avoid this, follow the safe cable connecting rules:
- When connecting: First connect power cables, then BNC.
- When disconnecting: First disconnect the BNC, then the power. Also helpful is using shielded power cables and avoiding D-tap connectors.
To further protect the SDI outputs, an SDI isolator can be used. Please note, that SDI isolators can reduce signal quality and/or maximum cable length.
D-Tap (also called Power-Tap or P-Tap) connectors are made out of plastic and therefore cannot support a shield. Cables with D-Tap connectors should only be used when the above-mentioned cable connection sequence is followed.
Learn see, see: https://support.red.com/hc/en-us/articles/360057166453-Preventing-Damage-to-SDI-Outputs
