The Black Arm

5,038.006,578.00

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Images above by Gavin Smith, gavinsmithphoto.com

The Black arm is a   for stabilising roll, tilt and vertical motion and vibrations

Introducing the Black Arm

The Black Arm is a hard-mount three-axis stabilizing system made for a variety of camera gimbals.
The damping action of all axes; vertical, tilt and roll are created by custom-made actuator hydraulic dampers that are fully adjustable. The Black Arm Complete kit comes with an additional anti-vibration camera gimbal mount to absorb high-frequency fluctuations from road noise and engine hum.
The Black Arm is the film industry’s standard for camera vehicle mounts. Purely mechanical – the Black Arm is easy to use and maintain. Mounting the Black Arm is as simple as clamping it onto a standard 48-52mm speed rail.

You can mount the Black Arm on a multitude of transporters and vehicles such as; dollys, cars, ATVs, boats, motorbikes, scooters, snowmobiles etc.
The Black Complete has a vast payload weight range; between 5-32 kg (11-70.5lbs). It ships with two sets of springs (7.0 & 7.5), and two sets of dampeners for each damper position (a total of 6 dampeners).
A 22-step knob enables you to precisely dial in the amount of damping you need for your shot.

Standard or Complete

The Black Arm comes in two versions; The Black Arm Standard is made to work for gimbals and cameras with a weight range between 5-13kg (11-28lbs). The Black Arm Complete is for users working with higher loads and carries between 5-32kg (11-70lbs). Of course, you have the option to upgrade the Standard version into a Complete, if desired.
The Black Standard ships with one damper for each of the three axes, while the Black Complete ships with a total of six dampers, allowing for dual dampers on each axis if needed, or as spares.

Anti-vibration mount

The Black Arm ships with one anti-vibration mount (AVM). The main purpose of the AVM is to reduce high-frequency vibrations, such as noise from a car’s engine or smaller vibrations from the road. In order to maximize the full efficiency of the AVM, you should always use the correct version that matches your load and conditions.

There are two types of AVMs, the original Wire AVM and the new Tranquilizer. The Wire AVMs come in five different weight ranges and are very easy to use.
The Tranquilizer has many adjustments to fine-tune its performance and may give better results if you have the time and skills to configure it properly.
It’s important that the system matches the total weight of the camera build (gimbal, camera and accessories) that you will hang on to the Black Arm.

Wire AVM weight ranges:

The Wire AVMs are available in five different weight ranges. Pick the one that best match your rigs total weight.

  • No.01 – 7-10 kg (15-22 lbs)
  • No.02 – 10-14 kg (22-31 lbs)
  • No.03 – 14-19 kg (31-42 lbs)
  • No.04 – 19-26 kg (42-57 lbs)
  • No.05 – 26-34 kg (57-75 lbs)

Tranquilizer weight ranges:

The Tranquilizer ships with two sets of polymers, the shore 30 and shore 40. The rest of the packs are sold separately.

  • Shore 20 weight range: up to 5.40 – 10.75kg
  • Shore 30 weight range: up to 6.70 – 13.25kg
  • Shore 40 weight range up to 11.25 – 22.50kg
  • Shore 50 weight range up to 13.75 – 27.50kg
  • Shore 60 weight range up to 19.00 – 34.50kg

Ships in a Flight case

The Black arm ships in an all-black flight case to match the look of the arm. It features powder-coated black metal corners, heavy-duty recessed handles and butterfly catches. It also has wheels, so you can roll the case just like a cabin bag. To match the clean exterior, the foam in the Pro case is all black.

Mounting options

There are a variety of options and configurations for The Black Arm including a hard front nose mount which improves the safety and handling of motorcycles when riding with The Black Arm.  

Mounting the Black arm is as simple as clamping it onto a standard 48-52mm speed rail. You build a rig onto your vehicle, using standard grip components like speed rail and dual clamps or by using our Universal Rack or Stub Mount.

There are several ways to attach your gimbal to the Black arm. The included base plate has hole patterns to match the Freefly Toad in a Hole and Cinemilled Universal Ronin mount for easy attachment of the MoVI Pro and Ronin gimbals. We also make a Mitchell female mount for gimbals that uses the Mitchell connector.

On each side of the Black Arm’s head, there are cheese plates suitable for mounting batteries or  other accessories.

1. Choose your Black version:

  • Black Standard takes 5-13 kg (11-28 lbs)
  • Black Complete takes 5-32 kg (11-70 lbs)

2. Choose your anti-vibration mount:

Choose between a Wire AVM or the Tranquilizer:

Below are the answers for the most frequently asked questions. Need any other info? Send us an email!

In short, nothing, you’re good to go!

If you intend to use the Ronin 2 with its batteries mounted on the gimbal, instead of having the batteries connected via extension cables, we recommend the 100mm Front Extension Block to make some room for the gimbal to swing.

You’d need the 300mm Front Extension Block, and a Female Mitchell mount.

Be careful, the MoVI XL is a very large gimbal that can pick up a lot of momentum. Make sure not to overload the arm!

You will need a bridge plate for the Ronin 1. We recommend the Cinemilled Universal Ronin Mount.

The best way to mount the Maxima MX30 is to use the Foma Topholder Type 030 on top of the gimbal. On that you’d use our Mitchell male mount, and on the Black you’d use our Mitchell female mount. This gives a very rigid solution that is easy to attach/detach.

If your gimbal has an option for Mitchell mounting, have a look at our Female Mitchell mount. If none of the options above applies to your gimbal, send us a mail and let us know which gimbal you use, and we’ll try to come up with a solution!

There are several ways of attaching the Cinemilled plate to the Black arms base plate. You can either use two screws or four. The Cinemilled plate is longer on one side, and blocks two of the screws attached to the rods, but there is a easy way to access those. Depending on if you are a multi gimbal facility or a Ronin only (The Universal Cinemilled plate will work both for the Ronin and the Ronin-MX btw, so you can use the same plate, according to the info we got from both Cinemilled and DJI). You will use one of the following options, one quicker and one more rigid.


Note:
Always use loctite or similar mild/medium thread glue at all times. There is an incredible amount of vibrations once on the road, and a screw might get un-winded in no time. Make sure to use threading glue on the Cinemilled plate screw! That ones will be the weakest point in the chain (do not use permanent/strong thread glue though!).

Demo footage

We took the Flowcine Black arm and the Intuitive Aerial Newton gimbal over to our friends at Malibu boats and helped them with their annual shoot. Here’s an edit of a few of the nice moments, showing the arm at work, and the footage. If you’re interested in learning more about the rig, check out an interview with the Malibu Boats video production manager Charles White.

Made with Black

Here are a few examples of what our customers do with the Black. Thanks Alpine Aerials and eGarage for the great work, keep it up!

Specification: The Black Arm

The Black Arm

5,038.006,578.00

Flowcine