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Forums > Kitesurfing General

Noir Matter Stabilizer... is it a DUD?

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Created by Munga > 9 months ago, 14 Jun 2019
Munga
WA, 89 posts
14 Jun 2019 4:20PM
Thumbs Up

Guys not sure what others have experienced, here's mine.
Paid $330 Aust Dollars,
10 weeks to deliver,
6 weeks use, took a dip
Since then it's been at Noir Matter for 8 weeks for them to tell me that it has water damage and they will not repair or replace it.

As far as the operation goes it is OK, a bit heavy which causes the lines to vibrate showing in the footage, otherwise it does stabilize.

Very disappointed in the IP-66 rating of this unit, mine hardly touched the water (i'll admit it, it took a swim, more like a dunk in the Ocean) and they are saying that level of water entry is not covered under warranty. IP-66 water rating is 100 liters of water in one minute. From what happen there is no way it took this force of water. I have actually requested a copy of the IP-66 certification, we'll see if they forward.

Noir Matter level of service is woeful... since the purchase there has been 38 emails, most of which they do not even bother replying to. It took a long time to deliver and forever for them to let me know that they were not going to repair it.

I feel like there is nothing I can do about this, I'm just going to have to write it off. It's a good reason to purchase this type of stuff through a retailer, feeling duped..!

Personally I would not recommend this unit for water use, it is a light weight, dry land only.

Adam''KiteRepair
NSW, 104 posts
14 Jun 2019 10:04PM
Thumbs Up

Mate of mine had the exact same experience. I was there to witness what a short dunk it took. Seconds to be honest

s_h_a_n_o
WA, 88 posts
14 Jun 2019 10:02PM
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I had EXACTLY the same experience. Dropped my kite in shore break at Cott 2nd time I used it, it took a dunk for maybe 30secs until I relaunched. Literally have the gopro footage showing how long, and how shallow the dunk was.

Stopped working, sent back to Noir Matter they took ages to respond, eventually had to chase them up on Facebook. Then got told I was at fault as it's not rated for salt water, despite all of the kitesurfing advertising they do. Offered me $100 off a new one, with free shipping. Which took 2 months to arrive.

I'm now hesitant to use it, basically regard it as being not waterproof at all. Been weighing up other options (Rylo, Revl, Insta360, Gopro Fusion). Found a China 2-way gimbal knock off for more like $100 on Alibaba or Amazon, so might just go that way once this one inevitably dies.

weebitbreezy
628 posts
14 Jun 2019 11:26PM
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Have read of people recommending cleaning and washing in fresh water afterwards (bowl of water - NOT running water) as some of the problems seem to be related to the rotation mechanism seizing up. I didn't get around to testing mine as my non GoPro camera didn't fit very cleanly in the linemount.

I'd say one of the other problems seems to be with the complicated procedure of launching (need an assistant to turn it on when you have tension in the lines and the same again on landing so it doesn't sit in the sand and so it starts off level). I'm hoping some of the aftermarket software packages might do the same thing in post processing instead.

Kamikuza
QLD, 6493 posts
15 Jun 2019 4:22PM
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Select to expand quote
s_h_a_n_o said..
I had EXACTLY the same experience. Dropped my kite in shore break at Cott 2nd time I used it, it took a dunk for maybe 30secs until I relaunched. Literally have the gopro footage showing how long, and how shallow the dunk was.

Stopped working, sent back to Noir Matter they took ages to respond, eventually had to chase them up on Facebook. Then got told I was at fault as it's not rated for salt water, despite all of the kitesurfing advertising they do. Offered me $100 off a new one, with free shipping. Which took 2 months to arrive.

I'm now hesitant to use it, basically regard it as being not waterproof at all. Been weighing up other options (Rylo, Revl, Insta360, Gopro Fusion). Found a China 2-way gimbal knock off for more like $100 on Alibaba or Amazon, so might just go that way once this one inevitably dies.


Link to the knock-off?

EastCC
QLD, 355 posts
15 Jun 2019 5:41PM
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IP66 is water spray, not submerged in water, so they have an out for warranty.

I am actually surprised these guys are still in business.

Capt.Gumby
VIC, 347 posts
15 Jun 2019 6:48PM
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The line mount broke before I got to use it....brittle piece of crap.....drop it on the ground as I got out of the car...no replies to emails for weeks.....finally get a reply "no warranty".... ok, order a new mount and told "2 week delay"....no worries....2 months later....still no mount.....email and get the response "2 week delay"..... that was a month ago....

From reading the above replies, I wont use it in the water....has been exceptional on the chest mount on the downhill mountain biking though even though I bought it for kitesurfing.... will just stick to the traditional kiteline mount and take stills from the videos.

Gorgo
VIC, 5040 posts
15 Jun 2019 7:00PM
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Stabilisers are pretty much obsolete. The GoPro Fusion or Hero 7 can do stabilisation in camera or post processing. It's pretty good.

Kamikuza
QLD, 6493 posts
15 Jun 2019 10:12PM
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Select to expand quote
Gorgo said..
Stabilisers are pretty much obsolete. The GoPro Fusion or Hero 7 can do stabilisation in camera or post processing. It's pretty good.



The Noir Matter makes sure the horizon stays level, that's the only "stabilization" it does. Hero 7 Black doesn't do that, and I think the Fusion needs a bunch of post-processing, though I like that idea a lot more. Gunnar at KF has a thread on it somewhere...

Gorgo
VIC, 5040 posts
15 Jun 2019 10:40PM
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Dejiggling and leveling is easy on the Fusion IOS app. You click the button and it happens. It works fine on a standard iPad. You need a late model phone for it to work. My iPhone 6 is not much use.

You can also stand and "drive" the screen so the image looks the way you want it. Very cool .

Kamikuza
QLD, 6493 posts
15 Jun 2019 11:17PM
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Select to expand quote
Gorgo said..
Dejiggling and leveling is easy on the Fusion IOS app. You click the button and it happens. It works fine on a standard iPad. You need a late model phone for it to work. My iPhone 6 is not much use.

You can also stand and "drive" the screen so the image looks the way you want it. Very cool .


Does all the stitching too, for full 360 or the Over-thingy? What version iPad?

s_h_a_n_o
WA, 88 posts
15 Jun 2019 9:54PM
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Select to expand quote
Kamikuza said..

s_h_a_n_o said..
I had EXACTLY the same experience. Dropped my kite in shore break at Cott 2nd time I used it, it took a dunk for maybe 30secs until I relaunched. Literally have the gopro footage showing how long, and how shallow the dunk was.

Stopped working, sent back to Noir Matter they took ages to respond, eventually had to chase them up on Facebook. Then got told I was at fault as it's not rated for salt water, despite all of the kitesurfing advertising they do. Offered me $100 off a new one, with free shipping. Which took 2 months to arrive.

I'm now hesitant to use it, basically regard it as being not waterproof at all. Been weighing up other options (Rylo, Revl, Insta360, Gopro Fusion). Found a China 2-way gimbal knock off for more like $100 on Alibaba or Amazon, so might just go that way once this one inevitably dies.



Link to the knock-off?


ikancorp.com/shop/gimbals/ikan-x1-wearable-1-axis-stabilizer-for-smartphone-and-gopro-wenpod/

Seems like they're discontinued / out of stock on Amazon :(

Gorgo
VIC, 5040 posts
16 Jun 2019 11:36AM
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Select to expand quote
Kamikuza said..

Gorgo said..
Dejiggling and leveling is easy on the Fusion IOS app. You click the button and it happens. It works fine on a standard iPad. You need a late model phone for it to work. My iPhone 6 is not much use.

You can also stand and "drive" the screen so the image looks the way you want it. Very cool .



Does all the stitching too, for full 360 or the Over-thingy? What version iPad?


Just the basic Pad. $469

You can view the footage direct from the camera on the iPad. It works better if you import the footage. You get more stabilisation options and the stitching is better.

It's easy and fairly quick to extract flat images and video. You can do 360 but I've never tried. I think 360 sucks for the end viewer.

You get better stitching and stabilisation and 360 rendering on a desktop but you need a powerful machine.

Here's some videos.









www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2427302737285863&set=pb.100000184814389.-2207520000.1560648946.&type=3&theater

Gorgo
VIC, 5040 posts
16 Jun 2019 11:36AM
Thumbs Up

Kamikuza said..





Gorgo said..
Dejiggling and leveling is easy on the Fusion IOS app. You click the button and it happens. It works fine on a standard iPad. You need a late model phone for it to work. My iPhone 6 is not much use.

You can also stand and "drive" the screen so the image looks the way you want it. Very cool .







Does all the stitching too, for full 360 or the Over-thingy? What version iPad?






Just the basic iPad. $469

You can view the footage direct from the camera on the iPad. It works better if you import the footage. You get more stabilisation options and the stitching is better.

It's easy and fairly quick to extract flat images and video. You can do 360 but I've never tried. I think 360 sucks for the end viewer.

You get better stitching and stabilisation and 360 rendering on a desktop but you need a powerful machine.

Here's some videos. The best thing is you can frame video and extract images after the fact that you would miss with any other camera.









Gorgo
VIC, 5040 posts
16 Jun 2019 3:00PM
Thumbs Up

You need to take some care in mounting a 360 camera to ensure that nothing you want to see is close in the blind spot of the camera.

If you look closely at the picture with the vulture you can see that the riser disappears just below the pulley. The foiling image shows a bit of a line going across my shoulder and through the back of my head. The selfie stick was just jammed into my harness and sticking out under my armpit.

Apparently you can do much better stitching using a desktop machine but you need something really high end to run the software.

PS When paragliding I would get towards the terrain I wanted to record then turn the camera on. I would end up with about an hour of video. With the foiling video I just turned the camera on and left it recording for about an hour. The Fusion is known to get hot if you leave it running for too long and will shut down. You have to pull the battery out to reset it. That wasn't a problem in the water, or flying at 5000m in the mountains.

Capt.Gumby
VIC, 347 posts
16 Jun 2019 3:02PM
Thumbs Up

Anyone want to buy a Noir Matter Stabilizer, used once mountain biking PM me.... hasn't been near water.

Will sell it half what it cost me.......

Munga
WA, 89 posts
18 Jun 2019 10:33AM
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I have asked for the IP-66 water rating certificate, still nothing.

Anyone who has had an issue with this lot please PM me, I am preparing to report this mob to the ACCC.

Ratchet
7 posts
20 Jun 2019 12:03AM
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Yeah noticed most "waterproof" gimbals actually aren't. Not much help but here's my best GUESS as to why most "waterproof" gimbals fail. Gimbal sits in the sun and gets warm (or maybe it gets hot from running) and the air inside it expands. Then it's dunked in water. Doesn't matter about the depth because the water cools the housing which drops the air pressure inside and creates a partial vacuum that sucks in the water through the shaft seal on the motor. I've seen this happen repeatedly on expensive "weatherproof" CCTV cameras that are also rated IP66. Hot day ... storm comes along ... water inside the CCTV camera housing.
Your GoPro camera is not affected because your not trying to seal a rotating shaft. Would need to teardown a broken one to confirm but it seems like a similar failure. IP66 testing will not include the temperature change so it will probably pass a soaking or even a short dunking if the device is about the same temperature as the water.

Milesp
NSW, 23 posts
4 Jul 2019 11:08AM
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Select to expand quote
Munga said..
I have asked for the IP-66 water rating certificate, still nothing.

Anyone who has had an issue with this lot please PM me, I am preparing to report this mob to the ACCC.



Hi Munga,
I've had a similar experience with my Noir matter stabiliser. It ceased up after it's first outing. Yes it got bit wet, but I'm not talking a submerged dunking and surf rinse. The IP66 rating is clearly not suitable to most water sports. I contacted Noirmatter and agreed to send it back to them to consider replacing it or to fix it. They eventually offered me a repair for $40USD + freight back to Aus (ouch!). The cost of repair seems reasonable and I hope to get it back soon..... The stable horizon this thing offers is great, but they really need to rethink their marketing if they are selling a product for water sports and clearly can't provide sufficient weather proofing. BTW, you are not going to get far with the ACCC to follow up a US based firm. Another lesson I wish I could learn, is never to buy the first version of any new tech.

StarKiter
1 posts
23 Feb 2020 10:57AM
Thumbs Up

Exciting idea but unfortunately a similar experience to some below. Used once, only touched water on landing and has since seized up. Will save my $ to ward a GoPro Max I think.

AquaPlow
QLD, 1053 posts
23 Feb 2020 10:02PM
Thumbs Up

Do any stabilizers come with motor in a sealed fluid chamber???.. My pool robot would be 6 years old been in pool upto 2metres deep.. For months.. Equally been left in garage for months.. When pool getting re-surfaced..
Motor sits in non conducting fluid in sealed chamber.. Makes much less temperature sensitive...
Cheers
AP



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"Noir Matter Stabilizer... is it a DUD?" started by Munga