DrV

Have a look at this thread. You may be seeing the same problem. As for the association with loud noises, that may just coincidence - we humans are slaves to our desire to find patterns in things!

It strikes me that there would be room in the market for a custom 2xAA pack made up of a LiPo prismatic (pouch) cell with an integrated charger and a USB-C connector. You could store a lot of Watt-hours in a pack that size. Anyone know of such a product?

The issue is less likely the wire gauge and more likely the spring contacts in the female part of the connector. If you look at the wire you'll see that it has only overheated right at the end. If you have room inside the fixture I would solder some wires directly onto the PCB and splice a better quality connector pair into that cable.

There are lots of different types of LED fairy lights and they need different arrangements to dim them. It gets particularly awkward with the ones that can create chases as they typically need a fairly precise 31V a.c. to light all of them at once (and this is after you've cut off the original controller). Give us more details of the actual lights you have and we can advise further. Particular info is 1) what is between the wall socket and the lights themselves? A box with a button, just a mains adaptor etc. 2) if there's a separate power supply (mains adaptor) what is printed on the label (particularly the voltage and current)? 3) can you post a picture of the various parts. 4) where are you geographically? Dave

Depending on how long they have to be on, you'll probably want to use LEDs rather than incandescent lamps. There are some nice LED indicator lamps which are surprisingly bright but use only 100mA or so, so you can run them all week off a 12v 7Ah battery. If they're pointing straight at the audience you won't want them to be the same brightness as real headlights!

Are the LCDs definitely not working or is it just that the backlights are out? (This is from very little experience a long time back so take with a pinch of salt). As they have EL backlights there's a nasty inverter circuit which creates the high voltage high frequency supply for these. IIRC it's on a board somewhere near the displays and will be identifiable by the little transformer. I do have a few notes somewhere which I'll look out later.

Kazeja

You're a star! Thank you so much. That's a very large beer I owe you. I hadn't thought to look in that document. Just assumed I was doing something wrong! Now to get the aging Microtouch touch screen working... but that's for another day! Thanks again, very much Dave

Magicq won't run from the icon. If I run it from a terminal window it says /opt/Magicq/lib/libstdc++.so.6: 'GLIBCXX_3.4.30' not found (required by/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libicuuc.so.72) I've found some stuff on the web about making sure there's a symbolic link to it and that appears to be correct. This was a full, clean install of the latest version of Debian followed by installing the latest stable release of Magicq. I'm kind of renewing an interest in Linux after a gap of about 20 years so am a bit rusty! Thanks Dave

It's not Lighting Partners is it? Just slightly too blurry to make out.

Well, 3 years later and I'd like to discuss installing Magicq under Linux but the forum is gone. Is it really gone and, if so, can anyone walk me through a problem with a brand new install of Magicq on a brand new Debian/Ubuntu system? Thanks, Dave

It only says that they're pre-drilled for vertical mounting. I can't see why you couldn't drill holes in the long face to mount the brackets there. Edit: actually I've just thought of one - rack equipment tends to be heavier at the front so you would need to consider the position of the holes depending on what was going in the rack. If the brackets were too far away from the centre of gravity that would impart a rotating moment to the brackets/truss.

I don't know the legalities of it but might it be worth asking the theatrecrafts.com people if they would like to host the content on their website? Then it's available to anyone who wants it.

In my opinion, using the radio for the last few (as few as possible) metres and cable for the rest should be the default M.O.

This thread has been going on a bit. PM me your address and now I'm back from a floating tent in storm-lashed Hampshire I'll stick a couple of switches in an envelope for you. Dave Standard tact switches to cut apart that is. You just have to cut the studs off with a Stanley knife to extract the discs

Did you drill out the holes in the PCB to fit that connector, or otherwise damage the tracks so that the pot is not actually connected to the circuit? Looking particularly at pin 1 where I think I can see untinned copper.

The length of travel won't be important - they're all about 1mm. The diameter will be closely related to the dimensions of the moulding. What are the external dimensions of the existing moulding?

To take J Pearce's suggestion a little further, as you've already opened up the switch, could you replace the disc with one from a standard tactile switch. They're not difficult to get apart. Not so easy to put back together of course!

I'll certainly have a go but not sure when. And I'll definitely feed back.

Ray, you've piqued my interest now. There are a couple of drivers in my local church hall which I was going to replace but I might have a go at replacing the suspensions now. Can you post a link to the eBay items. I'm failing to find the correct search terms. Dave

I've never tried to do this but I imagine it's not that difficult. The rear cone support is what is really responsible for aligning the voice coil in the gap. Of course, people do fully recone speakers with damaged voice coils but that must be more difficult.

If the pir is only outputting 3.3V then there's not much headroom over the Vbe of the transistor. A Darlington will be at least 1.2V (datasheet says max of 2.5 but at a higher current) so directly connecting with an internal 1k will only give about 1mA base current. I'd just connect directly.

Is it not also the case that a column's radiation pattern is similar to an optical slit which (perhaps counterintuitively) spreads more in the direction perpendicular to the long dimension? Laying one on its side would, therefore, make its coverage more vertical than horizontal. Just interested from a schoolboy physics point of view.

Frankly it's black magic how flash and eeprom remember anything at all when you look at how it's done; just a few extra electrons hanging around on the gate of a FET. Don't know why they would both fail at once though. Bad batch of chips with less than perfect hermetic seals maybe?

Good point. Especially if it's been in storage for a while and previously worked ok.