DrV

The only caveat to what's been said is that if you're using this in a situation where the cables get unplugged and moved from time to time i.e. not fixed down, be sure the cable you have is patch cable (with flexible, stranded cores) rather than installation cable which has solid cores. The latter will start getting internal breaks due to bending much sooner than the former.

Well, from a marketing/advertising perspective, it's made you give it a mention on an esteemed and highly relevant public forum so not all bad then!

Yes, I can highly recommend City Theatrical's kit. It's not the cheapest but it is VERY solid both mechanically and in terms of RF integrity. They have several combined receivers/ dimmers specifically designed for rgbw and rgbwa tapes and they fade down to zero with absolutely no steps at the bottom end. They also supply good quality tapes as raw materials or encapsulated. What sort of quantity (total length) of tape are you thinking of per truck? (Full disclosure - CTI are a client of mine). Dave

I refer the honourable gentleman to my earlier statement...

Can't help with the info but there's some interesting (lack of) soldering in the middle of the board. Looks like some tact switches.

Soundstore have a brief description which says it uses 6 or 10 channels. I would start by setting it to 6 channels and seeing if they just control the 6 colours. If not then set it to 10 channels. Connect to a desk with 10 channels patched as ordinary dimmers then just methodically work out what does what. Start by assuming that the first 7 channels are 6 colours plus a master dimmer and go from there. You might find that Soundstore can help you. Try giving them a call/email

The parts list says NCJ9FI-V-0 which comes up as available from Mouser and DV247 with a Google search.

It's a government I.T. project. What could possibly go wrong...?

This is a link to the BBC news item about it. It specifically says that the alerts will only be to a restricted area. It is the system which is to be rolled out nation wide [QUOTE]...when an alert is triggered, all cell towers in a defined area will broadcast it, allowing the message to reach an area the size of an electoral ward.[/QUOTE]

+1 (actually +half a dozen) on the battery. Those *#+"! Mempacs are an absolute disaster. The pernicious way the innards creep along under the solder resist is so harmful. Not limited to Zero88 desks of course. Strand MX & GSX etc. have the same issues.

That's just inadequate strength of fixing. Nothing to do with the fact that they were cable ties. Same would have happened with steel wire if it was thin enough.

That picture is wrong in more than one way. Threading the drain wire through the loop then soldering it to pin 1 would create an intermittent connection to the signal ground. Arguably even worse than soldering the two together which would at least be solidly incorrect rather than intermittent. Then there's the soldering... stray strands and what look like cold joints.😱

If you just Google "arduino DMX shield" there are plenty to choose from (mostly with 3pin XLRs unfortunately). There is also a choice of libraries to drive them so you wouldn't need to do any circuitry at all. If all you want to do is put in a fixed delay from reset/power-on before bringing up some channels, and you're happy to hardcode the levels and addresses into the code, then you don't need anything else. Just a bit of code with a delay() and then some dmxWrites or whatever the library requires. If you want to be able to change the DMX levels(or even record them from a desk) and/or change addresses, and/or change the delay, you'll probably need a display and a few buttons but you can get all that in a single shield too, although you might need to rearrange inputs and outputs so they don't conflict. This is one of those projects that is loads of fun to do because you start with a really basic function then you can add to it and tweak as much or little as you like. Always assuming you actually LIKE in the first place!

Can't remember but either isopropyl alcohol or a solvent cleaner like "flux-off". The other clue to where the fault is might be gently and precisely tapping the ceramic caps in that area with an insulated probe (eg. plastic knitting needle). If neither of those finds the fault then you're down to shorting the input to the various stages to see how far back the noise is being introduced. Or just replacing things until it goes away. If you pm me your email address I'll send you the schematic.

How many units would you need? I've got some spare blank PCBs (and possibly some other hardware) left over from a project which might be adapted to your needs. Dave

It's worth thoroughly washing the components on the preamp board. I had a unit once (actually it was an srm450 but same applies) which took me ages to fix. Turned out it was just contamination under a cap near the input.

That may be the lamp on detector. There's a little PCB with a three legged chip on it made of transparent(ish) plastic. This is somewhere in the head such that the light shines on it. It will be connected with a three way molex kk connector. Check the connector and the solder joints on the PCB. You could also swap with your good unit.

Frankly, if you're stripping down your gear to that extent you should be performing the electrical elements of a PAT (earth bonding and insulation resistance) as a matter of course. The only additional things would be logging the test, keeping your test equipment in calibration and putting on the green sticker (which has magic properties, as we all know)

It should be easy to work out which one is the address: just increment it until it stops incrementing or rolls over to zero. If it does that around 500ish then it's the address.

How comic/serious is the production? For a panto style production I'd try to make a hollow fibreglass casing that looked like a log, even complete with side shoots and leaves. No good for a serious show though.

I've got two Melcards available which were working when last used in a Sirius 48 (about 8 years ago!) They have batteries in them and I've checked that these are still ok and haven't leaked. One is in its original wallet and case with instruction manual and an ergonomically disastrous "screwdriver"(!) I don't know what its capacity is as it doesn't say, but it's definitely enough to hold a complete show and patch. The other is a 32k as you can see. I'd like to get £20 each for them just for scarcity value. Proceeds will go to my AmDram society.

First thing to do is disconnect the input board from the power amp to find out which board is introducing the noise. Pull off J1 which is the 7 way ribbon connector. If it goes quiet the issue is with the preamp. If not it's with the power amp.

That's great, thank you. Just off out but I'll give it a go tomorrow

Thanks Rob, but it doesn't change the input. I've managed to get all the measurements done now so don't need this any more, although it would be interesting to know if it is possible Thanks Dave

I'm doing some testing and would like to be able to specify precise DMX values (0 - 255 rather than 0-100%). Is there a way to enter these into magicQ either in decimal or hex? Eg. I would like to enter 3@0x09 which falls between 3% and 4%. If it can't be done with MQ then I'll just have to use an Arduino but it would be convenient if I can use my existing test setup Thanks Dave