vinntec

Philips quoted two figures for inrush current... 1.1A @ 240V and 1.3A @ 120V

Philips originally quoted 1.1A inrush surge per fixture when we first reported this problem, which is nearly double the full on current (0.65A). We have used this as a worst case to split into two 10A chunks which should work with all 18 in the rig (which is hardly ever the case but they still trip). It is almost impossible to test in a logical way as the MCB is reluctant to trip once it has warmed up from the first one! So it's a Catch-22 situation trying to isolate any particular fixture that is drawing more than it should especially if it simply turns out that it is more than 1.1A inrush or the power factor is out of kilter for some reason - but both of these occur only instantaneously so cannot easily be measured. We might end up just splitting a few more times to bypass this problem, but we shouldn't have to guess what the true surge current from these fixtures actually is. However the LEDJ 7Q5 example is an interesting one as they are only supposed to draw about 0.3A each and are convection cooled. Maybe we just don't understand enough about what is, or might be, lurking inside these fixtures which the MCBs don't like!

10A Type C x 2 which are the slowest to allow for a power surge on startup. They appear to have reduced the number of trips but hasn't stopped them completely (although we also split from a single MCB to two separate ones at the same time). No trips in normal running just power up which is a big switch on one phase.

Does anyone else have a number of Philips Selecon PL1 range in their rig (PLCYC1, PLFRESNEL1, PLPROFILE1)? If so I would be interested to hear from you. Since installation (we currently have 18 of them) they are fairly regularly tripping the hot power circuits when power is turned on - they all come on at once as soon as main power is applied due to access restrictions. The breakers are rated way above both the total possible load and the inrush current which Philips gave us a while ago. We recently split them into two hot power circuits but both still trip from time to time but perhaps less often. They are all on a single phase of a three phase supply (which probably isn't well balanced). While they usually reset after first trip no problem, we would like to get to the bottom of what is wrong so would be interested to know if anyone else has a similar problem. We are wondering if the lanterns might have a poor power factor, but as it appears to be related to power on only - as they don't trip in normal running - this will be very hard to measure without some very expensive kit. I am going to have another go with Philips technical support but just wondering if anyone has seen anything similar or has some sensible suggestions?

The power cable on a parcan comes out the back. The lamp itself is a single sealed unit containing both light source and reflector. A real parcan can be used any which way as long as you look after the cables v hot parts. If the lantern you are looking at has the power cable coming out of the top or bottom, you might be looking at something else where the top of the lamp is away from the cable - in which case the orientation will matter. Can you post a photo or look what it says on the lantern regarding make and model if you are not 100% certain that what you have is a parcan?

I don't believe the Furse one could have been worse than a real Strand one! 500W fresnel without a reflector which they could have made out of cheap soup spoons!

I wish they made a light source which stopped after lighting an actor and before hitting the scenery!

A good question, and another reason why the EU proposal, which dictates a minimum of 85 lumens per Watt, makes no sense. Lamps are easy to dispose of although I doubt much of it decomposes over time, but there is a lot less of it in the first place. I suppose it is theoretically possible that the glass could be crushed and recycled as could some of the metals although would be a very tedious process.

Of course LED is more efficient than tungsten, but that's not we are talking about - the proposed EU legislation due to come into force in 2020 with efficiency standards of the light source that none of LED, tungsten or arc currently meets.

It is much worse than that. To meet the EU requirement with a LED source is only theoretically possible at the current time and way beyond anything being achieved today, but no manufacturer knows for sure if and when it will be possible to achieve in practice. No-one believes this will be possible by 2020, if at all. The worst part of it is that even if it is possible and you change everything over to the new standard, you will only SLIGHTLY decrease the theatre's power usage as the stage lighting is not on for long periods of time.

Your post is generally spot on, except you appear to have missed that there is not even any LED stage lighting which meets the "proposed" efficiency standards - and there won't be before 2020. LED lighting from a reputable company (ETC, Philips, etc) is typically supported while in warranty but return to base usually if the LED engine fails, although self replacement of a circuit board is sometimes possible. Out of warranty if they are no longer the current model, then repair even by the manufacturer might be by cannibalisation from dead units of the same type unless the newer ones ones are compatible (not usual). We have a supporting cast of Philips Selecon PL LEDs (fresnel, profile and cyc) (October 2013) at my tiny theatre but they are Mk 1 so there are no (or few) spares for them especially if the LED engine has failed. Their warranty was 3 year return to base, which worked well. However, last year one of our cyc units - post warranty period - failed but Philips pulled out all the stops to get it repaired and got it going again from a box of parts a few hours after I brought the offending unit in to their London office. All 14 units are working in tip-top-condition (touch wood) after 4.5 years, with four failures resolved. Before the EU regulation problem came up, we could have started putting funds aside to allow for future failures and replacing them with Mk 2 ones if they can't be repaired. Now that's all out of the window because at £1,000 each or more they will be obsolete in under 2 years time and no-one has that sort of money to throw away. As far as tungsten goes, we have built up a 5 year stock of lamps which, due to our good past planning, are only a few different types.

You can listen to it at https://www.bbc.co.u...s/b0b0lznf#play and move forward to 29:33

Not to mention extremely unreliable (could lose contents easily). Of course things are different now and the classical piece of unreliable hardware is the diskette - but at the time it was still in common use (and incidentally still is for computerised machinery). The original IBM PC (1981) had only diskette storage - no hard disk - and many others of the same period used the same or even cassette tapes!

As the size is only just bigger than a floppy if you print out the list of fixtures and reduce them to a list that consists of your most likely suspects, and a few more, then if you don't have anywhere to create it yourself, ask Jon at Zero 88 and he will almost certainly do it and email it to you as it doesn't take long. This version could easily be made available to others, although their list might well be different so might not be worthwhile other than having a note on the BlueRoom to say "ask me if you need it". If Jon is tied up, for instance at a trade show, then ask on the BlueRoom and I would expect someone would be willing to do it for you (once). We recently retired our venerable Fat Frog so I will no longer be able to help myself, but I think there are enough of the old Frog range around?

Hi Jon - I unzipped the original ZIP file to check the size of the file inside (which had both the library file and the list of fixtures). At least since it was in my download folder, I assumed this was what it was. I wouldn't have edited it then saved it back as a ZIP?

This looks like a mistake as version 25 (the new one is 26) is only 343 KB! You could of course use the fixture tools on a PC to reduce the size, but I would put a note on the Zero 88 forum (http://zero88.com/forum/forum/93-frog-range/) - although they sometimes monitor this forum as well and might pick it up anyway.

Whizzy Did you get the identical unit to the one pointed to by PaulDF? (link back in June was to http://www.ebay.co.u...n-/290811571725 and this still works and says they have sold 1,147 of them). We used this exact one and have not had any of the problems you are listing - all 100 partitions are working fine on our Fat Frog for write and read despite being formatted on a PC (Windows 7) - we didn't have to reformat and it doesn't care if a partition is blank. We did use "decent" USB sticks, however, far better than the minimum spec needed and used default everything. I see PaulDF sent the details as a PM direct to me so the these are not on the BlueRoom, so I am repeating them here. Inside the unit should have been a tiny piece of paper saying something about pin 1 being close to the power plug and the address of where to download the software, I think the lead only goes in one way up so doesn't really matter about the first bit. The software download address was http://www.ipcas.com...n-download.html and like PaulDF, we used v1.31t (this also still works and also shows documentation). Did you remember to change the CR2032 battery while you had the Frog in bits? If you have used a different source then I cannot be sure your one will be the same - the reason we followed PaulDF was that he had researched which exact unit was the right one as there are a multitiude of similar looking ones which will not work in an old DOS-based PC (so Frog range as far as hardware is concerned). Does this help? Peter

Just to confirm that we fitted the same USB diskette emulator as PaulDF into our precious Fat Frog last night and it works like a dream. The connectors of the diskette drive came off and connected no problem to the replacement unit in the same orientation. We used the same screws to reattach the new drive (only finding ones came with the unit which were taped to the packaging afterwards). We have not quite figured out how to properly get the cover off the Fat Frog as we are concerned about damaging the multitude of ribbon cables. So it was quite tight doing it with the back pulled out only 4 or 5 inches but was still possible nevertheless. We have a live show in July and I will let you know if there are any problems. Basically what the Fat Frog sees is a 1.44 MB diskette drive. The USB stick is formatted (on a PC with special software) as 100 x floppy disk images. You choose which one you want on the drive as 00-99 using a couple of buttons, one for each numeral. It couldn't be simpler but does mean it runs at the speed of a diskette to be compatible with the FF view of the world. Regards -- Peter

Hi Paul - me again. Our emulator arrived in a jiffy bag with no documentation or pointer to resources. What software did you use to prepare the USB sticks before formatting them in the Fat Frog? I don't get the theatre to rig the next show for three weeks, so am thinking about fitting it next weekend if possible. Thanks for your help. Peter

Hi Paul - we have the emulator waiting for our season to end as planned. Any update from your end? Regards -- Peter

Thanks for the tip - sounds promising as this complication is only for lighting manager (me) to worry about - the others get everything setup already and only have to select the right block on the FF. Peter

Hi Paul I have suggested to my LDs that we get the identical drive as we know that this has worked. in a Fat Frog. We will take reasonable precautions first, such as putting it in an old PC and seeing if it does anything bad there and check if a normal PC can read/write to the strangely partitioned USB sticks (I can't think why not but will it need 100 x drive letters)? A look on the internet also revealed that there are lots of similar machines for lots of different purposes and it was quite hard to sift out plain old DOS PC 1.44 MB diskette emulators! So being a copycat means we know this has worked elsewhere and if something goes wrong we can compare notes at either end. I won't be making the change until our current season ends (July) so we have plenty of time for it to come from HK, be tested in a PC before we put it in our precious Fat Frog. Finger crossed! Peter

Many thanks. Peter