timsabre

That is what the weblink I posted does. XP VM using virtualbox. I have used that technique to get a USB EPROM programmer working so it'll definitely do stuff with XP-limited hardware.

Ah you're right. clearly they sold the designs to someone in Slovakia! They must just be making the old designs though.

We were involved with the design of the Chevin amps and Chevin Research has not existed for probably 15 years.

Most likely fault for the intermittent channel is the gain pot failing. Also they had a weird home made optical limiter (LED and LDR in a heatshrink tube) which sometimes got muck in it.

As Dave says the other is most likely output stage transistors, but that part of the circuit was a fairly conventional mosfet output stage.

Go here and type "xciter" into the search box

https://www.martin.com/en/support_downloads/download_types/software

Software download is 10th on the list for me.

If (having installed the software) you right click on the exe file and select "Properties" then the "compatibility" tab you can select to run it as XP or "run compatibility troubleshooter". This may or may not help depending on what the problem is.

Alternatively you can fairly easily make a Windows XP virtual machine on a current Windows machine using these instructions:
https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-set-up-windows-xp-emulator-for-windows-10-4772549

2 minutes ago, dbuckley said:

Interesting - you've got 100w of (I assume) incandescent lamps, and still getting glowworms.  I usually use a 60w lamp as a ghost load...

He said 100x 1W G40 lamps, this is the classic LED festoon from China. Incandescent G40's are usually 15W or 25W.

On the Martin website you can still download the PC software for this - I haven't tried it personally but it may still run in compatibility mode allowing you to link to PC?

I do not know anything about programming lighting on the controller though. It was a DJ-type controller and most people here do theatre/events .

11 hours ago, richardash1981 said:

I was really surprised how even the light from the panel is, although the whole thing is only about 12mm thick! It must have lots of tiny LEDs or something ...

The ones I have been inside are edge lit but with a clever variable thickness diffuser which keeps the intensity constant across the panel.

Cor, that is a blast from the past. Some of the Chevin amps had a proprietary switcher circuit in them which was encased in resin so pretty much impossible to fix that part - but if an output fault that was just normal mosfets - what is the fault?

Most dimmer packs even when set to "switch mode" will still exhibit this problem. It is because of current leakage through the RF suppression circuit, this is a tiny current but enough to light an LED.  If you are powering something with a DC supply like fairy lights, it can pulse on and off as the current charges up the caps in the PSU circuit.

The only way to avoid it, other than the suggested dummy load, is to use a relay pack (that definitely uses real relays and not "solid state relays" which are just triacs again).

I've had lots of fun trying to interface with Casambi (their entire operation seems to be run by 2 people in Finland) but it doesn't sound like the issue here is with the Casambi side of it.

It's using Casambi which is a wifi protocol a bit like what Google Alexa does. The DMX is coming from a Casambi to DMX gateway unit. But wifi issues would not cause a loss of DMX to individual fixtures as is being described.

Hi Caleb, sounds like you are doing everything right and something weird is happening. I would advise you phone up Chamsys support, they are very helpful.

14 hours ago, Tomo said:

LEDs run cool, but the diodes have to stay cool or they die very quickly.

It's always surprising to me that even the "super energy efficient" LEDs convert about 60% of the input energy into heat which has to be removed from the LED to keep it working. This simply cannot be done in an object the size of a halogen lamp, so anything retro-fit has to be much bigger with built in fans or other method of removing the heat to outside the fixture.

Also bear in mind, LED fixtures would only use their rated power with all colour emitters on full, which rarely happens in normal use. For a simple RGB par can showing full red, the power usage would be roughly a third of the rated power (plus a small amount of static power draw as Don says). So a realistic calculation for LED fixture power draw would use a figure somewhat less than the rated power.

David is right about the auto addressing thing. Ignore my comment about power.

I have felt all along that you have a stray voltage problem on the DMX - which wiring that green wire to mains earth could well be causing, in conjunction with another fault, probably a bad DMX GND connection or bad earth or something. Are all the fittings wired like that?

I would expect if you just cut off the green wires it'll work properly. They are maybe to power inline splitters or a remote controller or something?

Switch Electronics is a legit business, they're just down the road from me. Started off as a guy buying surplus switches and selling them on ebay. 

1 hour ago, David Ripley said:

I would assume that R7s for theatrical use are probably a tiny fraction of the overall market, so unlikely to be manufactured in small amounts as time goes on.

 

There are so many floodlight fixtures installed out there that use the linear halogen lamps though, I think there will be significant demand for a long time yet.

@Yorkie, those dimmable floods look interesting, report back if you try them. You will probably find that dimming is a bit rubbish with Triac dimmers, but acceptable with Trailing Edge/Mosfet dimmers, at least that is what I am finding with most "dimmable" fixtures.

3 hours ago, David Ripley said:

As with all things LED, I would say that the R7 LED lamps are currently not very good. I remember seeing a demo at the National 7 or 8 years ago where ETC were showing the LED engines that finally had a reasonable dimmer curve and colour.

I design LED stuff for a living and R7 LED lamps are never going to be very good, it's just not possible in the shape of the lamp - you can't get enough heatsinking into it to use the high powered LED's that you'd need to get a decent brightness.

The ETC light engines are in a different league as there's much more opportunity for LED placement and heat management in the S4 fixtures it is designed to be used with.

5 hours ago, slx02 said:

On a side note, there are quite a few varieties of R7s 78mm & 118mm LED replacement bubbles now and China seem to be manufacturing quite a few T/H and short arc bubbles too, at reasonable costs. I do hope our village and community halls are encouraged to keep their affordable legacy kit a bit longer before it heads to landfill. 

 

All the linear halogen LED replacement lamps are rubbish though. The light output is a fraction of what you get from the halogen tube, and they won't dim sensibly either.

This post was about 500W halogen floods, R7s lamps for these are not so specialised as T class theatrical lamps and are still widely available. Presumably there will come a day when they aren't, but personally I think that day is a way off. As others have said, there are about a million different types of LED flood out there but none of them are a good dimmable LED replacement for 500W halogen floods.

You don't say how much headroom you have, though I would assume being a village hall it isn't much. Something like this (takes permanent undimmed power and DMX) might be a valid replacement.
https://www.bax-shop.co.uk/led-bar/eurolite-led-cbb-2-cob-ww-bar

Many higher model dslrs have good audio facilities now, with interfaces for balanced mic and level controls. 

20 minutes ago, Robin D said:

I resisted responding earlier as have zero experience of an X32. Please don't take this as fact, but I know someone who uses an X18 with a wireless access point attached to which he connects at least two devices including I thought wireless headphones. I think it's aimed primarily at providing mobile control of the desk, but if the feature is available on the X32, it may just be a case of getting a suitable access point, attaching the camera to the network and routing output to it. There must be X32 users here who can help with this, or tell me I am talking out of the wrong orifice. 

No, you cannot get wireless headphones over wifi with X32 (or any of the Behringer mixers). If they have wireless headphones they must be using a separate system for that.

I would be looking at one of the ENG wireless mic systems which are designed for exactly this. The original linked device might work, although it is designed for a mic input it says "Max input signal 500mV" which is line level so it should be OK. It will (obviously) be mono.

Thomann's cheap IEM system should be ok for this task
https://www.thomann.de/gb/the_t.bone_iem_75.htm

For your replacement, buy a laser source projector, they are a bit more costly initially but much less trouble in a village hall type setting.

I have used "JustProjectors" https://www.projectors.co.uk/repair once before, but be warned that all projector repair seems to be really expensive. Have you checked that all panels / access hatches have been correctly refitted as projectors often have lockout switches on the panels. Also try refitting the old lamp?

It does not have move while dark, according to the manual. But it doesn't have DMX Reset command either, so I am not sure what he means by "if a reset is performed".
It does have blackout on DMX loss which is the default setting, but he said the pan/tilt continues to work while it is stuck in blackout, so that doesn't sound like it.