ianknight

@kgallenand there was me thinking I was going senile? 😉

It looks to be a clone of the original Botex Showmaster that shows up in various brands but started life as the Showtec Showmaster. Have a look at the manual here Showtec Manual - page 13 shows how to do a factory reset from the front panel. If the FP is responding - worth a shot. The firmware isn't likely to vary much - it's often copied along with the PCB's 😞

If you have Windows 10 (not sure how it works in Windows 11) and can find an XP version of the software - then it the compatibility troubleshooter should be good in getting it to run ok. In terms of sourcing a copy - try an eMail to the folks at WhiteLight Service - they probably have a copy tucked away somewhere.

This! The first couple I made - I got to practice my soldering.... pin numbers of D connectors don't go down the length of the connector but hop across the pins. 😛

If you can find a HighLite dealer - they should be able to order a pump for you - Central Theatre Supplies in Birmingham certainly are such a dealer - talk to Jo Beaumont-Ward or Ian Roberts. CTS likely won't have them on the shelf but if they're in stock in Holland - delivery should be about 3-5 working days. Alternatively you could try Smoke Machines - Clicky - I had a couple of pumps from them back in 2017 but again, can't promise if they keep them on the shelf still.

@kerry davies indeed - a sound idea. I've reached out Ian & I'm going to take some of the stuff off his hands so there will be working loan/slave desks around as well as an additional source of spares. It sounds as though Ian has roots in amateur theatre like I do - so karma or serendipity is working 😄

So very true Kevin - it appears I'm about the only person left in the UK carrying spares for some of this kit. I'll reach out to Ian... 😄

Hi Ian - @kgallen is correct - as things are starting to start up after the last two years of hell, folks are getting in touch with me again for spares to do those repair jobs they were about to do in April 2020 :P If the alternative is going in a skip then I'd be more than happy to take the Alphapacks, Sirius & S72 off your hands to use for spares & loan/slave kit - I could also make use of parts from the Fat Frog too (there are many still in use & cherished but some of the parts that break aren't available from Zero anymore). I'll send you a PM to start a conversation and see if we can sort something out :)

The eternal debate... I had many energetic debates with a previous employer who insisted we should "fail" any items with a safety chain & not a wire bond (and the occasional one without any secondary suspension, we just refused to rehang them after testing) - eventually we agreed to disagree and included a strongly worded recommendation that the chains should be replaced with properly marked & rated bonds. :P

But most basically... Are the lanterns electrically safe & do they pass test? The Portable Appliance Test is there to ensure the electrical safety of items not to question the physical design of items but as always, the school appears to have employed the lowest price quote for PAT testing instead of a "specialist" in theatre equipment. It would be fun to ask the tester (if they used ladders) why they used metal ladders or scaffold tower to access the kit - always good for seeing someone who's only read the CoP or done a webinar on PAT testing squirm. I once saw a "reputable" electrical contractors wrapping a set of aluminium steps in cling film (with an apprentice on standby in speedo's) to place them in a therapeutic pool in a special school to replace some fluroescent tubes "Because the school won't drain the pool or pay for scaffolders to board over it for the work..." If the tester is vexed enough by lack of mesh then he/she should make a note/comment on the final report that a new risk assessment should be considered & leave it there (PAT testing is now very much "risk based" too) but if the lantern passes it's electrical tests then its "passed". It's also worth noting that a FaceBook group I belong to for PAT testers gets very vexed about items that aren't CE marked or BS marked - the Patt 60 would confound them on both counts (as would most lanterns older than about 20 years old!) The primary consideration is "Will the unit give anyone an electrical shock if touched or cause a fire if the wiring fails?" surely? If the school is really concerned then it's for them to control the risk - possibly by leaving a gel frame fitted with some Lee 159 (so they look "open" but the gel will catch debris in the unlikely event of a lamp exploding - which by the way I've never seen happen in 40 odd years!). The moral is - talk to a specialist, not the cheapest...

Yeah - definitely this! The number of times I had to drive the short jumper cable out to hires with 518's because the work experience lad in hire didn't believe they needed the jumper! :P

If you look after it - you should be ok for a while - replacement faders are available, I have fader caps & remember to replace the battery (if it's a CR2032) or keep an eye on it for leaks if it's the 3.6v soldered in type. However (with my old sales hat on), I would start a little replacement fund going just in case or take a look at something like a Chamsys dongle for the future. It sounds like you have fixtures so a cheap manual preset desk won't be an adequate replacement and FLX will be a bit of a reach...

I suspect as I said before that the Anytronics dongle is some sort of USB to I2C interface which is why an RS232 interface is "optional" - the controller onboard the Anylight has I2C inputs - just doing a level conversion via an interface isn't going to do the job - there will be other handshaking/protocol conversions to do as well. I can't see any mention in the manual from the Anytronics download about being able to download presets from the Anylight to the PC - only from PC to the Anylight 😞

That's fab news!! Nice one 😄

It looks like you have the older Anylight 64 interface then - reading the manual, you'll need a dongle from Anytronics to connect to a PC using the two wire interface. RS232 is always a minimum of 3 wires so to use two wire they've done something proprietary (probably something like I2C) so you will need their dongle. Time to give them a call and see if they can supply one.

I might have been inferring too much from the manual but if the unit is programmable via a network then some sort of mini webserver is the best way to do it - saves faffing remembering port numbers and so on.

I've just had a quick look at the software folder from the Anytronics website and it would seem that the RS232 serial interface was an option - if it's fitted to your unit then I would imagine that almost any USB to Serial cable will work. If you're blessed with an older computer that still has a serial port then a null modem cable will likely work (it will have pins 2 & 3 crossed with pin 7 being TE). The manual does talk about the unit having an RJ45 network connector & it appears to have a built in webserver - this would be the easiest & less hassle route I would think, either an ethernet crossover cable to connect direct to your laptop/PC or a small switch/hub with a couple of ethernet cables. If you get really really stuck then call Anytronics - from previous experience dealing with them - they will go out of their way to help with support issues.

When I was Hire Manager at CTS, we had a large stock of Pacifics and they were mostly used with 600W GKVs - often good enough as Cantata replacements. We had a couple of "Blue Pinch" burners as spares for odd occasions with narrow angle lens tubes (the extra bit of brightness proved handy sometimes) but otherwise in general use we didn't consider routine use of of T11 except in Cantata followspots.

I wouldn't expect the busy light to come on unless you were doing a file save/load operation - it's probably connected to the same data line as on a normal floppy. The green LED is about what I'd expect with the initialisation sequence... I'm almost out of idea's not being next to the desk - how confident are you about opening a PC? If it's a relatively old PC - it might well have a Floppy connection - I'd be trying the emulator to ensure it is actually working? Sorry but that's about as far as I can manage without being next to the desk - old age and so on 😛

You're making some progress then :) Because it's a Frog - I think it would be vital to have the USB stick plugged in before you power up the desk otherwise the emulator might not initialise fully and read the MBT on the stick. The Frog "polls" the floppy drive as it boots by doing a read of track 0 sector 0 - which is how the update bootloader gets loaded for the update software but the desk doesn't then bother with the drive until you do a Load/Save Show operation. It might be that unless the emulator "knows" a stick is plugged in as it initialises it will return a "Disk not present" code when it's sent a drive operation. (This is why on PC's with "plug n play" that a drive always spins up when a disk is inserted - that's the OS getting a message that it needs to read the disk to make it ready for use). Also - check on the emulator for a keyway on the large IDC cable - if there isn't as keyed connector on the emulator (some drives don't have a connector body just the pins) - it may simply be an upside down cable.

It's a serial number to unlock channels Jon - the console serial number plays a part in the unlock (I think there was another code that had to be quoted too - the unlock was a hashed number), Strand used to have a utility for doing it & for a while after the Philips acquisition they were doing "unlimited" channel unlocks to customers. Bill Richards at Strand used to be the man but I don't know whether he's still working (at all or for Strand).

No... I actually have a stock of TDK floppy discs... "One mans rubbish is another mans gold"

It's also worth bearing in mind that the USB stick needs to be formatted in FAT32 format (NTFS likely won't be understood by the emulator) and a block size of 4096 (the most efficient block size in FAT32 with no disc management). I'm guessing that the emulator itself does the partitioning management but I still wouldn't use sticks larger than 8Mb. FWIW - I have a few floppy drives from Zero88 desks in spares stock and a small supply of new floppy discs if you want to go really retro :P

I think the answer is "Yes - you do need a flash drive plugged in" - how does the emulator know how far it can scroll on any given flash drive without having accessed the MBT on the device (which does hold the size information). In truth, the emulator probably hasn't fully initialised with no device plugged - it's down basic power up routines but can't do much else until it "sees" a device present. Think trying to access a flash drive on your computer when that flash drive isn't actually plugged in...

Mike - yeah - we had fun at CTS with them trying to control Alphapacks & Beta 2's - we were given some replacement PIC's to try but they didn't change things sadly. We were constantly told "It's the same electronics as in the SDC 6" but there was plainly an issue even when we showed our Prolight rep who came back with "But it works ok with our Transcension dimmers...". Just sloppy programming of the DMX routines in the PIC I suspect (or deliberate...)