IRW

3rd Tranche of SEIS grant needs to be applied for now.

But still nothing to help those of us who slipped through the cracks the first (and second) time round....

Looks like I'm going to be driving my Tesco's van for a while longer yet.

I've tried to find products on their www to no avail. Their www defeated me. The advantage of their stores was being able to shop at three stores within my usual patch at work, and being able to buy things between six and seven pm.

And if course you'd have the fun of trying to get round all three of those stores between 6 and 7pm to pick up the XLR from one, the wire from another, and the solder from the third...!

I fear the mods if I write more as we're not talking about anything to do with stage stuff, even tenuously, now!

To be fair, there's very little else of great interest going on around here at the moment, for obvious reasons...With all the wonderful insights from those of you who actually understand what you're talking about, I think this must surely qualify for 'most interesting thread of 2020', even if I say so myself!

The great thing about aperture synthesis using interferometry...

:blink:

Weeks after the announcement that the Arecibo radio telescope would be dismantled due to failure of two of the SWR lines holding the central platform up, it came down of it's own accord the other day- amazingly they had a drone up for an inspection flight, looking directly at the point of failure as it happened. Seems it was prudent not to 'get a man in' to go up and inspect!

Anyone got a PDF version of the old GeniusPro v2.8.5 user manual that they wouldn't mind sharing with me? I'm about to unload an old 520i onto a local school, and it would be great if they can have a manual to go with it - I thought I had one kicking around on my hard drive somewhere from years ago, but I'm struggling to find it...

Emailed :)

Bananas was a fairly common name for the P263/4's.

I always thought the 263/264's were known as 'hairdryers' due to their shape? Am I confusing them with something else?

Has anyone ever tried or seen the idea of running video (on a monitor or rear projection) behind a painted gauze?

 

I'm thinking of trying a Jacob Marley scene with the door painted on gauze and the face appearing in the door, saying its lines.

 

Do we think this will work or should I go back to the drawing board?

For the Exorcist tour we had a black gauze in front of a BP screen, which formed the rear wall of the bedroom, and worked pretty well. Note that it was framed all around by hard set pieces though, to keep both the screen and the gauze taught.

One thing to bear in mind is the sightlines...In one venue, I was opping from pretty high up in the auditorium, and I thought the projector was on the blink, as the imagery looked a lot darker than it had been in previous venues...turned out it was due to the steep angle I was looking at the stage from (therefore the 'gaps' in the gauze were smaller), as when I went down to the lower levels, it was fine! Kind of the opposite of the principal that applies when lighting a transformation gauze!

It's not something that I've particularly dug into, but, as someone who finds LED stage lamps extremely uncomfortable to look into, I do wonder if 'home-brew' LED conversions like this are particularly safe, from an optical safety/optical radiation point of view? The light sources themselves may be 'fine' as manufactured, but does this still stand when putting them behind various lens systems without the sort of testing that say, a Mac Encore, will have been through?

I've only quickly glanced through it, but this document seems to give a little bit of food for thought. Maybe @BigClive would be able to shed some light (boom boom!) on the subject if he swings by?

Had a quick look at a few datasheet schematics for some controller ICs, just for interest really, and to understand the backlight circuit a bit better. Would be interested to know the chip number.

If you're referring to U302, it says:

UTC PJT3

TL494L

01

Had to get the magnifying glass out for that one. No idea what U301 and U303 say on them though- it's far too faint!

Here's another, better picture of the darkend area- I thought I'd mentioned this bit in the OP, but it would seem I didn't!

http://www.irwdesign.com/br/t2250mts/IMG_0550.JPG

The mess around JR309 looks to me just like a bit of stray flux. R331 is the one that's pretty central to the darkened area. There is also absolutely nothing else in the vicinity of this board, so if something's heating up, it's something in this picture! The diodes look a bit dicky, but I'd dismissed that as pretty much all the diodes on both boards look similar. Popping a meter across them gives (various) readings only in one direction.

Zippo/swan lighter fuel is pretty good for this sort of thing.Just don't smoke when using it

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*kaboom!*

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"You're only supposed to wipe the bloody labels off...!"

So my Strand 300 has been sat out on a corner of my desk for the last year or so, since I was last playing with connecting fader wings up to a computer. As part of a bit of desktop redevelopment that I'm currently doing, I decided the time has come to put it back into hibernation in it's flightcase, but thought I'd check the motherboard battery before it goes away for the next X months/years...

Caught just in time methinks!

 

With a very sharp pair of side cutters, cut out the battery, leaving as much of the pins visible above the PCB.

 

If there are any chemical deposits on the PCB, carefully wipe off with a damp cloth.

 

Very carefully solder wires about 15cm long to the pins and to a new battery

 

Put the new battery in a small plastic bag and tie to a suitable strong point on the wall of the metal box.

 

Problem solved.

 

I have done this to the four 300 Series that I own!!!!

 

Good Luck, Alan.

Thanks Alan, not the first time I've had to do deal with this though (albeit first time for this particular processor, no idea why I didn't do it when I got this one!), but good reference for anyone else who comes across this! ;)

Edited to add:

Zero88 Demux owners, this means you as well!

So my Strand 300 has been sat out on a corner of my desk for the last year or so, since I was last playing with connecting fader wings up to a computer. As part of a bit of desktop redevelopment that I'm currently doing, I decided the time has come to put it back into hibernation in it's flightcase, but thought I'd check the motherboard battery before it goes away for the next X months/years...http://www.irwdesign.com/br/IMG_1286.JPG

Caught just in time methinks!

I've found a pretty similar looking (but slightly different model) power board designed for a 23" Acer screen on ebay for a tenner, so I've got that on order now as a final thing to try! If that doesn't work, then I may just try and get creative with some LED tape...

 

These things tend to do the rounds between different makers so it's possible to get something if only you can work out what it is. The only issue I've had with certain parts is that you can get them OK, but only buy them by the 1000 on Aliexpress. A replacement transformer itself no doubt exists too, it's just finding it. On occasion with less common windings and forms, I have had to resort to finding the right spec transformer and drilling/jumpering it onto the PCB.

 

If nothing comes from it, at least you have a donor unit to keep your working one going. It may involve finding room in the case for 2 half-working transformers..... :)

Yup- I've actually got four of them- three tend to live permanently attached to the computer at home, and the 4th is a bit more nomadic (see what I did there?!), occasionally joined on jobs by one from the computer. I got them all second hand a couple of years ago now, and given I've now had a bit of gyp from two of them, I'm rather expecting the others to get upset at some point in the future, hence my preference for knowing how to fix them!

Out of interest, if, on this board I've ordered, the windings are slightly different, what would the outcome be? I assume they're made to correlate somehow to the size of the CCFL connected to them, so guess the tubes would either run dimly, too hot, or not at all?

Disconnect C318 and look at anything else across D and re measure. 99 times out of 100, it's not the winding. Could be a dry joint AND a leaky cap, for example. If the winding has become a fuse, that would be really quite boring as getting hold of these things isn't easy.

 

The circuit probably won't miss C318 for testing, if found faulty.

Thanks for the help with this- I actually took the winding assembly off the board this morning, and measured it again, but still got the same results away from the board :/. Starting to look like this might be a bit of a lost cause I feel- still, at least I got one of the screens up and running again! I've found a pretty similar looking (but slightly different model) power board designed for a 23" Acer screen on ebay for a tenner, so I've got that on order now as a final thing to try! If that doesn't work, then I may just try and get creative with some LED tape...

Well, at least a backlight problem narrows it down quite a lot and away from more esoteric problems. From the description, you have ruled out every part of the screen assembly including the backlight strips themselves as being OK? Sometimes a short in the back light strips can cause a protective shut down in the PSU. But as I understand it, this is already discounted.

Correct

It may be a SMD sized problem. (C302 looks oddly dark, but it's probably the photo)

Very well observed. It does indeed look a little unwell in comparison to it's friends. Doing an in-situe resistance test across it results in the same value as it's working cousin though (over limit).

That looks like a mains supplied switch mode power supply combined with an inverter for a fluorescent lamp backlight - in this case 2 tubes. From your description, it is the backlight inverter that is at fault. The transformer for this inverter is the lump that has the 'QC OK' sticker on it in the last photo. The inverter produces a very high voltage to strike the lamps on no load, with a much lower voltage to run the lamps at a few mA. If it is easy to do so, have a look at the lamps - if the ends are blackened due to wear, they're probably end of life, in which case I'd consider scrapping the monitor. The lamps used are likely to be custom made for the manufacturer and replacements unobtainable. Another symptom of end of life backlight fluorescent lamps is they have a pinkish orange tint to the light instead of a brilliant bluish white.Peter

 

Already done, and no, it wasn't particularly easy to do! From all the common 'LCD monitor flashing fix' videos on youtube, checking the connections at the tube end was stage 2 after checking the capacitors!

IIRC, there is a slight pinkish tinge to one of the lamps (I can't remember if it was the top or bottom one without running it up again, but as I previously mentioned, both LCD/backlight assemblies of monitors 1 & 2 illuminate (and stay illuminated) from the power supply board from monitor 1, so even if they are on their way out, I'm not convinced that's the problem at hand. The screen that is currently the problematic would live in a bag most of the time anyway, so whatever life I can eke out of it is a bonus, especially given that I'd prefer not to have to replace it in the current climate!

DEVELOPMENT:Having poked around a little bit with the multimeter, when metering across what I assume to be the transformer coils, pairs A, B and C all meter out at 0 ohms, however pair D meters out at 564K on the faulty board. On the good board, all pairs meter out at 0. Follow up question here I suppose is is this likely to be a custom winding tailored to the board/backlight, or am I likely to find one somewhere? Throwing the code on the top of it (LCWJ19S) doesn't seem to bring anything sensible up on google.http://www.irwdesign.com/br/t2250mts/IMG_1282c.jpg

Have you metered the low voltages on all the output side of the PSU? Usually, connected to any other main boards if there is one as some parts of a PSU can be controlled by a chip on another board. (usual caveat about >300VDC knocking around the place, at the mains side and also the inverter). This one looks quite simple, but worth checking to see if some of it isn't meant to kick into life based on something somewhere else.

 

When you say powers on for a short while, is it just that an indicator comes on and looks hopeful for some while? Or does the screen actually do its job?

 

After seeing what output voltages are working, I usually check the supply rails to any chips that seem important. The bonus of a working screen is being able to take comparative measurements, voltage, R, or even volt drop in diode test mode.

I've not really metered anything, as I'm not entirely sure what to look for! Good point about comparing values to the other one, although I'm rather wary of poking about in the wrong place and releasing the magic smoke from the working on! There is an extra board with the control switches on, but for the purposes of testing, I've essentially had everything connected (doesn't turn on at all without the power button to press!)

When I say it powers on, it effectively does what it's supposed to for about a second or so, in that I can see my computer desktop. After that second, the display goes dark, but by using a torch, I can see that the LCD itself is still functional, so it's just definitely just the backlight that's going off (both top and bottom sets of tubes). The status LED on the board with the switches stays blue, which in this particular screen means it's got a valid signal, and should be showing something. (If the computer goes to standby, the LED goes orange, if you turn the monitor off with it's power button, the LED goes off.

Hey folks, one for the electronics boffins!

I've got a small collection of Iiyama Prolite T2250MTS for my main desktop computer and to take 'on the road' with me to use with Nomad. A little while back, one of them went faulty, by way of it's backlight going off after a while, and recently a second one developed a similar fault. Now I've had them both apart, and replaced all the main capacitors on the PSU boards, which seems to have given me one working unit again, but I'm still having trouble with the second turning on briefly, then going off after a second or two. The status LED stays blue, so it knows there is still a signal there, as opposed to going orange when there is no signal.

I've tried swapping the LCD panels, and I know they're both good as they both work fine on the PSU board that is behaving, so it definitely seems to be something PSU related- Does anyone have any suggestions as to where to look after the 7 main capacitors? It looks like part of the board may have got a bit warm at some point (top left in the picture of the PCB from the top), but the other board has a similar mark, and nothing looks visually particularly untoward on the other side of the board.

Here are a few pics to help things along:http://www.irwdesign.com/br/t2250mts/IMG_1280.JPG

http://www.irwdesign.com/br/t2250mts/IMG_1281.JPG

http://www.irwdesign.com/br/t2250mts/IMG_1282b.jpg

http://www.irwdesign.com/br/t2250mts/IMG_1283b.jpg

I was going to order a gobo to stick in one of the profiles I've got in my garage, but it seems it's only available as a glass one, or so the price implies :(

http://www.goboplus....vents-gobo.html

Light It In Red, however, seems to be available in both glass and metal.

I used to work there about *cough* years ago. The Stage Right wing is...not large. ;)

IIRC, neither is the SL wing! Here's the show that I was working on:

For anyone wondering, yes we did have a live band with full brass section...they were distributed across both sides of the top balconey!

Anyone got a cad plan or key dimensions data for city varieties - no one answering on the tech emails at the moment and just need to check some key dimensions.

Hey Tom, I have a tech spec dated Feb 2014, and a PDF with some potentially useful data on it (groundplan of a set for a show I was working on) with some basic dims that you could cross reference with the tech spec. Let me know your email address and I'll ping it over.

Are these what I think they are? ie Patt 123 reflector/lampholder brackets?...

 

 

...having a workshop tidy and found them in a box labelled 'Strand Spares'.

I've just had a look at one of mine in the garage- without pulling it apart, it certainly looks like it!

Hi,

 

Bit of random questions.

 

A few months ago a saw a website that was a tutorial for being a HOD LX/Lighting Assistant. It had an interesting link to a piece of software that allowed you to record a performance and track cue and add notes...

 

Anybody got a clue of what that software is called?

 

Thanks

Sounds like Sam Smallman's Stamp

...snip...

- I decided that if I approached from the rear, I could pop them in for her, with acceptable risk, and with santised hands before and after, this amount of touching contact was acceptable.

...snip...