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Mis Behaving MiniMac


ChazHS

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Posted

Hi guys,

 

Got a pair of MiniMacs which have been in my hire dept for a long time and not really used, just got one out to have a play with it the other day and found an interesting problem!

 

Basically, there is a tilt malfunction of some kind, it's not the belt or the motor as I have checked the tightness of the belt and swapped the motor with a new one just to be sure. The head seems to 'slip' from it's position, its very juddery all the time when it is turning but most of the time it just dosen't work.

 

Now normally when the motors are working if you push against them you can feel the motor pushing back, on this nothing happens, you can feel no resistance and the head tilts freely. But once reset the motor goes back to juddering!

 

Possibly a PCB issue?

 

Cheers for any help.

Posted

Magnetic tilt and tilt opto sensor fault!

 

They are common faults on movers, usaly the pan that goes though.

 

The pan or tilt (depending on which is bust) will try to over calibate, and stutter when the stopper is reached, sometimes they just need cleaning or making a better contact on the magnetic sensor (work like magnetic window or door contacts on a household alarm).

 

The opto sensor is located on the main drive to the axle, (there maybe two, one either side), the sensor reads slots on the drive wheel and counts the spaces to calculate the exact possition of the head, its also responsible for the auto correction.

 

smoke fluid is the main reason for breakdown.

 

hope that helps

 

vince

Posted

I thought that was the problem with these two, turns out it was the bearings! The MiniMac's motors are surprisingly weak it seems, if the bearings arnt just right they missbehave. I've had previous ones with the sensor fault so thanks for the help, much appricated!

 

Just so everyone knows for future referance, check the bearings are greased up, especially on one arm movers!

Posted

I'm 99% sure that the MiniMac doesn't have feedback sensors for pan/tilt

 

edit: no, according to this PCB diagram I'm getting confused,

 

mods: can you delete this garbage I'm spewing? thanks

Posted
It has a one way one so it knows when its reached the bottom of its pan and bottom of its tilt, thats why they can't self right until they hit 0 and 0 on DMX.
Posted

that was it!!!

 

it doesn't have continuous feedback, just dead-stop, I knew there was a reason why it wasn't a sensor that was causing it

Posted
Yeah, it sucks. :P ** laughs out loud **. Wish I'd gone for some Robe 170ATs, remote focus too!

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