Mac500 CW2 problem

[wayneb07]

HI, new to this forum and really need some help.

At work we have 4X Mac500`s, there have been a few problems that I fixed except for 2 of them the colour wheel 2 stepper motor does not move at the startup or on a reset, so these 2 lights can end up in any coluor after startup or a reset. Once going you can rotate CW2 to the right place and the light will operate normally. On the working lights both CW`s move after a reset or startup untill the magnet gets to the sensor. on the bad lights only CW1 moves. I have swapped the motor cables around and I can get CW2 to spin but not Cw1. I then get a cw1 error message displayed. The lights have never shown an message for CW2. Both lights seem to bypass the CW2 calibration on startup.

 

Is there some setting I cant see in SPEC

 

Any help would be appreciated

 

Wayne

[ceecrb1]

the one which you can rotate, I would say look at the indexing circuit first...

I'm guessing its a magnettic HAL sensor, is it working and is the magnet there..

swap the wee sensor circuit board from another working mac to test it..

 

also swap the motor driver chips to see if one of these has blown..

 

point test all the sensor and motor cables for shorts/open circuits from start to finnish.

edit: IE from motherboard to sensor /motor

 

 

Do the motors offer ANY resistance when you turn the colour wheels by hand?

if there is none, then there is no electricity reaching the motors

 

a little resistance would indicate again an indexing problem..

(ie the motor is recieving power but no signal to tell it where to be)

 

trying to resist you manipulating it is normal working condition.

(again try a working one for comparison)

No movement at all could be a seived motor (I've only seen this once tho and it was resolved by removing it, a GOOD soaking spray of WD40 and a few mins of turning it by hand to free it up)

 

 

Basically keep prodding at it... use the working ones to help you, just keep swapping things.

if you've found you've swapped everything you can and you are sure all cables work, it will probably be the motherboard, which again you can swap one from a working lamp to test..

if it is the motheboard, send it off (without the rest of hte fixture to save on postage!) to martin for repair!

 

(trust me theyre not fun to faultfind!!)

[WolvesAndi]

There is a setting in the menu that makes it use just one colour wheel, I'm not sure of the name but it was for the American market, they wasnt allowed to use to color wheels as varilite have the patent for color mixing.

 

I'll have a look in my manual and let you know. It might be called a NT, but I've probably made that up, but I know you can acess it from menu.

[wayneb07]

I have swaped the cw1 and cw2 chips around and it made no difference. I have replaced the sensor with one from a good light and that made no difference. the wiring seems ok with a multimeter from the board upto the sensor. CW2 works fine except there is no indexing. the motor responds accuratly. to use these 2 lights you have to open them up while going and manually wind the cW2 into correct position ( there is tension there and the motor is working fine) they will then operate normally until a reset or at next start up

[ceecrb1]

This to me all indicates there is an indexing problem

 

I cant comment on the menu functions of this lamp from my head so cant add to that....

 

NExt stage to me is go through the lamp menus with a working one and set everything exactly as the working one has.

if it isnt a menu issue try to swap motheboard with a working one...

(should just take a few mins, dont be scared to use a fine markerpen to mark connectors and "patronise yourself" so your shure everything goes back where you started)

 

so if its not the menu, and the motherboard swap fixes it, post it off to martin..

 

if swapping motherboard does not fix it.. the problem is definately in the sensor cables/cuircuitry

 

Edit: had a wee read of the manual... cant see anything in the menus relating to colour wheels. only an option to restet to default options

EDIT OF EDIT:

Helps if I read the 500 manual and not hte 250!!

ok yeah in the option under spec is EFFB which enables/dissables the sensor circuits, but this is colour wheels, gobo wheels and gobo rotate too... not just colour wheels!

There are also options to reset the calibrations and personality settings that might be worth looking into

[wayneb07]

I swapped motherboards and the the problem moved to the other light. the problem is on the board, a setting or maybe software.

Can new software be uploaded to a mac500

[ceecrb1]

I swapped motherboards and the the problem moved to the other light. the problem is on the board, a setting or maybe software.

Can new software be uploaded to a mac500

 

ok its motherboard then..

 

you can try uploading the firmware onto it if you like,

sounds to me more like somethings blown on the board though..

 

uploading a firmware is done using a box called an.. (oh god brain gone dead... someone correct me if my brainfart was a badn) MP2 machine.. from the way you are talking I'd guess you aint got one...

 

I had a mac 2k performance with some things on board blown and it wasnt too easy to find the knackered chips.

I was lucky though as we had "used" board in the workshop so was able to borrow parts ...

 

if its the same as a 2k board, another which blew for me (and gave the same outcome) was a line of 3 miniature resistors just "inside" of the driver chip.. they had shorted.

you can point test components around the colour wheel driver chip and compare with other components for other drivers

these should be really easily bought from RS if its them..

 

 

or more easily... pack it off to martin

[wayneb07]

I will give our martin dealer a call. they loaned us the uploader for our 250`s not so long ago. but I doubt I will need it. Im starting to think that they have had a power surge go through them.

At first I thought it weird that we have 2 with the same problem and 2 good 500`s, but as we usually run 2 on each power circuit, I am guessing that a surge has damaged the cw2 circuitry on both boards.

 

 

thankyou for your all your help, I will start proding around the board and see what I can find

 

Cheers Wayne

[ceecrb1]

Glad to help

 

let us know the outcome

[Matt Cowles]

Its sounds to me like the fixture is in SP mode, this disables the second colour wheel. Go to the SPEC menu and scroll to SPmd and change it to off. This should solve your problem. This is why the issue followed when you swapped PCB's, there is nothing wrong with your PCB so please don't go and buy a replacement, you don't need one

[ceecrb1]

This is why I suggested the default settings and/or set everything as is in a "working" mac..

 

Wayne did you try this??

 

plus you dont buy new motherboards, you send it back to martin and they repair it.

(here in spain they instantly send you a "2nd hand" working one from replacement stock and yours is repaired and put into replacement stock for a later day, but not sure about UK martin)

[Matt Cowles]

Yes it is the same here

[wayneb07]

I must have missed the smpd setting when I was comparing menu`s. problem solved

 

Thanks heaps

 

Wayne

[ceecrb1]

very good

 

good thing is future searchers have the "guide" I've written to problem solving effects of a mac.