Mac 500 problems

[gyro_gearloose]

Hi

 

we've hired 4 Mac 500s for our panto this year. They've been up and in use for a few weeks now and have worked perfectly for most of the time. However, a few days ago one of them stopped responding to DMX. It was still getting power and the lamp stayed on, but it just wouldn't move! Switching it off and on solved the problem for a few days, but today all four Macs stopped at the same time. Again the lamps remained on but they wouldn't respond to DMX at all. Powering them all off and on again solved the problem for an hour, but they had stopped responding again by the end of the show.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions as to the cause of this problem? I am using MagicQ on my laptop to control just the Macs, but I don't think the software, DMX interface, or cabling is at fault because the Macs started working again after they were powered off and on. While that was happening nothing else was changed. We do have a spare unit we could swap if we have to, but I'd rather not go through the hassle of doing that unless I know it will solve the problem. I simply don't have the time.

[Nick LX]

Have you got a terminator at the end of the line? Could be a faulty cable as well. Check them all!

 

HTH

[themadhippy]

were the units still showing they were receiving DMX when they locked up?

why not try em on that lovley adb for a few hours to prove it aint a laptop/interface problem , if all else failsyou could get slim in to fix them

[TIII]

did they throw up any error messages? close their shutters?

[gyro_gearloose]

They didn't throw up any error messages, but they did close their shutters. I thought that if they overheated they just shut the lamps off? Doesn't matter now though as the problem appears to be solved! I swapped out the unit that first started having problems and changed the DMX cable between the first two units. I also found that the DMX input socket on the first unit in the chain does not lock, so the cable could work loose over time. Plenty of LX tape nw holds the cable in place!