Chroma Q

[stevieboi]

Hi All

 

Had a bit of an issue with some chroma q scrollers last night. They are the plus model. about half way through act 2 5 of them stopped responding to any commands, and all five had a single blinking light on them. the 5 in question are on their own circuit, powered by a sp08 power supply. I tried re-plugging the DMX signal, which made no difference, and my only solution was to unplug the power supply and plug them back in. they then worked fine for the rest of the night. they are controlled by a strand 520i, however only the scroller itself is patched, not the control attribute ie fan speed, gel save etc.

 

Any Suggestions?

 

Many Thanks.

[jonathanhill]

Quick guess would be a cable or PSU fault. Had a similar fault with an old 2-part Rainbow Maxi PSU. Worked on the deck in a test condition, failed on the fly floor under show conditions. We reckon the unit had vertigo and we got another one from White Light.

[stevieboi]

forgot to say that they've been working fine all week!

[Neil Hampson]

A Flashing Red LED on a single scroller usually indicates a gel string has jammed, causing the unit to draw too much current, or as you have the error on all units a power failure of some sort, its probably either the power supply has failed in some way and is producing an undercurrent or undervoltage, or the first cable in the chain has gone bad. I am assuming that you have not used a return loop to the PSU from the last scroller...

 

Try replacing the first section of cable in the loop and use a return as well. Chroma Qs have a much higher current draw than most other scrollers of similar size so make sure you aren't overloading the PSU. I am not familiar with the PS08, but a unit designed to power 8x Rainbow 8" will only just power 4 ChromaQ M2s for example.

 

Secondly, check the gel strings are correctly tensioned and relativly free running on all of the units in question.

 

Do the units work in isolation.

 

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

 

Just looked up the PS08,

It's capable of supplying over 8 Amps at 24V, check that the solder joints in the cables are capable of carrying that sort of current. It's quite a job to get a good connection with a 2.5mmSq cable in to an XLR4, open each connector up and make sure that the connection isn't just a couple of strands of copper., don't just put a multimeter across as continuity is not the issue here.

[stevieboi]

yes I am using a return cable to the power supply from the last scroller. I will try changing the first piece of cable. as far as I know the power supply will power up to 8 units - which I have always done with no problems, so 5 shouldnt be a problem. gel strings are all fine. not easy to try all units in isolation at the moment as they are in the rig for a show, and worked fine after being re-powered.

[JohnMac]

Suggest you check your wiring, I've had a similar fault where heat from the lantern affected the insulation and partially short circuited the scroller cable. I've also had the scroller 'sulk' on its last gel refusing to respond to its' channel which was due to cable fault. Finally experience has shown the Chroma Q can be fussy with layout of its cables. I have success running 6 scrollers as a narrow loop (think of a large L, where the return wire runs back along itself). If I've created a large loop (like a large O), then I've experienced strange behaviour which I've put down to strong school wireless Wi-Fi radio signals.

 

Regards

 

John Mac.