Turn off or don't turn off

[jfguedes]

Hi,

 

Lots of computer guys say that for a longer equipment life, consoles (computers) should not be turnd off, specially if we do it for a fiew hours. This way, electronics will not suffer dilatation and compression due to temperature change and last longer.

 

All thought, this option has one problem, fans will have to be cleaned/checked more often or you can have errors due to processor overheating or even burn out the console.

 

That said, I would like to know your experience about this mater.

 

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

 

João Guedes

[timmeh2]

Hi

 

A lot of consoles that use discreet electronics are passively cooled... example being all the old Avo consoles where the only cooling fan is in the PSU.

 

Although there are different practices between different disciplines, an example is festivals where the sound people will leave their equipment on from load-in to de-rig, whereas the lighting guys tend to power-down their rigs at the end of each day.

 

All the best

Timmeh

[danjshelton]

an example is festivals where the sound people will leave their equipment on from load-in to de-rig, whereas the lighting guys tend to power-down their rigs at the end of each day.

 

Really? When ever I do outdoor stages (even in summer, sorry, especially in summer!) I always leave the rig on over night (Dimmer Racks, Moving Lights and Desks) but with the lamps in the mover's doused. This means that moisture doesn't build up on the circuitry inside our equipment and then doesn't throw a wobbly when turned on in the morning! For the sake of a few extra hours on fan's and other components it's certainly worth it.

 

As an aside, I was working on a stage this summer and the Noise boys turned off there amp's and desks, the next morning upon power up they managed to blow up 2 channels of amplifier and the PM5D was doing some very strange things (suddenly making channels VERY loud), they spent the rest of the day borrowing Floodlights and warming things up.

 

Cheers

 

Dan

[paulears]

In my venue, running very elderly, fragile dimmers bought in the seventies - they are never switched off. It's unused in the winter and failures starting from cold after being damp were spectacular. Since leaving them on, not one extra one has failed. They are STM Strands, and have been on now for 4 years.

[LXbydesign]

although my venue is modern , we dont switch anything off - except movers. Of course LX desks will be 'blacked out' and sound mixer groups etc etc muted, but thats as far as it goes.

 

Ive found in the past, when systems keep getting switched on and off every day , it does more harm than good. At least this way, the running temp of equipment remains the same and suffers no 'shocks' when suddenly asked to perform! :P

[Oovis]

There was a post on the Strand-Dev.net site from a guy who hadn't switched off his Palette console for several months and wondered why it was starting to run more and more slowly.

 

It was pointed out that the underlying Windows OS was probably the cause and he was recommended to shut the system down and restart it. All the performance he expected returned when he did.

[timmeh2]

Really? When ever I do outdoor stages (even in summer, sorry, especially in summer!) I always leave the rig on over night (Dimmer Racks, Moving Lights and Desks) but with the lamps in the mover's doused. This means that moisture doesn't build up on the circuitry inside our equipment and then doesn't throw a wobbly when turned on in the morning! For the sake of a few extra hours on fan's and other components it's certainly worth it.

 

Hi

 

Blowing cold, moist air through an idle moving head is more likely to generate condensation because you are creating an imbalance between the dew point and temperature of the air on the outside and the one inside the unit.

 

Condensation is most likely to form on the inside of metal panels and on the lenses.

 

All the best

Timmeh

[peternewman]

One thing to consider, things like capacitors in startup circuits in switch mode PSUs can fail so that the equipment will continue to operate quite happily until they are depowered, at which point it will no longer start up until the caps are replaced.

 

Which is obviously something to bear in mind if you desk lost power during the show, at which point you'd be really stumped rather than just a few minutes of blackout.

 

Obviously a UPS or similar would provide some protection.

 

We leave the vast majority of our kit on 24x7, apart from CRT monitors for fire/safety reasons, although a lot of ours doesn't have as much downtime as some theatre kit.

[oilyspark]

One thing to consider, things like capacitors in startup circuits in switch mode PSUs can fail so that the equipment will continue to operate quite happily until they are depowered

 

Yes, it's often the electrolytics that let one down. In properly engineered electronic equipment there is very little that will benefit from being left on. Historically, high performance devices such as precision oscillators needed to remain on because they were thermally stabilised and could take hours to settle. But nowadays that doesn't apply and we are specifically looking at failures rather than poor performance. For the straightforward electronics used in desks etc. I would expect the number of failures due to life expiry of short-life components when left on, to be much greater than that caused by thermal cycling in equipment that's switched off when not in use.

 

Of course, climate can play a major role. With very low ambient temps or high humidity things can start going awry unless the equipment is kept warm when off. We were using Betacam decks at -40 deg. C, which had to be kept running constantly or all sorts of parts would go crunchy within minutes. OTOH at high temps the rated life of capacitors is drastically reduced, so there is a serious life issue with leaving them on if they are subjected to near-max ratings. E.g. a standard commercial electrolytic may have a rated life of only 2000 hours (12 weeks!) at 85 deg. C, although they often far outlast this.

 

With kit like dimmers, I can't see the point of leaving them on and there can be nasty surprises. I was called to a venue where a tower of Betapacks had been left on for years working normally. They had a power cut, then when power came back many of the dimmers wouldn't revive until I changed a bunch of capacitors. It certainly shouldn't be necessary to leave an STM rack on - a few component changes should make it bomb-proof again.

 

Lucien