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Wildfire Effects Master


Smiffy

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Hi Guys:

 

A weird one, although I should preface this with the fact that in one attraction, we have already had to rewire the DMX in one Scene, I'm fairly sure that this is a DMX Cabling and termination issue.

 

Currently working on a Theme Park project that has hundreds of Wildfire lanterns about the place, and in a few scenes we have Wildfire Effects Master Fluorescent Tubes, as well as a few Long Throw units.

 

On power up with the Start Of Day Q, the fixtures flicker, chase and strobe for a while, and when cued in by the ride for their scene to come up, they sometimes work, they sometimes don't, or they occasionally flicker to life in something closely resembling a lamp chase, just as the ride vehicle has gone past them (this particular ride is similar to Spider Man 4D at Universal IOA in Florida) the cars are heavy and fast, although very little vibration crosses the floor as they scream past you.

 

So, I'm thinking that this is probably a cabling issue, as the install company have achieved the worst install job that I've seen in 15 years, and the units appear to be fine when driven from a Microscope II. I was just wondering if anyone had any experience of the units I mention and whether they had any thoughts before I break the bad news to the Parks Maintenance Director to tell him he's shutting it down for a rewire for a few days.

 

Cheers

 

Smiffy

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Is control local to the rides or does it come from a central playback system?

 

My first thought was "earthing". Yes, we all know that DMX doesn't need an earth reference signal 'cos it's balanced but if the common mode volateg was being exceeded then it'll all fall apart pretty quickly.

 

My second though, along similar lines, was "interference". I'm guessing that the rides have some fairly powerful electric motors to power them. Power spikes and/or coupling into the DMX lines could easily cause false break detection by any DMX receivers which cheat.

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Thanks guys.

 

had the techs look at things and seems that a wide and varied set of DMX Cables / Mic Cables have been used with varying impedances. Soldering is of roughly the standard of a 2 year old house brick. And the connectors used are the cheapest known to man. No terminators in anything (despite what it said on the drawings).

 

@ David - There was a bit of flicker in the data, which obviously wasn't helping, but looks like its a combination of lots of issues.

 

@Brian - Control is local to each attraction, with a Fibre Optic backbone around the park that enables a master console to log into each ride to troubleshoot / reset / start the system up / shut it down, etc

 

Earthing, and the integrity of the Power install all appears good, although your shielding comment prompted some further inspection that lead to most of the wiring standards used by the installer to be brought into question. Looks like we are getting a lot of shorts to the connector chassis with the shield :|

 

Thanks for the help guys. Looks like this is going to be a costly fix. But hey, NMP ;) If they had employed contractors that knew what they were doing in the first place, then we wouldn't be having to do it all again.

 

Cheers

 

Smiffy

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You said it.

 

Looks like every ride across the whole park is going to need to be revisited by some pretty clued up and competent solderers. I don't envy them. It's a big park! :)

 

Cheers

 

Smiffy

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