punkn00dlez Posted March 27, 2013 Share Posted March 27, 2013 Hello Blue Room! I was researching MAC 300 problems and stumbled upon your site. You've got an amazing community!I inherited a venue back in December and as I was digging through some old gear recently, I stumbled upon some old MAC 300s. I got pretty excited (everything else at the venue is 20 LED cans and 10 SCX500s) and got started patching them into the rig. Out of the 4, 1 works flawlessly, 1 is responsive about 50% of the time, and 1 resets fine but refuses to listen to DMX (but sees it's receiving DMX). The last one resets itself and finds home cocked at a 45° angle. It lamps on with no problem, all effects and tilt work fine, but the pan is doing the strangest thing. After the successful reset at power on (minus the wonky home position), the pan will only spin the head approximately 90° overall before it seems to hit the pan stop. Does anyone have any ideas? Both the pan and tilt motors provide resistance and hold the head in place fine. They also respond as quickly as they're supposed to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smiffy Posted March 27, 2013 Share Posted March 27, 2013 As a starter for 10. 1. What do you mean by responsive 50% of the time? What causes it to stop responding? Power? data? Does the DMX Light go out when it stops responding? 2. With the unit that fails to respond to DMX, if you put the DMX board in from the flawless unit, does it then start responding? 3. With the unit with the Pan issue. Does the Pan Encoder have all of its 'cogs' present? With all of the units, open them all up, give them a good and thorough clean, making sure that all internal chips and connectors are secure. Be wary with all power supply sections as the possibility of electrical shock will exist, even after the unit is powered down. I find that with the lower end of the Mac range, a good clean often solves a myriad of problems. No doubt others more familiar than I with the 300's will be along with some more detailed trouble shooting options soon. If you have the position and a responsive management, and they are actually willing to listen, then I would perhaps send them to Dick Welland at the Lighting Hospital down Bristol way. It doesn't state where you are on your profile so I have no idea if that's a good suggestion for you or not! Good Luck Smiffy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
punkn00dlez Posted March 27, 2013 Author Share Posted March 27, 2013 Thank you for such a quick response Smiffy. I do apologize, I thought I put in my location information. I'm actually in the US. My venue is a US Air Force managed, US Navy bar (go figure huh?), so while my management is responsive, my government is not. We're directly affected by US Congress' lack of work ethic, therefore the budget cuts due to partisan quarreling are taking it's toll on us (and we're supposed to be there to give the troops a safe place to have fun!) so light repair is totally out of the budget. Unfortunately, if I can't do it myself, they'll have to go back into the closet. I'll be stepping off my soapbox now...... 1. It's seems to be responsive to DMX 50% of the time; power is solid on the unit. Sometimes I can get it to move and color scroll for a good 10 minutes but if I stop the light, it may or may not want to respond after that. Other times after reset, it'll find home and the DMX light is illuminated, but it doesn't respond at all. The DMX connection feels a little loose at the cable, but I can't wiggle it enough to get the DMX light to blink. When it stops responding, the DMX light stays lit. A cable swap didn't fix the issue either (but boy did I hope it was something that simple). 2. I've never opened up one of the bases before, but I'm assuming it's a lot like a computer inside of there so I'm pretty sure I can figure out enough (I'm a system administrator at my day job) to replace the DMX board. I don't have a spare, but I can remove the DMX board from the MAC that responds intermittently. Would the DMX board be the one the DMX in/out connectors are soldered to or does it pass through to another PCB? 3. I wish I could answer this one, but you spoke Greek to me. Once I open up the 300, where would I look to find out the answer to this?EDIT: I still don't understand what you asked in question 3, but I was going throught the MAC 300 manual and saw something about min and max pan setting in the LCD menu. Could it be as simple as someone messing with the settings? Is there a quick was to restore factory defaults to rule this out? I've only got the 4 MAC 300s, 2 of which are usable (if you count the one with the pan problem) right now. These lights were written off as junk a long time ago, but I'd like to see them working and mounted again if at all possible. Even if I could just have 2 working fully (so I can pick parts from the others), I'd be happy enough. I hope I gave you enough information to work with. Please let me know if you need anything else to help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stuart.thompson Posted March 27, 2013 Share Posted March 27, 2013 Hi, 1) Does is flash anything on the screen after the DMX stops responding like "HOT" or "LEER" 2)Its not that similer to a computer in the base unfortunatly. The DMX is controlled on the main PCB with everything else. This is located behind one of the arm covers on the yoke. A Blue Red and Black cable joins the DMX socket the the main PCB. 3)The opto encoder wheels is in the base on top of the motor the drives the pan. Its normally white and has teeth on it. if any teeth are missing then is can cause the pan to reset off centre as it cant calculate the correct amout of travel to take during the reset. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
punkn00dlez Posted March 27, 2013 Author Share Posted March 27, 2013 Thanks for responding Stuart.1. I don't remember completely, but LERR rings a bell. Maybe I'll replace the lamp and see what happens. Could cooling problems cause this as well?2. Why would they put the main PCB on the yoke? It seems to me the bottom of the fixture makes more sense. But then again I don't design fixtures. Are the arm covers easy enough to come off? Do they come off like the head covers?3. So this would enable a successful reset (full pan and tilt) but confuse it as to where home is? What about the 90° of motion after it's found "home"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stuart.thompson Posted March 27, 2013 Share Posted March 27, 2013 Hi 1) If it saying LERR then it is getting a lamp error and freezing pan and tilt, this is why you appear to lose DMX if its after 10 mins then it could be a cooling issue, either a fan not working or blocked with dust in the head or the thermal switch on the lamp circuit is defective. 2) PCB is in the yoke because of a few reasons.... the base is full with motors, ballast and trasformers, no room for it.also the yoke is central to the base and head so wiring is only going a short distence instead of all the way from base to head, makes it easier if you have to replace wires. Arm coverss are held on with two posidrive screws, 10 second job to remove 3) A pan encoder wheel with teeth missing will let the unit reset with no errors but the reset will be off centre, becasue the fixture is off centre when you pan it it will hit and end stop bacause its not calibrated correctly. Basiclly when it resets it counts the number of teeth that pass through a sensor to determain if it has reached the home position or not, if teeth are missing then it will travel further and over rotate on reset. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
punkn00dlez Posted March 27, 2013 Author Share Posted March 27, 2013 I'll make sure I have a look inside when I get there on Friday for a glow party. I'll dismantle all of the covering and bring a vacuum along with me! Your explanation of the PCB placement makes total sense to me. Thank you! And now I understand why the fixture would run through everything fine but still incorrectly find home. Thank you very much. Do you happen to know if there's some sort of master config reset for the fixtures? If it's not the pan encoder wheel, I'd like to rule out any fixture "hard" config issues. If it is the pan encoder wheel, do have any idea what the replacement part would cost or where I can find one? I know the 300s have been discontinued FOREVER now, so I'm guessing parts are difficult to find. Would Martin sell them to me if I'm not an authorized tech? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stuart.thompson Posted March 27, 2013 Share Posted March 27, 2013 These opto encoder wheels are universal in all martin fixtures - even though the fixture is discontinued the part is still used in new martin fixtures so you will be able to buy it. Im not sure on USA prices but maybe around $10......you'll have to contact a lighting supplier who will be able to help you with the parts. There is a master reset on them via the DFSE menu but it wont cure the problem you're experiansing, if your unit is reseting with no errors and the pan is 45 degrees out im 95% sure it'll be a opto encoder wheel with missing teeth, if its a really old fixture the opto encoder wheel may be siliconed on instead of screwed on and the silicone may of come loose letting the opto wheel run freely on the motor. that can cause similer issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
punkn00dlez Posted March 27, 2013 Author Share Posted March 27, 2013 It's nice to see they're universal. Thank you for your advice, you've given me exactly what to look for when I open them up. I certainly wouldn't have had any idea what I was doing had I opened them up prior to speaking with you. I've only been a lighting guy for about a year, part-time at that, but I absolutely love it and I can't learn enough. And my bad on the price question, I completely forgot this forum was based in the UK. I wasn't thinking the master reset would fix the problem by itself - I'm sure it's a physical problem with the device. I really just want to start from out-of-the-box config on these lights if you know what I mean. The guy who had control of the rig before didn't take care of them at all ("Yeah, I'll get to it" type of guy) and he thinks he's a genius. I don't really want his "genius" in my lights anymore, if there was any to begin with. I'd like to keep this post marked as unsolved for a few days. The earliest I can get out to the venue is Friday afternoon and I'll start stripping the bad-opto-wheel fixture apart. Once I get in it (and I'm sure confirm your suspicions), I'll come back and post my findings as well as marked the issue as solved. Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyro_gearloose Posted March 27, 2013 Share Posted March 27, 2013 I think its extremely unlikely that the encoder wheel is missing any teeth. Its far more likely that the optical sensor has got some fluff on the detector. Or it could be the current sensing resistors on the drive chip malfunctioning. When they die the motor driver chip will limit the current to the motor, and this reduces the torque of the motor. This in turn means that the motor doesn't have enough power to move the head, leading to lost steps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
punkn00dlez Posted March 27, 2013 Author Share Posted March 27, 2013 Gyro, why would it have no issues panning and tilting during it's POST then? If there's not enough torque to pan the fixture, wouldn't that problem bleed over during it's self-test? Sorry if I'm asking dumb questions, I'm truly learning this as I go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stuart.thompson Posted March 28, 2013 Share Posted March 28, 2013 I think its extremely unlikely that the encoder wheel is missing any teeth. Its far more likely that the optical sensor has got some fluff on the detector. Or it could be the current sensing resistors on the drive chip malfunctioning. When they die the motor driver chip will limit the current to the motor, and this reduces the torque of the motor. This in turn means that the motor doesn't have enough power to move the head, leading to lost steps. If this was happening then the unit would be displaying a feedback error on the Pan - If no error is being shown on the display its more likely to be a opto wheel with missing teeth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Allen Posted March 28, 2013 Share Posted March 28, 2013 Have a look at the DMX in/out canon connectors, they are soldered onto a pcb and they can develop dry joints depending on how often they have had plugs inserted and removed. Look for a very tiny gap or crack in the solder around the edge of the canon socket pins. Bit like a volcano rim. dry solder joint Dry joints can cause intermittent loss of DMX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Lee Posted March 28, 2013 Share Posted March 28, 2013 with reference to the Pan problem - have you reset the calibration just in case somebody has been messing about with it? manual - look under fixture settings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashley R Posted March 28, 2013 Share Posted March 28, 2013 On your third mac300 that does not listen to DMX they listen to both Martin and DMX protocol. Just ensure that you have inset to listen to DMX, and at the right DMX address. And not Martin protocol. It's in the manual, I don't remember off the top of my head how to check Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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