sleah Posted December 12, 2013 Share Posted December 12, 2013 Surely the compromise with movers is to power the lamp off but leave the rest on? A great feature of my two 'disco' movers is that if they loose DMX after 'so' long they power the lamp down. That can of course only be done with halogen and LED....My Martin 812 scanners (HTI150) can have the lamps powered down by a particular DMX combination (3 channels sending different levels that aren't used for anything else), don't all scanners/movers have a similar function?It would seem rather odd that cheap disco grade kit could but top-end kit couldn't??? I have limited experience with anything else servo-wise, hence not knowing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark_s Posted December 12, 2013 Share Posted December 12, 2013 A great feature of my two 'disco' movers is that if they loose DMX after 'so' long they power the lamp down. That can of course only be done with halogen and LED.... Having your entire rig lamp off if there's a data problem sounds less than ideal. I've had it happen before with some cheaper Chinese movers - the desk played up just after the house (well, tent) opened, and by the time we got it to start behaving the rig had lamped off and refused to restrike for a while. Cue delayed show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleah Posted December 12, 2013 Share Posted December 12, 2013 A great feature of my two 'disco' movers is that if they loose DMX after 'so' long they power the lamp down. That can of course only be done with halogen and LED.... Having your entire rig lamp off if there's a data problem sounds less than ideal. I've had it happen before with some cheaper Chinese movers - the desk played up just after the house (well, tent) opened, and by the time we got it to start behaving the rig had lamped off and refused to restrike for a while. Cue delayed show. Ah yes, valid point.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig A Posted December 13, 2013 Share Posted December 13, 2013 Every night before I leave I switch all fixtures inc. movers, amps, desks etc except dimmer packs OFF and all ON in the morning, 6 days a week on average for the last 8-9 months and experienced next to no problems. We have some fairly new equipment and also some that's older than me! I'm not saying that leaving everything on is bad, just putting in my 2 cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigclive Posted December 13, 2013 Share Posted December 13, 2013 Apart from making sure all lamps were doused in intelligent fixtures, the other significant power wastage could come from dimmers sitting overnight with their outputs on preheat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Pearce Posted December 13, 2013 Share Posted December 13, 2013 Which is why I put my preheat on the desk patch rather than the dimmers. When the desk goes off so does the preheat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinE Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 I dont like to see things left permanently on. Fans draw in muck, electrolytic capacitors dry out, resistors can go open circuit. Dimmers left dimmed down but otherwise powered are a favourite for the latter two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itiba Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 I have known desks to do a little 'hiccup' down the data line when turning off and have had lights come on at odd values but I'm guessing that's not too much of a problem as it would have been mentioned - in fact that was just one venue so maybe a problem there? I personally do turn as much as possible off when leaving for the night, there was a discussion between moving light techs on a show I worked on last year about the optimal home position for a Mac 2k in terms of where the belts and motors for pan and tilt would be at their least 'strained' for hours at a time...can't remember the outcome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OllieDuff Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 In both of the venues where I work regularly, we power off the dimmers when we lock up. The logic from the management is that the rig is the most likely source of fire in the venue, so the dimmers are powered off when they're not in use. However, one of the venues keeps the amplifiers on 24/7 so that paging is always available. I guess every venue will have different priorities dependent on their own setup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart91 Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 I dont like to see things left permanently on. Fans draw in muck, Surely, as well, the mechanical elements of fans will fail quicker as well? If the bearings will last a certain number of hours before breaking down, surely it's better to keep them off when not required? (I'm not talking about meal breaks but more significant periods like overnight) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleah Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 I dont like to see things left permanently on. Fans draw in muck, Surely, as well, the mechanical elements of fans will fail quicker as well? If the bearings will last a certain number of hours before breaking down, surely it's better to keep them off when not required? (I'm not talking about meal breaks but more significant periods like overnight) With fans it can be playgrounds at work. (swings & roundabouts :** laughs out loud **: ).I've switched off servers or PCs that have been running continuously for weeks or months perfectly, and switched them back on only for the fan to fail straight away.... :( They can be like hard-disks in that they may last longer left on! But then a lot will depend on dust and moisture level. There isn't a difinative answer. :blink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruce Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 I've switched off servers or PCs that have been running continuously for weeks or months perfectly, and switched them back on only for the fan to fail straight away.... :( Yep, that's pretty common. "Stiction". What usually seems to happen is that the things have been running for months or even years. They get switched off, and the bearings (or the lubrication in the bearings) cool down. The lubricant may become more viscous. When the power comes back on, the fan motor doesn't have enough "kick" to get the fan moving. If you tap it to help it start, it'll run for another few years, until the power goes off again. I used to manage a large network, and at one time we used a particular model of switch that was susceptible to this. Hundreds if not thousands of devices running 24x7. If there was a power cut, there would often be a few devices that didn't come back when the power was restored, cos the power supplies had gone bang. But there would then also be a batch of devices that would fail a few hours after power had been restored. These are the ones where the fans had failed, and a few hours later the PSUs cooked themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Pratt Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Admittedly I trained first in telly which is a slightly different environment but we were taught from day one never to switch anything off, especially the elderly and temperamental Grass Valley vision mixer! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alistermorton Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Admittedly I trained first in telly which is a slightly different environment but we were taught from day one never to switch anything off, especially the elderly and temperamental Grass Valley vision mixer! You can imagine the reliability problems to be had with the Quantel Cyphers in the ITV Sport OB truck - constantly being switched off and on, and being given a good shaking into the bargain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinE Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 one might argue that something that is bound to fail to power-up after a shutdown is actually faulty before you turn it off. An electrolytic in an SMPS may have worn-out and failed, but you only find out with a cold start. Does that mean the electrolytic is ok till you turn off? ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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