Martin Strobe

[Ed Kaz]

Hi I just finished a show and had problem with one of the Martin Atomic 3000 strobes failing. It stopped working mid show...no output but, had power (120 volt model) and DMX. The fixture is almost brand new w/less than 50 hrs on lamp. Is there a way to test the lamp? Can I just use a meter and check continuity across lamp ?

 

Thanks

Ed

[timsabre]

Can I just use a meter and check continuity across lamp ?

 

No, there is no continuity normally.

Can't you just swap the lamp to a working unit?

[savage1]

Atomics have a stand alone mode don't they? Obviously it wouldn't be conclusive but its worth a shot.

[dbuckley]

Can you hear the quiet click of the trigger? If you can then most of the electronics are OK, and its either the tube, or one of the few components involved with the flash path, primarily a bridge rectifier. If no clicking then its not attempting to fire, so anything from no DMX input, wrong channels, all the way to fried bits inside, but not the tube, unless it's failed as well!

[Ed Kaz]

Thanks for the tips...

Funny thing, removed from install and works perfect on bench ???

It could not been a DMX issue strobe was in middle of loop and I had seen DMX led flash.

Possible heat issue ???

[top-cat]

Not to patronise you but was there enough power available? Sometimes people forget how much they draw and share the circuit with a few movers and there's just not enough oomph available...

[dbuckley]

When talking about "enough power", it is worse than TC suggests: Any of the modern style strobes work by putting the tube directly across the mains. The tube is then triggered at an appropriate point in the mains half-cycle, and then extinguishes itself when the instantaneous voltage of the half-cycle becomes too low. The outpur is varied by adjusting the point in the half-cycle when the triggere is generated.

 

Whilst the tube is alight, it draws a lot of power. I've measured a 1500W strobe, and it consumes 82A. Only for a fraction of a second, and only on one of the two mains waveform polarities. These strobes are a horrible load.

 

Thus to run these things one needs a power source with large reserves of power.

[Young Johnstone]

Can't beat a decent LED strobe on the power side of things. Obviously they both have their pro's and con's.

Any one see all the Nitro's Andy put in his design for Prodigy at Sonisphere? Over a hundred clipped together a little bit like a line array.

You couldn't do that with atomics with out a lot of stupidness.

[Shez]

Atomics have an LED on the back that flashes when they fire don't they? Useful for checking whether the tube is the problem.

I had an odd problem last time I used one - it just stopped responding to DMX for no apparent reason. Swapping cables and even desk didn't help. I then tried a "1>512@50" which fired it. A process of elimination revealed it was responding to a completely different address to the one that was set. Toggling all the dip switches made it behave again. We assumed dodgy contacts in those switches but it was strange nonetheless.

[RoyF18]

It may be a DMX issue still... I've had to replace the DMX card on quite a few Atomics over the last few years. They still receive and pass through DMX signal, and show on the LEDs that they are getting it, but will not respond. I think it's something to do with the bit that actually addresses the unit after the dip switches. A couple of times my first instinct was to check the lamp because everything else seemed fine, but it turned out to be the DMX card.

Easiest and quickest lamp test is to put the dip switches into stand alone mode, saves opening anything up.

[mac.calder]

The fun thing about DMX is that dodgeyness^tm elsewhere in the network can cause issues both down and upstream from itself - especially when you are nearing the capacity limits for fixtures in a DMX chain. The fact that the fixtures after it worked means nothing what so ever. It could be an issue with a different fixture or with a cable or just bad luck.