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Robe 250 AT - Questions


BillCoaster

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Hi everyone,

 

I recently purchased 4 robe 250 AT. I haven't tried them with a console or a daslight yet; I am expecting my daslight in a few days. The heads work fine but there are some issues with the rotating discs.I have put the heads it test mode 1, I turned them on the sealing at default white. Well two of them show something else. One is showing blue another one has a gobo on.

 

What do I do now? Do I change the positions of the gobo/color and everything will be fine?

 

Another issue is the "stand by" position. Some of the robes once I select lamp off they stand straight up while others title 90 degrees. Is this tilt belt issue or something else?

 

Thanks for your time and sorry if my English are so and so. I am not a native speaker.

 

edit: PS: They came second hand. So maybe the service did something with the discs?

 

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I would start by doing a factory reset so all the parameters are the same. Then to compare the head performance, set them all to the same DMX address. The head shouldn't move just because you told it to lamp-off.
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Had run factory reset but nothing changed. I opened one of the sides on three of them. I slightly pushed the color wheel and felt something like a magnetic push back and then it snapped on the next color and the next and the next untill it came to white. It was also taking like 5% of the next color every time so pushed a little bit again and it was fixed. So yes.. I don't know how but I fixed it ** laughs out loud **.

Now I am having trouble with the pan tilt. I put them all in same tilt but they are on opposite positions. Maybe another reset on all of them will fix that.

Quick question. Is there a way to rotate the screen letters. I have them sitting on floor and turn my head to read it. Oh god. please I hope there is a way to flip the screen.

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Flipping the screen is a bit buried in a cryptic menu item that is hard to decipher while viewing it upside down. The manual has details but I recall DiSP is the place to start looking.

 

Regarding colour wheel position, the sensor might be playing up due to dirt or droop or whatever.

 

You doing a reset probably reversed a tilt invert setting. Get familiar with the menus and functions, plus the main bits and pieces inside, and you'll get them all running fine.

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Have you got a copy of the user manual? It should cover display rotation in there

 

Yes in PDF but with ctrl+F I did not found anything about flipping. KevinE bellow answered that. Thank you anyway!!

 

Flipping the screen is a bit buried in a cryptic menu item that is hard to decipher while viewing it upside down. The manual has details but I recall DiSP is the place to start looking.

 

Regarding colour wheel position, the sensor might be playing up due to dirt or droop or whatever.

 

You doing a reset probably reversed a tilt invert setting. Get familiar with the menus and functions, plus the main bits and pieces inside, and you'll get them all running fine.

 

Thank you for your reply indyld. I will dig deeper in the menus. :) And yes the fixture is quite dirty inside from the fog machines they had in the club it was before I buy it. Is there a special liquid for cleaning it? I will also ask the store I bought it from.

 

rotating the display is under PERS>DISP>TURN

Huge thanks! I will try it first thing tomorrow morning.

 

edit: by the way this is the mistake I was trying to fix. Now we are running smoothly. For any update I will report if you don't mind. Huge thanks everyone again.

robelig.jpg

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I would start cleaning without any major solvents unless you really need them.

 

Anti static foam cleaner and isopropyl alcohol are commonly used for really dirty stuff but a lot of the time a wipe down and blow through with air does the job.

 

The fans could be gunked up with fog residue and sensors likewise.

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My daslight came about an hour ago. I am so exited! Well I spend some times trying to find out the listening channels and the modes but now at least the heads listen to the daslight. There is still some issues:

 

1. One of the heads shows wrong color. ex. 3 whites and 1 red. 3 work correct 1 show red. I will open it and fix it manually. Maybe it's the sensor? I don't know.

2. Is there a color sensor in there? Maybe that is what need cleaning?

3. While I have purchased daslight fun it says that I am limited to 32 steps. Why? The demo didn't say so. I don't get it. Can someone please explain?

 

Sorry for mixing the post. I feel It's better posting here than creating new posts and creating a mess in the forum.

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There will be sensors and in my experience these are one of the most common causes of issues in the moving elements of automated fixtures.

 

If you haven't already the first thing I would do is make sure they are all set to the same mode and address. This will then show any differences between units while guaranteeing it isn't originating at the control end. I would also check all the settings in the menus to make sure they are the same (particularly pan/tilt invert/swap).

 

Typically most moving heads initially get their pan/tilt start position by running to physical end-stops as part of the calibration routine (often in combination with an end-of-travel sensor). Once calibrated they usually rely on optical encoders to keep track of movement (optical sensor + either a metal disc with slots or plastic disc with black lines). This is particularly helpful in case the head gets physically blocked or moved accidentally and provides a way to ensure it goes to its correct position. Other motors such as colour/gobo tend to just calibrate once at startup or reset (these are unlikely to be accidentally moved). The sensors will either be magnetic (hall effect) or optical and there will be a small round magnet or mark on the wheel associated with this.

 

If pan/tilt move but don't go to the same position on calibration and all of the fixture settings are the same this would suggest a problem with the end-of-travel sensor or that something is physically wrong. If they calibrate ok but gradually end up in different positions as they are moved then it is likely to be dirty (or faulty) optical sensor. If they don't move at all then probably belt.

 

For other motors if they are in different positions after calibrations then this is most likely dirty/faulty sensor.

 

Optical sensors can be cleaned using cotton buds + IPA (not the beer!)

 

Of course there can be other reasons such as cabling/control board faults but these tend to be much less common.

 

(I can't help about Daslight)

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1. Could be sensor / magnet issue but also check if the colours are removable and haven't been put back in the wrong places on the wheel. Seems less likely but as you don't know the fixture history it's worth checking.

 

As Nic says, either optical sensor or hall effect. I can't remember which was in the 250 AT but it will be obvious. I feel like it's magnets that drop off or sensors that get bent away from the wheel on those fixtures.

 

Find and follow the sensor wiring loom to check it hasn't just dropped the connection.

 

Other intermittent positioning errors can be worn belts or cogs with teeth missing. Or even an item not properly attached to the motor spindle.

 

These are fairly simple fixtures and it sounds like you have the right ideas to get them running again. Compare the ones that work OK to the faulty ones.

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The head keeps faulting on color disc. Color error! Does anyone know exactly where the sensor is located so I can give more care at that point. I am going to open it again and clean it with more care. thank you.

 

There is a chance I'll be near enough some tomorrow to pop the cover and remember the situation if I get a moment.

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The head keeps faulting on color disc. Color error! Does anyone know exactly where the sensor is located so I can give more care at that point. I am going to open it again and clean it with more care. thank you.

 

There is a chance I'll be near enough some tomorrow to pop the cover and remember the situation if I get a moment.

 

oh my god thank you so much in advance indyld!!! I started cleaning the plastic parts in there for start. I will post an image tomorrow for the forum.

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As you are getting a colour error from the fixture itself, this means that it is confused and can't work out the colour wheel position. This is a sensor system issue rather than just stuff being loose or colours being in the wrong slots.

 

It's not totally clear which one is which in the diagram, but you can see the gobo and colour position sensor PCBs on Sheet 5/14 of the Service Manual, items 13 and 14 (it's easier to see which it is in real life because the sensor is nearest the colour wheel when all assembled.

 

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/912152/Robe-Colorspot-250-At.html?page=13#manual

 

If you think that all the sensor system parts including any magnets are present, clean and correctly aligned (sometimes the hall effect little black blob on legs gets bent too far away from the magnet) AND that the wiring loom to the sensor seems well connected *at both ends, then you might suspect the sensor / PCB itself. This is easy enough to test as you have a working unit that you can carefully remove a known good PCB/sensor and swap it into the faulty fixture. To be honest, it's usually a magnet has dropped off or the sensor is too far away from it as it spins past. But I'm sure I have had to replace sensors too sometimes.

 

*Trace the wiring back to the other end. This may be all the way back in the fixture base. Plenty of faults turn out to be a wiring connector that has become disconnected.

 

You can see an example of a PCB with sensor on it at

http://spares.robe.cz/product/21436

 

If you need to replace any parts or assemblies, you can find the part code at the website and order them from Robe which at least means you don't have to work out which individual component is the issue and then find it in a components catalogue.

 

http://spares.robe.cz/category/18

 

 

 

Hope that helps you a little. Obviously make sure you are competent at undertaking much in the way of diagnostics and repairs with equipment, I can't help you to judge that. :-)

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