Control/Dimming - Troubleshooting--unwanted flickering/flashing

[derekleffew]

As this comes up relatively often here, I thought this would be an interesting topic for discussion.

Two YouTube videos:
Part one:

An Adventure in Troubleshooting Stage Lighting Part I

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Part two:

An Adventure in Troubleshooting Stage Lighting Part 2

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Discuss.

[NickJones]

If it were a problem in the software, then this would be a problem faced by the second processor, and if it were a problem in the show file, it would have also done the same thing with the new processor. If it were a problem with the console (the buttons on the board not the processor) then it too would still happen with the second processor. As the processor is simply a computer, this could be RAM, I doub't anyone would write a virus for a Linux based lighting console, and it wouldn't spread. It beats me.

Slightly off topic, the Obsession is an old (ish) console, probably no longer under warranty, and ETC just gave her a new processor?

Nick

[dramatech]

I have a some what similar problem with an ETC Insight 2X. When the cue stack arrives at the last cue, if you hit the go button, the board keeps the last cue, but adds channel 15 @ 60. At that point, channel 15 locks up and the only way to get rid of it, is to reboot the board. This doesn't really cause any problem as the show is finished. If it seems a problem then just create another cue at the end of the show that is not used.

I realize that it is difficult to compare the Insight to an Obsession. While both boards are ETC, they come from totally different families of operation.

My Insight was manufactured in 1994 and was the property of a rental house in Atlanta. They must have made all of the latest updates, as it is now running the last version of an Insight 3, and has 512 channels, not the 324 that it came with.
I purchased the board from AV for Sale through ebay. Their discription was absolutely accurate in that it was missing the disc drive, had a broken fader and hold switch on the A/B fader group, that kept it from running the cue stack and it had so much tape residue that you could hardly see the board. Some of the label tape that was used to identify the rental house, had so much acid in the ink, that it had eaten through the paint all the way down to metal.
It took me three days of cleaning, filling the etched areas with bondo, fixing the damaged fader, replacing the hold switch, putting in a disc drive and painting it. It is now in perfect working condition and we have used it on 6 shows in the last several months, and for a price that was about 1/10th of what they are selling on Used lighting .com.
The best part of the story is that I had purchased and old Jands 24 channel board for $25, that some bar band had spilled a cup of coffee into, that had a switch that was the exact replacement for the broken hold switch on the Insight. The only differance is that it is grey with black lettering instead of blue with white lettering, but it still has the label "Hold".
Sorry for the long verbage, but I love the board, especially how little I paid for it.

[deannafitzgerald]

Nick,

Our Obsession processor is a single processor. Believe it or not, people actually buy the single processors-the casino in Vegas that I designed Stomp Out Loud in did it too. They try to save money on the front end and hope the board never goes down and that they won't have to refund tickets. Yes, it is an oldish control board, which are surprisingly hard to come by even though I've worked in lots of theatres that have them. But ETC has loaners that they send out for free as long as you send them your processor for repair. They do that with most of their equipment, including CEM cards, which we also had a problem with this year.

Deanna

[derekleffew]

Note also Deanna is using an Obsession II, so it dates from 1997-2006. Out of warranty, yes; but "old" is relative--a quality console should last at least ten years.