Fat Frog Help Needed

[cutlunch]

Hi . A school I am volunteering time for in the electronics area is having trouble with it's Fat Frog board.

The board has only just come back from the repairers where it was sent because apparently the Moving Light control section didn't work.

The main problem now seems to be the channels can't go past 80%. This is with the Grand Master, A and B presets masters all at 100%. The channel values also appear to rise logarithmicaly not linearly.

The board has a full reset done from the Super User - Desk Setup menu.
The DMX patches have been reset to default.

So the question is which of theese possibilty is most likely.

1) Operator error
2) Software Bug
3) Hardware fault.

Any help greatly appreciated. I'll also try the Zero88 support forum to see if this is a known bug.

[Brilliant2007]

Zero 88..... +44 (0) 1633 838088

[What Rigger?]

Jeez, Cut....I can't help you in any way at all...but I do use one of these as "the fill in guy" at a local mega-church and all I can say is that when this board is working correctly, even a rigger can use it to great effect. And all I've ever done is read the manual and the website.

Good luck!

[icewolf08]

Is there a dimmer profile set up somewhere n the console? That is the only thing that I can think of that would change the curve as you bring up a channel. I don't know anything about that console in particular, but usually there is a way to profile dimmers and possibly set a global profile. This may also be why nothing goes to 100% The profile may be written to not go to 100%. As I don't know the board I could be totally wrong, but it may be worth a look.

[cutlunch]

IceWolf I had the same thought as you initally but the patch is a straight channel --> dimmer patch with no level changing.

Since I posted this I have sent an email to tech support at Zero88 the makers.
The support tech got back to me within two hours ( I guess this is the advantage of sending an email from NZ at 2:00 am in the morning.).

He's basically ruled out operator error which is good.

He thinks it is probably a hardware problem maybe to do with Dip switch settings on the preset boards.

He sent me the basic service manual plus the latest software version.

It turns out is has some built-in self test software. It let's you get readings from all the individual sliders / knobs and display them as a bar graph on the LCD display. This should help check what area the problem is in.

I won't be able to check the board until tomorrow and I'll let you know what I find.

[cutlunch]

Just an update in the Fat Frog saga. Yes it was starting to sound like a soap opera.

Before I had a chance to check the Dip switches to see if that was the fault it went to a different technician.

It came back and finaly it was working.
Then one of the Track wheels for controlling the ML's stopped working.

Deciding I didn't want to risk sending it for repair again , also being out of time, I took the board apart.
I found there was small PCB with the connections for the Track wheel . This board was floating loose.
So I put it back between the two little plastic clips that were meant to hold it. It was intesting as the PCB had a hole that went over a little round stick that seemed to be spring loaded.

It was interesting this was loose as the first serviceman had said he glued them in.

OK so I put the board back together and turned it on. Then I selected the fixture the teacher in charge had installed. Yikes it's not working. Then I think I'll just check the fixture definition the teacher had loaded. That's when I see he had accidentaly loaded the one channel configuration for the Moving Light . We also had loaded a multi-channel defintion when I selected this all the track wheels worked.

The board seemed to go all right except for one night when apparently our one moving light decided to do all it's cues in reverse ie instead of lighting the stage it lit the audience.

We only had one more show to go so we just cut out the moving light . I still don't know if it was the board, the ML, or the students .

Thanks for the suggestions it helped confirm what I had been thinking.

[zac850]

Originally Posted by cutlunch

The board seemed to go all right except for one night when apparently our one moving light decided to do all it's cues in reverse ie instead of lighting the stage it lit the audience.

We only had one more show to go so we just cut out the moving light . I still don't know if it was the board, the ML, or the students .

Sounds like the mover needs to be re-homed (either send the 'home' command from the console or cycle power to the fixture).
What kind of light? The nicer (more expensive) movers have sensors so they know if they are knocked and move themselves back to their proper position. If the fixture doesn't have this feature, if something knocks it for whatever reason, it will run all of its cues from where ever it gets knocked to.

[icewolf08]

It also sounds like someone may have inadvertently flipped the pan and tilt of the fixture. I don't know about Fat Frog, but on most consoles you can tell the fixture either in the fixture profile or right in patch if you want pan and tilt reversed. Why? Because it make life easier when you have lights that are hung and lights that are sitting on the floor. You can point the front of each light to the same place and still have all the lights move the same direction.