Strand Palette Vl Hardware failure

Hi I have Palette VL which has had a hardware failure on the command /fade tile. I am looking at a very expensive replacement cost for what is essentially just a USB keyboard PCB and I m just wondering if this is a common complaint and if perhaps I should be looking at a change of console to something more reliable. Rather than spending my money on a new card which will only have a 3 month warranty, the console was just over two years old and was not subject to any accidents or misuse.
 
Firstly, have you contacted Strand? If not, @bharrell hangs around here on the periphery and may be able to give you some help.

Secondly, how did you establish that the hardware is busted? What were the symptoms you had been seeing, and which sorts of troubleshooting steps have you tried

I've seen some interesting things happen on a VL that have presented symptoms of a hardware failure. Even sent the console into Strand a couple times, they blessed it as not having had problems in the first place and promptly sent it back. I don't recall exactly what the issue was but I seem to recall after extensive frustration we narrowed it down to something incredibly obvious and a stupid. Loose harness or cable or something.

On another console from another reputable manufacturer, I actually had encountered some sporadic issues where the console would reboot unexpectedly. Discovered a USB connector had busted and was shorting out. Replaced the connector and never saw the issue again. Quirky things can happen for surprisingly simple reasons.

As for reliability, things happen. Can't say why or how you're having issues, but generally hardware issues are isolated instances across all manufacturers. If you otherwise have enjoyed your LP VL, I see no reason why to cut it loose now. One issue now is hardly indicative of future issues to come.

Now if you were routinely having software crashes, then I'd agree there's a reliability issue at play, and some manufacturers have earned themselves worse reputations than others at providing software that crashes the console mid-show. Doesn't sound like that's what you've got going on here though.
 
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First of all to echo Mike, Have you called Strand and how do you know the problem?

All light boards these days are just fancy USB devices. Although we expect a light board to not break down in the first two years, it is a computer and sometimes parts fail sooner than expected. I've never heard anyone accuse Strand consoles of being unreliable. My own experiences using both the Classic Palette and Palette VL for the last 6 years or so have have been very positive and I have never felt that they were the least bit unreliable. I am a huge fan of my current Palette VL. Strand has an old reputation of not being the best at customer service and support. But as I have talked about here many times in the past, I have experienced excellent customer service and support from Strand with my consoles. My guess is the cost of repairing your console although not cheap, is going to be a fraction of the cost of replacing it with an equivalent console.
 
Hi thanks for the replies.

Yes I have been talking to both my local Strand service person and the guys in the states. We went over all the connections swapped cables and finally tried reinstalling the firmware on the tile itself it was after this that the guys in the states put it down to a hardware issue. The symptoms showing are the command fade tile is nonresponsive and on the output screen I get a lot of activity showing from the subs/looks ie. yellow numbers. In test mode I have noticed adjusting some fades will show responses on a completely different fader.

Before this major fault a couple of months ago, I had noted on occasion that the encoded panel indicators would flash on and off like a disco for short periods of time for no apparent reason. This happened two or three times at least. This was put down to possibly a bad or dirty USB connection at the time. On a different Palette VL64 that I had the opportunity to use from time to time the encoder panel for a while was totally dead, unfortunately I do not know how that was resolved or by who. On that same machine last March the Command/Fader panel crashed during the first act of Evita, but fortunately came back online with a forced shut down and restart during the interval. Needless to say the intervening quarter of the show was not very pleasant. I subsequently found out that the same fault had happened on that console twelve months before. A week after this incident my own Palette Command panel died.

This sequence of events has left me very untrustworthy on the Palette, I'm wary of spending a large amount of money that Strand would not guarantee past 3 months. I have been using Strand consoles for a long time now (started out on the M24). I must say that up until this sequence of events I was very happy with the Palette.
 
I too have had issues with the Palette VL line of boards. Between the two venues that I work at I use a VL16 and a VL64. The VL16 at the one venue was giving the staff issues before I was hired. After having the VL16 lock up on me a few times during heavy use days I sent out a report to Strand. I got responses back right away. This went on to firmware flashes on tiles. Still there was freezing. This led to a new tile, and still more freezing. The local strand rep stopped by and discovered that the USB hub connected to the processor was not working correctly. My Local strand rep did the right thing and while it was still under warranty got me a new processor. Freezing has pretty much stopped, there are a few weird occasions where the board locks up and once a tile did not fire. My solution to the freezing was CTRL+ALT+DEL (Its a windows based board). I was explained once that when the connection is lost that the processor kicks itself up to 100% rendering controls useless, by hitting CTRL+ALT +DEL it seems that the board re-evaluates its tasks and gets control back. One other note a few months after I got my processor back I experienced to date my only Blue Screen of Death. A connection within the Processor case was loose, local rep again did a good job and fixed the problem, which was a loose or bad connection to the hard drive.

The VL64 at the second venue has had it's quirks. A lot of the lock ups tend to happen on two show days. I try to send out reports to strand when that happens, but lately I have not been receiving responses from Strand (too busy with the NEO perhaps?) My solution to lock ups on two show days is to shut the board down between shows for an hour to 4 hours depending on the break I get. I never had any problems when I give the board a rest.

I really like Palette OS, I have become quite comfortable using it. My issue is with hardware and from my experience the weak link is USB hub . This could be your problem Mark. If either the VL16 or VL64 start acting up on me with the losing a connection or a tile just not firing I am tempted to go buy a heavy duty usb hub and plugging that directly into the processor bypassing the original/questionable hub. Both boards are out of warranty so it is something to try. Again like everyone is saying maybe talk to @bharrell. I have talked to him and he is an incredibly knowledgeable person who can help solve some problems.
 
Sadly before the Phillips buyout, we had a very active CB member who worked in the Strand Tech support department and was on CB daily. But he lost his job in the buyout. Bobby Harrell is great and I'm sure he will check in to this thread and offer some advice next time he stops in to CB.
 
Sadly before the Phillips buyout, we had a very active CB member who worked in the Strand Tech support department and was on CB daily. But he lost his job in the buyout. Bobby Harrell is great and I'm sure he will check in to this thread and offer some advice next time he stops in to CB.

Well now I know why my ears were burning. Tech support is usually pretty good at identifying the issues. If you want to do some troubleshooting and double checking yourself, you could connect the USB tiles to a separate processor (like a laptop) and run the offline editor and that can often help identify if issues are processor/hub related or tile/firmware related. If you need help, you can always email me directly [email protected]
 

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