ADJ VIZI Beam 5R Ballast issue.

[galuise]

Hi,

I just joined the forum and must say this looks like a really cool community.

So on to my question:

Anybody experience catastrophic ballast failure in a Platinum 5R lamp fixture like an ADJ VIZI Beam 5R? I know ADJ gear is not the best but I have a few of this fixture.

One of them has had a catastrophic ballast failure. I was able to find the exact "EUC 190d N/T01" ballast board via aliexpress aka China express

Unfortunately, after installation upon powering the fixture I got a firework show and proceeded to let the magical black smoke out of the same 8 surface mount resistors that the original ballast smoked when it failed (during a show ugh!)

I've gone over the power supply with a DMM and the two 28VDC terminals appear to be supplying +28VDC. The +400VDC output that supplies the ballast board was at like +389VDC (well within 2.75%)

I checked the leads to the lamp for a short and no issue there.

Does anyone have any information they would be willing to share regarding the 5R lamp / its theory of operation? I can only find sales literature regarding this lamp. The one thing that's suspicious is that all fixture manuals seem to be pretty strict about replacing the lamp after 2000 hours. Does a bad lamp cause the ballast to fail? Either way my lamp has maybe 300 hours of use on it tops, but maybe it failed prematurely.

The inner glass chamber doesn't seem that cloudy, but I know nothing about the 5R..

Anywho, sorry for writing a book on my first post. Thanks for any information anyone can offer as well as for reading.

Greg

 

[galuise]

I forgot to mention that the rest of the fixture functions and responds to DMX when powered up without a ballast board:

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[JD]

When you see a row of resistors in parallel like that, they are usually part of a current monitoring loop in the ballast circuit. Seeing them pop usually says that there was a massive current draw that was out of the range of the ballast to deal with. MH style lamps require a high voltage kick to get things started. Sometimes, this circuit is incorporated into the ballast. Often, it is not and there is a separate ignitor circuit between the ballast and the lamp. I don't have the wiring diagram for that unit available, but the ignitor circuit is where I would look. It could very well be shorting the output of the ballast and causing it to fail.

Having a MH lamp short is something I have not heard of, so I would suspect it is not the cause of the failure. Replacement of the lamp at 2000 hours is important for three reasons.
1) An old lamp may rupture and damage the fixture.
2) An old lamp will have a lower efficiency, put out less light, and run hotter.
3) An old lamp may fail to ignite and therefore ignore the high voltage starting pulses. This may lessen the life of the ignition circuit, and/or damage the fixture due to the stray high voltage finding a different path.

In any case, never-say-never, but my opinion is the problem will be found outside of the lamp. That said, take the lamp out of circuit and put an ohm meter across the lamp and measure it's resistance. It should measure as an open circuit. If it is not, there may be a short in the potting where the lamp is fused into the reflector.

 

[galuise]

Thanks a lot for the quick response. I did see an open circuit across the lamp. Cool so that's not the cause of the issue. I figured an arc lamp would be open since there is no filament.

I believe all igniter circuitry is on-board to the ballast. ADJ doesn't seem to have done any engineering as far as the PSU and 5R lamp driver circuitry. There is only what looks like a logic cable from the "ballast control board" to the actual ballast board.

Ballast Control board:

Ballast/Lamp Driver:

Judging by the two transformers I'm assuming the Ballast is probably more of a "lamp driver" vs an actual ballast meaning it includes both the igniter and ballast. I'm unable to find anything in the circuit between this board and the lamp.

I guess the "Control board" could be faulty but I would figure the only job of the control board is to send a logic "strike" or "de strike" signal and maybe receive status of successful or unsuccessful strike.


Thanks again for the quick response!

 

[JD]

With the ballast and the lamp removed, meter between the two lamp leads and from each of those leads to the fixture frame. All should be open circuit if there is no separate ignitor. If you see a low resistance to frame, you may have a short in the harness or the harness may have got cut into by a sharp edge. After all, it is a "mover." Not seeing how the control would cause such a blowout. Usually, these are simple status being controlled/communicated, such as "ballast on", "Ignight", etc. I see three connectors pictured. Line, Lamp, and Control. I do not see the tell-tale sign of ignitor parts, however, this unit may operate in "tickler" mode, where it has such a high flyback voltage when in "open circuit" mode, that a dedicated ignitor circuit is not needed.

 

[galuise]

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

JD, you are the best! I can't believe I only checked for continuity between the lamp leads and not the lamp leads and chassis / ground. One side is a dead short to chassis! There's my source of infinite current or path of zero resistance.

Thank you thank you thank you!

[emoji1][emoji1][emoji1][emoji1][emoji1][emoji1][emoji1]

 

[Steen Hansen]

With the ballast and the lamp removed, meter between the two lamp leads and from each of those leads to the fixture frame. All should be open circuit if there is no separate ignitor. If you see a low resistance to frame, you may have a short in the harness or the harness may have got cut into by a sharp edge. After all, it is a "mover." Not seeing how the control would cause such a blowout. Usually, these are simple status being controlled/communicated, such as "ballast on", "Ignight", etc. I see three connectors pictured. Line, Lamp, and Control. I do not see the tell-tale sign of ignitor parts, however, this unit may operate in "tickler" mode, where it has such a high flyback voltage when in "open circuit" mode, that a dedicated ignitor circuit is not needed.

Hi' JD. I have seen this problem when people substitude the Philips Bulb with the "compatible" Osram equivalent, as it turns out, the are mechanically different. The Osram bulbs electrical terminals are 3-4mm higher than on the Philips counterpart, so if you are not careful the terminals get too close to the housing around the bulb, thus generating the short.

I just had a fixture in from DTS (a Jack) with similar problem. Does anyone know the actual value of these sense resistors, I checked the transistors and diodes and they are fine, only the resistors burned off, but cannot read the original value of them any longer.

br
Steen

 

[partyanimal]

Hi guys, believe it or not, I'm having the same issue with 3 or 4 5R beams also, 2 Elation 5R Extremes and 2 "off-brand" 5R's. The major problem I'm encountering is that the tiny 6.3A fuse (on the "off-brand" unit) on the main 12VDC/24VDC/390VDC power supply blew out and I had to scrap down the power supply to change it. I then reconnected all leads except to the 390VDC to the lamp ballast and the unit started up fine and functioned normally, without the lamp strike. Soooo....I shut it down and connected the 390VDC lead. Started up and the fuse blew again. Now I've checked the voltages from the power supply and all are fine (12/24/390). I also checked for continuity from the ballast leads to the lamp terminals, also fine. I then checked for ground shorts to chassis on the lamp leads...none. I even moved the head around manually looking for a short during movement....none. So I'm stumped here and I have to go back into the P/S are replace the fuse....again. Any ideas as to what I can try next?