I have repaired a number of the Elation 600W per
channel dimmer packs that are owned by a local rental company and my own company and here are my observations:
The printed
circuit boards are manufactured out of FR4 glass fibre - a good quality board the tracks are cleanly etched with no evidence of undercut, the
track widths are correctly sized for the
current.
The Heatsink is adequate for the
power dissipation. The components are from the manufacturers you would expect and the component part numbers are also the same part numbers that you will find in equipment manufactured in North America. The TRIACs are BTA16, 600V, 16A.
The reasons I have had to repair these packs:
A Customer droped a pack 10 feet onto concrete, and two TRIACs broke, replaced the
TRIAC and the pack still works two years later.
A customer connected
phantom power 48V from an audio
snake into the
DMX input on two packs and destroyed the RS485 receiver chip in each pack. Replaced the chip and worked fine.
One
unit blew a
TRIAC when a lamp failed - not uncommon on any
dimmer pack at this end of the market, to avoid this requires some additional components in the
TRIAC circuit, the price charged for this feature is completely unrelated to the price of the parts.
I have been impressed by the
build stabndard of these units I have inspected the soldered joints at X10 magnification and the soldering is much better than I have seen on many commercial items.
This present a significant challenge for any domestic company as it is very difficult to compete at this price
level. Low price does not always mean low quality and unfortunately the opposite is also true.
Just to note that all of the units I have repaired are rental units that have been out on weekly rental for a approximately three years and out of twenty units this has been the only problems.
