Control/Dimming Issue with Lee Colortran ENR 96 Dimmer Rack

[JimP0771]

Hi all

I know there have been other posts about this. I actually read the one on here related to the same issue I am having however I felt that issue was not exactly the same as mine. Here is a little background on both me and the lighting console. I am not a professional lighting person by any means I am just a volunteer tech director for a theater group in my area so some things are above my skill set. However with the Lee Colortran ENR 96 Dimmer rack I can pretty much work and take care of any issues it has except for the one that I am on here about.


Ok about the Lighting system. The Lee Colortran ENR 96 system I am using was installed in one of the local High Schools in my area. Actually I attend that high school and used the system while I was there. I believe if I remember right the system was installed there around about 1988 or 89 The school did not take very good care of it so and it had to be cleaned out a lot. Flash forward to about 2010. The high school decided to renovate and get all new equipment and so the old was put up for bid. With that in mind I had an old Spectrum Design and Developemt stage pin system that was down to 3 dimmers from 12 do to electrical issues. So with that in mind I placed a bid on the Lee Colortran ENR 96 Dimmer rack and Status 24/48 light board. I won the system and transported it back to the theater that volunteer at. Due to financial issues the system sat there not connected to any power and in a corner of the building till the old one died about 3 years ago. So I went and got the Lee Cortran ENR 96 Dimmer rack installed.

Ok now the issue: The system was working well no problems after I figured out what dimmers corresponded with the patch strip I had installed on the wall next to the rack. After about 2 years of using the system it started acting funny this past summer. If I remove one of the dimmer mods it runs with out an issue. However after I remove 4 or 5 of them it goes in to the airflow mode and shuts down the rack. I use to be able to run the system with just the 6 dimmers I am using along with control mods in as well and it would work just fine. It is been just recently that if I take out more then 4 or 5 dimmers it goes in to air flow mode. Anyone have any ideas on what may be causing this. I clean out the system by vacuuming everything every 3 months so the dust does not get very bad. Also I have a power limitation that I am able only to safely power up 12 dimmers consisting of 6 Dimmer mods. Half of the rack are dud mods that I believe are for helping with air flow and I have about 4 constant mods. Any one have any ideas on my issue and how to fix it


Sorry for the long first Post just felt I needed to give all of the info I could

Thanks

 

[RonHebbard]

Hi all

I know there have been other posts about this. I actually read the one on here related to the same issue I am having however I felt that issue was not exactly the same as mine. Here is a little background on both me and the lighting console. I am not a professional lighting person by any means I am just a volunteer tech director for a theater group in my area so some things are above my skill set. However with the Lee Colortran ENR 96 Dimmer rack I can pretty much work and take care of any issues it has except for the one that I am on here about.


Ok about the Lighting system. The Lee Colortran ENR 96 system I am using was installed in one of the local High Schools in my area. Actually I attend that high school and used the system while I was there. I believe if I remember right the system was installed there around about 1988 or 89 The school did not take very good care of it so and it had to be cleaned out a lot. Flash forward to about 2010. The high school decided to renovate and get all new equipment and so the old was put up for bid. With that in mind I had an old Spectrum Design and Developemt stage pin system that was down to 3 dimmers from 12 do to electrical issues. So with that in mind I placed a bid on the Lee Colortran ENR 96 Dimmer rack and Status 24/48 light board. I won the system and transported it back to the theater that volunteer at. Due to financial issues the system sat there not connected to any power and in a corner of the building till the old one died about 3 years ago. So I went and got the Lee Cortran ENR 96 Dimmer rack installed.

Ok now the issue: The system was working well no problems after I figured out what dimmers corresponded with the patch strip I had installed on the wall next to the rack. After about 2 years of using the system it started acting funny this past summer. If I remove one of the dimmer mods it runs with out an issue. However after I remove 4 or 5 of them it goes in to the airflow mode and shuts down the rack. I use to be able to run the system with just the 6 dimmers I am using along with control mods in as well and it would work just fine. It is been just recently that if I take out more then 4 or 5 dimmers it goes in to air flow mode. Anyone have any ideas on what may be causing this. I clean out the system by vacuuming everything every 3 months so the dust does not get very bad. Also I have a power limitation that I am able only to safely power up 12 dimmers consisting of 6 Dimmer mods. Half of the rack are dud mods that I believe are for helping with air flow and I have about 4 constant mods. Any one have any ideas on my issue and how to fix it


Sorry for the long first Post just felt I needed to give all of the info I could

Thanks

Helllo! If I'm remembering correctly, the air flow sensor that matters is the lower left front corner of the rack. If you have any of the dimmer module slots open, cooling air will take the easiest path and enter wherever you have dimmers missing rather than flowing past the sensor in the bottom left front corner. The sensor is a funky idea with a heating coil warming the sensor past its trip point. The system counts on the fans sucking cooling air past the sensor and cooling it below its trip point. Racks from the 1990-1991 era went through many upgrades dependent upon exactly when they were built. Early racks had aluminum main buses which were field upgraded to copper at Colortrans expense. They also upgraded software several times. Sometime in 1991 Hall effect sensors were added to monitor each fan and know that every fan was turning up to speed and not running slower than spec'. I baby sat a pair of Colortran racks for two and a half years and NEVER learned to love them. On the opposite wall of the same room we had four CD80 racks running AMX-192 in those days and they just sat there and ran perfectly until long after I departed.
Best of luck.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

 

[JimP0771]

Helllo! If I'm remembering correctly, the air flow sensor that matters is the lower left front corner of the rack. If you have any of the dimmer module slots open, cooling air will take the easiest path and enter wherever you have dimmers missing rather than flowing past the sensor in the bottom left front corner. The sensor is a funky idea with a heating coil warming the sensor past its trip point. The system counts on the fans sucking cooling air past the sensor and cooling it below its trip point. Racks from the 1990-1991 era went through many upgrades dependent upon exactly when they were built. Early racks had aluminum main buses which were field upgraded to copper at Colortrans expense. They also upgraded software several times. Sometime in 1991 Hall effect sensors were added to monitor each fan and know that every fan was turning up to speed and not running slower than spec'. I baby sat a pair of Colortran racks for two and a half years and NEVER learned to love them. On the opposite wall of the same room we had four CD80 racks running AMX-192 in those days and they just sat there and ran perfectly until long after I departed.
Best of luck.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

HI

Where exactly in the bottom of the rack is the airflow sensor. I felt around the bottom of the rack once and the only thing I could feel down there was the bottom lock for the door on the system. Also is the air sensor something I should be cleaning on a regular bases? Any info would help

Thanks

 

[RonHebbard]

HI

Where exactly in the bottom of the rack is the airflow sensor. I felt around the bottom of the rack once and the only thing I could feel down there was the bottom lock for the door on the system. Also is the air sensor something I should be cleaning on a regular bases? Any info would help

Thanks

My memory is getting fuzzier on this, coupled with I spent years trying to put those racks out of my mind.
The sensor that mattered was behind three little slotted openings in the bottom left front corner of the rack. Keeping those three little slots clear of dust was very important. When Colortran retrofitted the Hall effect sensors they hired an electrical contractor to travel North America wide (Canada and U.S.) installing the Hall effect sensors by-passing their normal warranty service representatives. The nation wide team also replaced our aluminum buses with copper and pinched a short length of 22 gauge white wire against the newly installed copper buses. When the white wire fused, all four fans in our dual racks stopped and the racks went into air-flow / over-temp shut down. As we needed the racks working for house lights, I brought in a butch floor fan and blew room temperature air through the three small slots in front of the air-flow sensor and the rack ran like that for a couple of days until our normal warranty service tech had time to get to us.
Here are a couple of really silly observations.
Supposedly any of the four Hall effect sensors monitoring the rotation of the fans should have shut the racks down as none of the four fans were rotating, NONE of them. When our warranty service tech' got to us several days later, I asked him how long it was supposed to take before the factory retrofitted Hall effect sensors should shut the racks down. He wasn't sure but felt they should have forced the dimmers off in a matter of minutes. I told Chris the racks had just been running for several days with only the floor fan blowing air in the lower left front sensors slots. As an educational test of the effectiveness of the four Hall effect sensors, Chris stopped the four fans and dropped a screwdriver through each fan's blades to stall it. I bought a can of pop and a chocolate bar for each of us and we chatted for a half hour waiting for Colortran's snazzy new retro-fitted Hall effect sensors to shut the rack down, WHICH THEY NEVER DID. So much for the effectiveness of Colortran's North America wide upgrades.
Did I mention I NEVER learned to love those racks?
Another annoying thing about those racks is they promoted them heavily based upon the abilities of their ENR circuitry which they had nullified by a trace on the rear side of a PC board behind a multi-pole DIP switch. It didn't matter if the end user read the manual and dutifully turned on the dip switch or not as the ENR functionality was intentionally disabled at the factory before the racks were shipped. I seem to recall being 'sworn to secrecy' on that fact but it probably doesn't matter anymore as the racks are dead, Colortran's dead and I'm not far from it myself.
I really learned to dislike those racks while Chris Mentis made a lot of money performing warranty service for Colortran all over eastern Canada. I really learned to like Chris but never those Colortran ENR racks.
With apologies for another of my TLDR posts, I relinquish the lectern.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

 

[microstar]

The airflow sensor is a silver cylinder on the bottom pc board directly behind the left-hand vent slots of the ENR control module. Each control module has a sensor.
I would hit it with some canned air and make sure the slots are clean. I've had some of these go bad. Another common problem is the module does not get seated securely in the rack. You should always power down the rack before removing/replacing a control module.
Steve at http://www.litetrol.com/ in Hicksville, NY can repair these. He is a great resource for all things Colortran as well.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

And in general, the design (of convection cooling) of many dimmer racks is based on a module in all slots and the door closed. If it worked with some out, it's because the load was low. Pretty confident if you check the manual it will say that.

 

[Les]

When you remove these dimmers are you replacing them with blank (airflow) modules? If not, that's your problem and the system is working as designed. As Ron mentioned, the system wants airflow throughout the rack and will rightfully complain if there is a large, unexpected breach. It's also really hazardous to run the system with open slots as it makes it easy to access the however many amps that are available within the rack. I trust that LOTO procedures are followed when feeling around in the rack as well.

 

[JimP0771]

When you remove these dimmers are you replacing them with blank (airflow) modules? If not, that's your problem and the system is working as designed. As Ron mentioned, the system wants airflow throughout the rack and will rightfully complain if there is a large, unexpected breach. It's also really hazardous to run the system with open slots as it makes it easy to access the however many amps that are available within the rack. I trust that LOTO procedures are followed when feeling around in the rack as well.

Always. I never leave the system energized and work on it. Very dangerous. Any time I do work on it I kill the power to the rack. It is very high electricity which scares me to be host. When I remove the dimmers it is not to remove the for good it is to take them out clean them and put them back in. Now the (airflow) Modules should I be placing those through out the dimmer rack? I have them right now starting from right above the control mods up to where ever they end than every thing else is dimmable modules or the constants. The actual channels I am using are labeled and have dimmable modules in them. Anyways safety first is always the way I work


Thanks You

 

[JimP0771]

Also can anyone tell me why when I turn the test switch on both control mods nothing powers up. What I do is leave the board off and turn on the test switch or bring down the grand master on the board and put the test switches on and nothing happens. Is there some dip switches I need to turn on for the test to work. At the high school this system was installed in during its past life the test switch worked with no problem. It would be nice to get those to work that way I could easily test the system if there are problems I am asked to fix before doing anything to the rack.

 

[microstar]

Also can anyone tell me why when I turn the test switch on both control mods nothing powers up. What I do is leave the board off and turn on the test switch or bring down the grand master on the board and put the test switches on and nothing happens. Is there some dip switches I need to turn on for the test to work. At the high school this system was installed in during its past life the test switch worked with no problem. It would be nice to get those to work that way I could easily test the system if there are problems I am asked to fix before doing anything to the rack.

The test switch is supposed to turn on the fan and ALL the dimmer modules. Generally you would turn off all the dimmer module circuit breakers before engaging the test switch, then turn on the breakers for the dimmer(s) of interest.

 

[RonHebbard]

HI

Where exactly in the bottom of the rack is the airflow sensor. I felt around the bottom of the rack once and the only thing I could feel down there was the bottom lock for the door on the system. Also is the air sensor something I should be cleaning on a regular bases? Any info would help

Thanks

As another poster has already clarified, the air flow sensor I was referring to is within the left front of the control module behind what I'm remembering as three small rectangular slots, not separately within the rack. Yes, you should definitely keep these slots clear. With apologies for any confusion.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

 

[JonathanHarpur]

I ran ENRs off a ColorTran Status console as my first DMX rig. They were, in their day, awesome. The ENRs were temperamental with dusty environments, though, and I was used to having airflow problems in our dusty space. Using a compressor to blow the evil out of the control modules - and the dimmer modules - was a regular thing for me, and I'd run into problems if it was left for more than 3 months. Apart from that, the system was rock solid - although the plastic chassis on the modules would droop over time (they became smiley) and they tended to pull away from the contacts in the rack when that got too bad. The spare AFM modules we had furnished us with nice, unwarped chassis components, and swapovers were fairly easy. The contacts in the modules got cleaned when the modules were blown clear, too. Nice racks, with a reasonable bit of preventative maintenance.

 

[EdSavoie]

This is the second thread today that commemorates how reliable the CD 80 is...

 

[FMEng]

This is the second thread today that commemorates how reliable the CD 80 is...

Very true. I chose a CD80 back in 1993, over a bid with an ENR. That CD80 has never needed a repair, not even a fan motor. At the time, I shied away from the ENR largely. I think my instincts were good.

I'm sure that, some day, the CD80 will need a new control cage. It's nice to have Johnson Systems making a nice retrofit. The rest of the rack is easily maintained so the CD80 will probably go as long as I'm around.

 

[EdSavoie]

Question, was that an early model Supervisor or an end of run Advanced Electronics?

 

[Andrew P]

Ron, do you know how to get a hold of Chris M? I have an ENR96 that is need of some service. If it's not him, is there anyone left in Canada to do this work? I know about NY and a place in PA too that still does work on them. I need control module service. I know you feel my pain but getting rid of the 96 is NOT an option sadly for me! Sorry if thinking about this unit leads to some kind of therapy!!!

 

[JimP0771]

I am from NY and I can look on the ENR 96 next time I am at my theater. There is a sticker on them of the last person who serviced the system back when it was installed in the high school where it was in its original installation. It might be a while till I get in there but I will look next time and post the name and info on that sticker. However it might be the same person you know in NY.

 

[RonHebbard]

Ron, do you know how to get a hold of Chris M? I have an ENR96 that is in need of some service. If it's not him, is there anyone left in Canada to do this work? I know about NY and a place in PA too that still does work on them. I need control module service. I know you feel my pain but getting rid of the 96 is NOT an option sadly for me! Sorry if thinking about this unit leads to some kind of therapy!!!

@Andrew P You're in London, Ontario and you're Likely aware of Ron Foley (Scenework.com in Guelph) I'll skip over any details re: Chris Mentis and quote an e-mail I've received from Ron. If I had your e-address I would've simply forwarded it to you but I'll quote it to you here and hope it's of help.
"
That is all I have for Chris as well
Have the guy call us
We have some ENR bits
From: Ron Hebbard [mailto:ronhebbard@XXXXXXX]
Sent: May-27-17 1:20 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Chris Mentis / Color-Tran ?
Mr. Foley Sir!
A fellow in London, Ontario has e-mailed asking if I could steer him towards anyone who’d service his ENR-96 rack? I fired a brief e-mail to the last e-address I have for Chris ([email protected]) and it bounced back within minutes. Do you have a better e-address for Chris that you’re free to reveal or anyone else you’d recommend?
"
From my files: (519) 837-0583 Should reach Ron's receptionist and you won't catch me posting his personal cell number on the wide open internet.
Feel free to PM me and take this off line should you prefer.
With all best wishes and optimistically this should get you into the behind the scenes Color-tran servicing loop.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

 

[Dionysus]

Ron, do you know how to get a hold of Chris M? I have an ENR96 that is need of some service. If it's not him, is there anyone left in Canada to do this work? I know about NY and a place in PA too that still does work on them. I need control module service. I know you feel my pain but getting rid of the 96 is NOT an option sadly for me! Sorry if thinking about this unit leads to some kind of therapy!!!

Hey Andrew, Im also based in London (The Grand Theatre). There are a lot of ENR racks around here. Some in better repair than others. I just replaced one a little over a year ago in one venue I deal with, and did a field repair on another in London back in December (quit on me an hour before the house was to open). I second giving Chris a call, I sent a module to him a while back for repair and it was a life saver. Hopefully you get a hold of him well.
Give me a shout if you have any issues... However the fringe festival starts tomorrow and I am going into techs for shows and then right into the thick of it. Still have some daytime hours.

Cheers,
Steve.

 

[Andrew P]

Thanks folks!!!! Steve lol....I'm MD'ing the HSP this fall so are you the Steve that lights for the Grand? Get my contact info from the Kate upstairs and send me a note so we can chat some more about my issues! I think all the ENR's in the region were sold by Tony D. who was working for Strand at the time - late 80's into 90's?

Ron, nope I am NOT aware of scenework.com. I will call them today. My only sources for repair overhaul of the logic system - which sounds like the problem is two places in the US - one in NY and the other in Ohio. Both do "overhauls" for around $400-500 per card. Knight Sound and Lighting is in Ohio and Litrol in NY both do this kind of work. Knight Sound also has a lot of resources and were very willing to talk me through some things before just sending them the card/cards. I can't remember what tech I spoke with but he seemed extremely aware of all the issues.

Anyone know these companies?

Andrew