"Mac 250" Color Problem!

[Dkick]

So one of my "Mac 250" is having a color problem. We are doing a dance concert and we have about 300 cues, but when we run the entire show our one of the two "Mac 250's" will not get to its right color but the other one always will. It will be on a split color like white & green or something like that. We are using a "ETC Ion" and all of our cues are on a follow based so all we have to do is press go at the beginning of the song. When we go to the cue manually (Go To Cue .....) the mover will get to its color fine but its just when we run the whole show is when just that one mover gets screwed up when ever it is in a cue.

Any Ideas on how to fix this problem?

Thanks.

 

[Brandon Merkle]

It sounds like one of the color wheels is out of calibration. Select the channel and open ML controls. Go to the color ribbon, select the channel, and hold shift. A calibrate button should appear next to the scroller in ML controls. If you scroll to the very last frame of the wheel and calibrate from there, you should be right where you need to be when you get back to the beginning.

 

[Dkick]

Thanks that fixed the problem!

 

[LovelyLaurenDanielle]

I have the same problem but on a whole hog 3. Are these calibrations options available in the hog?

 

[Brandon Merkle]

Hey Lauren! Not sure the syntax for performing calibration at a controller lever on the Hog, but you can essentially do the same thing on the fixture itself. From the Control menu, go to Util->Adj-Cal. Your color wheel offsets are there, as well as a color wheel position correction. Play with those settings until you get values that work for you.

 

[LovelyLaurenDanielle]

Great, thank you so much. Would I assume that this would be common across all Mac fixtures? We have 8 entours as well and some have similar issues. Hopefully this suggestion will work on them as well as our 250s

 

[petercav17]

Great, thank you so much. Would I assume that this would be common across all Mac fixtures? We have 8 entours as well and some have similar issues. Hopefully this suggestion will work on them as well as our 250s

Actually, the manual for MAC 250 Entour/Krypton states that the calibration and adjustments in the menu are "not implemented." MAC 250 Wash though, has all of it. Seems very strange to me as there are more things to reset and calibrate in a profile like gobos and the like. Maybe there is a different way of calibrating for those?

 

[LovelyLaurenDanielle]

Actually, the manual for MAC 250 Entour/Krypton states that the calibration and adjustments in the menu are "not implemented." MAC 250 Wash though, has all of it. Seems very strange to me as there are more things to reset and calibrate in a profile like gobos and the like. Maybe there is a different way of calibrating for those?

Darn, I'll have to dig deeper. Thanks for the heads up. I was just about to go lower the electric and see if I could calibrate them lol

 

[Brandon Merkle]

It's actually common across all fixtures with a color wheel or gel scroller. Over time, tensioners settle, wheel magnets droop a bit, sensors get off-tick. Most moving heads I've worked with have to have some calibration tune-ups every now and again. I did not know the Entours did not contain those menu settings. Nice catch Peter!

 

[Matthew Symons]

entours do have a calibration meue, I own four of them, and I do need to calibrate them occasionally so they stay identical. under the menu, you need to select UTIL and hold enter down until it unlocks, then go to CAL, I can't remember off hand what the names for the different calibration parts are, but you can calibrate pan, tilt, gobo, focus, color, etc. My 250 entours do have the latest firmware (1.8? I think)

 

[Brandon Merkle]

Color Wheel is another one, and I believe the one you are looking for. Don't adjust the individual CMY flags, as that will throw off your color mixing; you just need the static color wheel fine-tuned.

 

[Matthew Symons]

Entour wash or profiles? Profiles only have one color wheel, no CYM. But on the entour profile, under "CAL" "COOF" is the color adjust, "D OF" is shutter/dimmer adjust, "T OF" is tilt adjust, "P OF" is pan adjust, "FOOF" is focus adjust, "FGOF" fixed gobo when adjust, "RGOF" rotation gobo wheel adjust. And my entours are firmware 1.8.0

 

[Brandon Merkle]

Both are CMY mixing fixtures though, are they not? They have their CMY flags, and one additional rotating wheel module for static colors.

 

[Matthew Symons]

Both are CMY mixing fixtures though, are they not? They have their CMY flags, and one additional rotating wheel module for static colors.

Mac 250 entours profile are not CYM, just a single wheel. Also anyone know this problem with a 250 entour, after strobing it, then closing the shutter, it gets jammed open at about 10% (only one of the servos) but a globa reset fixes it. Does it sound like a bad servo?

 

[Brandon Merkle]

Ok, gotcha. Yes, bad servo would be my bet, but I'm not sure why the global reset is fixing that every time. Have you tried homing the shutter instead of manually running the values or encoder?