Automated Fixtures MAC250 Entour Continuously Restarting

[soundlight]

I've got a MAC250 Entour in a venue that I work at which is continuously restarting. When you give it power, it'll act like it's about to start up, I hear a fan fire up, and the screen says "MAC"-"250"-"EN"-"BETA"-"1.43". The Ready LED pulses on each time characters show up on the display, and the service LED flashes and then goes solid right before the fixture restarts. The fixture flashes "-OK-" each time right before it starts up again.

As for the logic board LEDs, they stay lit and don't go out when the fixture restarts. There are 3 green ones down near the bottom of the board, a red flashing one in the middle of the board, and a red one lower-middle that turns on solid every time it goes to restart.

Fixture is set to 120V, 60Hz, as it's supposed to be. Both fuses on the logic board are good. I don't see any capacitors with pushed up tops that would indicate failure. No visible component failure. The fixture acts this way with or without a lamp.

In short, the fixture just continuously acts like it's going to start up but doesn't. It will do this as long as it has power. I cannot figure out what caused this. I have a feeling that it's a power supply or logic board issue, which would really really suck. I'm going to put my meter on it tomorrow night (the meter here is MIA, someone took it from where I put it last) and see what the voltages out of the PSU are.

I would love to take it in to get serviced. My primary employer would be the one to service it, and I would love to just take it in to get worked on. But, it's June, I can't get money for lamps (much less expensive moving light repair), and I really just want to get this fixture working again.

I know that this is kind of an advanced question for CB, but if anyone has an answer, please help me out here. I'm going to call Martin as well sometime this week and see if I can get some help.

 

[Patchwork1]

Check the mains voltage. I had the same symptoms on a job a few years back. The units kept restarting when the pars were up. Turned out all the movers ended up on the same generator as conventionals so when enough of the rig was lit, the voltage would drop down to 114V and the entours would just keep resetting. We moved them onto another plant and everything was fine.

Pat

 

[cbrandt]

Without digging into it myself, something to remember is that lot of moving lights will self reset if they encounter too many errors. Does it do this when it isn't connected to dmx? Is it possible the board got a preset saved somewhere that keeps sending this unit the reset command?

 

[TimMiller]

They will do this if they are receiving a home command from the console, unplug dmx and then start up the fixture. What also is weird to me is why is the fixture running a beta version of the software, if you can I would update it.

 

[soundlight]

The error happens whether or not the fixture is connected to DMX. It doesn't even home/reset, it actually reboots. It doesn't go through the calibration sequence ever. It doesn't even get to a point where it could find errors. The fixture does this on proper mains voltage, but I am going to put a meter on the outputs of the internal PSU when I get time to do that. This screams logic board issue to me, I really hope that it's traceable because there's no way the venue is gonna buy a new logic board at the price that Martin charges.

Thanks for the suggestions, though. I'm really hoping to find a solution to this one.

 

[firewater88]

They will do this if they are receiving a home command from the console, unplug dmx and then start up the fixture. What also is weird to me is why is the fixture running a beta version of the software, if you can I would update it.

Agree with Tim. I have 6 mac 250 Entours, they were running Beta firmware for the first 3 years or so. I had a lot of issues with them, including random shut downs and restarts. After I updated (I was like 54 rev behind) all my problems went away. I suggest updating first, then re- diagnose.

 

[FMEng]

You can't update firmware in a device that won't finish booting. And, an unstable device is dangerous to try to upgrade because you only get one try before it's a trip to the factory.

This sounds like the classic case of a failing control power supply. As soon as the unit progresses far enough in the boot sequence, the current consumption goes up, which causes the supply to sag or get too noisy and down she goes.

 

[soundlight]

Problem was - go figure - corrupt firmware. There's a jumper on the board that allows you to put it in to "boot mode" and then it'll let you flash new firmware on even if the firmware on the fixture is corrupt. After several fruitless steps of troubleshooting I called Martin support who right away said corrupt firmware and told me how to get in to Boot Mode with the main board and flash the software from a computer with a Light Jockey DMX box and the Martin Uploader software. Fixture fixed, one day ahead of the show that I wanted to use it for! Mission accomplished.