Martin Atomic 3000

And indeed, I wasn't suggesting using the -7 at 240 -- though, in fact, the manual does not forbid it, it merely strongly recommends you not.
 
For those who may be curious- (funny, though I posted this yesterday.)
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So, after using these guys I thought I would update the thread in case anyone else is interested. I used 3 of the Atomics - 1 un the floor under the upstage truss for strobing the whole stage, and 2 on top of the downstage truss for firing at the audience. They were using MAX-7 lamps, 12/3 cable, and a dedicated 20A circuit for each fixture. In the end, just one of them was insanely bright and filled the entire audience, and this was in a room that was about 120'x100'.
 
Hahaha. Yeah, they're super bright lights. I only have one, but it keeps up for indoors. Outside is where you need quantity. Did you ever try out the "blinder" mode?

Yeah they were extremely bright. I'm convinced I need to get one of them for my personal DJ rig now. After doing a smaller dance today with my personal rig, I got depressed when I didn't have 3 strobe detonator buttons to fire during the drop :lol:

I used the blinder once when the DJ wanted to get a picturenof the audience. I have that picture lying around somewhere.
 
Yeah they were extremely bright. I'm convinced I need to get one of them for my personal DJ rig now. After doing a smaller dance today with my personal rig, I got depressed when I didn't have 3 strobe detonator buttons to fire during the drop :lol:

I used the blinder once when the DJ wanted to get a picturenof the audience. I have that picture lying around somewhere.
Blinder effect can be somewhat hit-or-miss for photography unless you use a shutter speed (eqv) of a 60th of a second or longer. It looks like it is on to the eye, but it's actually blinking. Because of the diodes, it is off for 1/120th of a second per wave (or greater), and on for much less.
 
Blinder effect can be somewhat hit-or-miss for photography unless you use a shutter speed (eqv) of a 60th of a second or longer. It looks like it is on to the eye, but it's actually blinking. Because of the diodes, it is off for 1/120th of a second per wave (or greater), and on for much less.

I could tell, I wouldn't think it would just leave it shorted to the power line. He got it with his phone camera somehow though. I think it was taken after they had faded out about half way.

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Hi guys (and gals!) - Have a question for any lighting folks around these parts - I have an Atomic Strobe (120v) and the lamp went out in it. There is a LED on the back that indicates when it has a bad lamp. Today we bought a new flash tube for it and replaced it but the LED stays lit indicating a bad tube. I don't know where to look to start troubleshooting this other than send it back and get it repaired - has anyone run across this at all? Have another identical one working fine.

Any advice would be awesome - especially if that advice happened to come with the Atomic service manual :)

Thanks!

Jon
 
They have a pretty long life... Make sure the lamp they sent you is for the 120 volt unit if that is what you have. The lamp for the 240 volt unit has a different gassing and may not fire at the lower voltage. As long as it is the right lamp and you have good connection on the end terminals and the trigger wire, then you need to check for that HV trigger pulse. Remember, buy nature it is a High Voltage pulse so there is a shock hazard!
One last question, does the LED come on instantly? If so, there may be a reset that has to be done first. Never lost a lamp in one so I'm not sure ;)

One more last thought! If it turns out there is something else that failed, chances are your old lamp is good too!
 
Heard my name above. Never used one in person, just buy the lamps and supply the cable.

No, no special 10ga cable for feeding fixtures has ever been supplied over the years since the fixture was invented, it was 12/3 or 12/14 Soco type assuming it's mostly a burst at most in maxing out the amperage over a short period of time.

"My concern is that I have both vendors AND rental shops telling me they cannot supply the 120v fixtures because they don't have them. NOT the lamps--the fixtures" I was not aware either that there wasn't other than two fixtures in where I work. At least I believed we stocked some XOP 7 fixtures and mostly the normal XOP 15 lamp fixtures and there was two versions.

Was not aware that they were convertable but than again, I don't mostly do post 1979 technology other than buying lamps and installing LED tape I don't buy for custom builds these days... and also, I still don't get DMX code in having guys for that as with fiber optics. I do know Martin has changed suppliers over the years for this XOP 15 lamp, but seemingly for all above posters, there is no problems with lamp life.

I have custom made the XOP 15OF.ofr lamps by way of an alternate company in the lamps I use for the 1.5Kw strobes - or perhaps the original company Martin had them made from. Don't know who makes the lamps I use, my supplier gets them made for me to my spec. and if I find problems they look at it and adjust to make better. I found the last I bought in lamps from Martin as a supplier over time don't live up to my lamp needs and went elsewhere in getting back to where the lamp life once was. On the XOP 7 lamps, I use so few of them that I still get them from Martin.

Sorry if not of help in never having used or worked on such fixtures other than perhaps fixing a stuck bolt or rivet nut or something like that - I only buy the lamps. 10 or 15 years ago I had a lot more involvement with the Diversitronics 2000 version, but mainly in providing a stable not spot welded rigging platform for them and replaced fans.
 
Hi all,

Does anyone have experience using both the 120v model and 208v model of the Martin Atomic strobes? Is there an output difference? Or could the difference be in the programming?

I have multiple designers who are looking to use the atomics, one of which is insisting on the 208v model, however I can't seem to put my finger on a difference in the output, or why one is "better" than the other. Since the 208v model requires specific power, a power distro box and associated cables would make the rental almost twice as much as if I were to rent the 120v models.

Looking for some justification.
 
As far as I remember, they're the same unit, with the only difference being the lamp and/or a setting. Can't remember. And yes, the 208v setting will get you greater output.
 
Hi,

I just bought a broken Atomic 3000 and need some help repairing it. When I plug it into the wall (120v), there's no signs of life. The LED's and fan don't turn on. I have also checked and replaced the fuse.

I opened it up to look at the PCB for damage, but no signs of charring or burnt components, however, on the transformer (tr005), I noticed a small dot of what looks like corrosion. I have checked R136 and R127 and resistance is within spec.

Since there isn't any signs of life, I started at the 5v regulator (78M05). There isn't any power getting into the regulator, I presume the input voltage is 12v, since the fan runs on 12v. I have only traced back to the transformer so far. I'm getting power out of D101, ~170v, don't remember the exact value.

I'm suspecting the tr005 transformer is bad, but i'm not sure if there's a protection circuit preventing it from powering on. Anyway to verify the transformer is dead?

Any suggestions or test points to check?

Thanks!
 
Is it a 120v or 208v model? It may not work on 120v.
 
(See schematic in post [HASHTAG]#42[/HASHTAG]) The strobe uses a one-chip switch-mode power supply. If the main cap after the diode quad has ~ 180 volts on it, but there is no 12 volt on the supply side of the 5 volt regulator, then there is a good change the transformer driver chip is dead. If there is a very low voltage on the 12 volt buss, then the chip may be working but is in current limiting mode due to a failure elsewhere.
 
Thanks JD,

I'll check the drain on the TNY255 and see if the optoisolator is triggering properly. It sounds like the driver is dead, I remember measuring the output/secondary of the transformer and got no reading at all. I'll double check it again tonight in case I missed something. Thanks for the suggestions JD, that's exactly what I was looking for. Much appreciated. I'll report back once I know more.

btw: I didn't mention it earlier, but this is a v1.4 board with a 2003 stamp on the big cap.
 
As for 120 vs 208v version, the 208, with the big lamp is SIGNIFICANTLY brighter. The lamp itself is about twice as long, and so is the arc.

A lot of smaller rock shows do use the 120v models, only for the fact that sometimes you have very limited power in small clubs.

I have used both often, and the 120v version is a little disappointing when you are expecting the big boys.
 
I finally got a little bit of time over the weekend to mess with it. I was measuring about .4vdc at the input leg of the 5v regular. I was also getting about 146v at the source and drain pins of the driver. I was getting power to the Enable pin as well, but can't remember the voltage. Another observation to note, there is no power coming out of the secondary of the transformer, But there is power going into the primary.

Since I had a tny255 driver handy, I swapped it in, just to make sure I was working with a good driver. Still no go. I then decided to try powering it up with an external power source. I wired in 12v into the input leg of the regulator without it attached to the wall. All the electronics and fan fired up as expected. And as a test, I plugged the power into the wall to see if it works. As soon as I plugged the power into the wall, The fan died and the LED's went dim/out. But, the strobe was functioning fine, it responds to dmx no problem. I'm not sure what is causing the fan to turn off and the led's to dim once I plug it into the wall. Maybe there's a shorted component somewhere that somehow gets triggered when the mains get plugged in. It then causes the power supply to shut down. This is where my limited smps trouble shooting skills ends. Before I start replacing all the power supply components, I wanted to see if anyone knows which power supply components fail commonly on these boards. I could start there.

Thanks for the help. I bought this fixture knowing it was broken and wanted a crack at repairing it. This will be a really nice addition to our small band's lighting rig.
 
Since the processor "sees" the AC waveform via the ZVC detector (pin 7 in the schm above), and the processor also flags on the fan and the LED indicators, it may simply be confused due to the turn-on sequence. If the strobe runs well and responds to DMX when you have the external 12 volt input, then most all of the circuits check ok. Double check that 5 volt buss is indeed 5 volts. If so, then the problem looks to be in the 12 volt supply. Since it is a switch-mode supply, any of the connected components could be inhibiting it's operation. Since you received this broken, there is also a chance that someone already took a crack at fixing it. Pay careful attention to anything that may look recently soldered!
 

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