MS Lighting LED Heads

rmarsh

Member
The theater I work at got a bunch of LED Moving Heads from MS Lighting for this season. Out of the box they seemed great, really bright and lots of colors, but we're having a few problems.

1. When you move them they will sometimes flash. If the intensity is at zero they flash in some random color. If they are on they just flash in that color. It seems like they are less likely to do it when moved slowly. Really annoying if you want dark, smooth transitions!
2. When reset, sometimes they switch the tilt direction or the pan direction. This seems to depend also on whether I have the board on and whether I'm sending them any DMX signal. Still experimenting with that.
3. They get slightly off position. For the last show for I was resaving focus palettes every day because they won't go back to all the same spots.

Anyone have ideas what I could do to fix some of this? We're using an Ion with a profile for these that the LD made. The light's model number is MHLED 3615Z.
 
I'm no expert, but it sounds like problems with the heads themselves, faulty sensors maybe? Definitely contact your vendor.
 
I'm thinking that the overall issue is quality... these lights are manufactured by a Chinese company with a barely functioning website. Whoever decided to purchase these lights probably was not aware, or did not care about the necessity for buying from reputable manufacturers. I think you may be stuck with these lights in that condition, but I also might be a little pessimistic as well! o_O
 
1. Have you done all the standard troubleshooting on the rest of the system (board ok, cables ok, etc.)?

2. Is it all lights doing the exact same thing?

3. Does the same error occur every time?

Quality control from some mfg. is less than adequate. You (whoever bought these) may end up eating this.
 
This is a whole new building with new board, cabling, etc. Our conventionals and other LEDs are working fine though, so I don't think that the board/cables would be the problem. I haven't bothered to terminate these. They are 3-pin and I don't have extra 3-pin plugs lying around at the moment. The flash that happens when they move isn't consistent. Sometimes a cue will be fine one day and flashing the next. Sometimes they just flash once and sometimes you get several flashes in a row.

This morning I tried plugging one directly into the board, avoiding the rest of the system. It still flashes when I use the profile. I tried patching things the old-fashioned way though, with a channel for each parameter. No flashing then! That makes me think it could be a profile issue? I have no idea what to change in this profile though. Pan and tilt each use two of the light's channels and are 16 bit.
 
quite possibly a timing issue, can you slow down your dmx rate
 
I have to agree, dmx timing issue or a glitch in the profile/protocol for that fixture. Many times the profile is written from a pdf, which isn't entirely accurate and never tested on an actual fixture. What you need to do is go through each fixture parameter individually, and make a note of what happens/when each change occurs. Send that to ETC, or whoever made your board, and have them edit the profile based on your real world test. Or, if you can modify the profile yourself, so much the better.

As for pan and tilt having 2 channels each, that's common with 16-bit lights. One channel will be the gross adjustment, and the other will be a fine adjustment. Most protocols have them right next to each other (gross pan ch. 1, fine pan, ch. 2, etc.) but not always.
 
I think the DMX timing is it! I changed it on the port with the one I'm testing fom maximum to slow, and now that ones not flashing anymore. I just need to figure out how to change it for the right of the lights. We are using ETC Gateways: a LAN cable plugs the board into the system, and each gateway plugs in with a LAN and has a 5-pin port on it. I'm probably going to call ETC about that.
 
I don't have any answers for you, but I have 4 of their wash units. I'm using them on a 10 day gig outside in the dirt right now. No problems. I've used them for around a year and haven't had a single issue. They're EXTREMELY bright, RGBA, and really fast.
 
I am interested in getting some of these lights, however I am interested in peoples opinions on them. I am not looking at them for hiring out they would only be used by me and my staff so should theoretically be reasonably well looked after. My real concern as well as reliability is noise, I cover a vast array of events including theatre shows and conferences and I am worried that the noise of the fans as well as the motor noise will be particularly loud.
 
I think the DMX timing is it! I changed it on the port with the one I'm testing fom maximum to slow, and now that ones not flashing anymore.

Did changing the DMX timing fix the positioning issue as well? That would be kind of surprising to me... if it didn't, did you figure the positioning problem out?
 
HI THERE GUYS
I WORK IN RENTAL COMPANY IN CROATIA AND WE HAVE SAME PROBLEM WITH MS LIGHTING MH 3641Z LE MOVING HEADS.
THE PROBLEM IS SAME AND I TESTED THE LIGHTS WITH GRANDMA2 LIGHT CONSOLE, MARTIN M6 CONSOLE AND MARTIN LIGHT JOCKEY SOFTWARE

WITH GRAND MA2:
-LEDS ARE FLICKERING IN RANDOM ORDER WHILE MOVING LIGHTS. WHEN THEY ARE IN STATIC POSITION THEY ARE WORKING FINE.
I MADE PERSONALITY FOR CONSOLE MYSELF AND I TRIED TO AVOID PAN FINE AND TILT FINE CHANNELS ( 8BIT MODE ) AND I TRIED WITH THEM (16BIT) AND THE PROBLEM REMAINS.

WITH MARTIN MAXXYZ M6 CONSOLE I HAD NO FLICKERING PROBLEMS ( WELL JUST FEW TIMES ) BUT I HAD PROBLEM WITH HARD RESETING FIXTURES
( TURNING THEM OF AND ON ). IF I DIT THAT WITH DMX LINE CONNECTED THEY RESETED IN WRONG PAN POSITION ( ALL OF THEM 12PCS) AND AFTER THAT THEY STARTED BUMPING IN THE END OF PAN POSITION AND MOTORS STARTED JUMPING OVER ).
IF YOU HARD RESET THEM WITHOUT DMX LINE CONECTED THEY ARE WORKING FINE.
I USED ORIGINAL DRIVERS FOR M6 THAT GUYS IN MARTIN MADE OUT OF USER MANUAL THAN I SENT THEM (16BIT)

WITH LIGHT JOCKEY:

I HAD FLICKERING PROBLEMS WHILE MOVING LIGHTS WITH FADE TIME APLIED IN MOVEMENT SEQUENCES.
WHEN USING SNAP MODE EVERYTHING WAS OK I HAD NO FLICKERING.


- BUT THE MAIN PROBLEM IS THAT MY COMPANY BOUGHT THESE FIXTURES FROM MS LIGHTING TWO TIMES. FIRST SERIES THAT WE GOT 10 MONTHS AGO (24 PCS ) ARE WORKING OK ON ALL DMX CONTROLLERS WITH SAME FIXTURE PERSONALITIES AND ARE STILL DOING GIGS ALL THE TIME WITH ALMOST NON OF PROBLEMS.
- THE PROBLEM STARTED WITH LAST 36 PCS THAT WE BOUGHT IN LAST ORDER AND THEY CAME BEFORE 2 WEEKS.
-THEY HAVE SAME CHANNEL LIST, THEY LOOK SAME BUT THE RGBW MIX IS LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT ( CALIBRATED)

WE FOUND OUT THAT THEY HAVE DIFFERENT CONTROL BOARDS INSIDE...

BTW THERE IS ONE SOME OTHER GUY IN CROATIA THAT HAVE SAME PROBLEM WITH MS LIGHTING FIXTURES THAT CAME ON SAME TIME TO CROATIA ( SAME SHIPPMENT)

SO I AM ALMOST SHURE THAT PROBLEM IS ON CONTROLING BOARD INSIDE FIXTURES..
TRY TO COMPLAIN TO FACTORY AS WE DID AND THEY STILL DID NOT DO ANYTHING SMART....
 
Suggest you turn off caps lock. It gives the impression you're shouting.

Your issue with different batches of the same model are typical. I am having similar problems with a different manufacturer. They are made in smaller workrooms, with low quality assurance, and are lacking in the funds to assure a constant, reliable supply of parts. Inconsistency is part of the cost of low priced equipment.
 
Hello there,
i read all your threads about mslighting Company in chine and we also did purchase a few products from them. I can only warn you from this totally unprofessional company cause they do not care about any warranty agreements don't send you any spare parts to fix problems and all equipment we get from them gets faulty after 1 month regular use !!!! We did inspect the Moving heads from them and find real major problems on the enineering on them !!! Over Voltage on the LED's and Fan's so they burned out. that is also why they are so bright cause the livetime is reduced to a minimum !!! So do yourself a favor and do not purchase any products from them cause you will only have trouble.
 
Hi all,

Sorry I haven't been back to this thread for a long time or posted the end to this story. Here's some updates.

Slowing the DMX speed completely stopped the flickering problem. We also changed the profile (It's a profile created by LDs and myself at the theater, not from ETC) so their home position is 0%, 0%. Before we'd had it at something like 50%, 50% like you'd expect for a mover. There's no more problems with the pan/tilt switching when they reset now, as long as they are released and getting a 0,0 DMX from the board when resetting. That means we can't ever use pan/tilt reverse in the ion either, but not a big deal. I also set up our NonDims so it is much easier to reset them regularly now. We're still having some problems with them going to the same positions all the time. Seems like they are fine at the beginning of the day and start to get messed up after lots of programming/movement. I've been trying to encourage our LDs to reset them regularly during tech, but that doesn't always happen.

The new problem we have now is some of the colors aren't working in all the units anymore. We've had these for just under a year now, so it'd be really annoying if LEDs are already burning out! Sometimes it's a whole color doesn't work at all anymore (especially the amber) or sometimes it only works on half the unit. Any ideas? I'll be at this theater again in a week and plan to fully test all the colors then.

Thanks for all the answers earlier! Especially the suggestion to slow the DMX.
 
About fan noise, yes you hear them in the theater but it's not bad. We generally do plays (not musicals) with no mics and don't mind the little bit of noise. They are quieter than the fans on most scrollers I've worked with.

About MS Lighting, we bought 12 of these units and they sent us a lot of spare parts with them even though we didn't ask! I haven't actually used any of those spare parts yet. I don't really expect to get any support from them, seeing that they're in China and probably don't have someone who speaks fluent English. The manual is written in very poor English. It's actually pretty entertaining! "Warning: Do not use the hand of the LED moving head to up and down or fix."
 

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