Annolennar
Member
Okay, so I have an interesting situation, and I was going to ask if anyone has any brilliant ideas about how to approach it. Comments are much appreciated!
A venue I work in has this very nice motorized fly system thats about 4 years old. The problem: It has never worked properly.
Its a Chameleon system from Stagetech (a UK company), with an Illusionist control console. The actual install was done by Texas Scenic, however (who are good guys, I just don't think they really knew what they were doing in this particular case ). Anyway, here's the deal:
- Manual control works (but obviously isn't nearly as useful for performances), and actually moves all the battens.
- The Chameleon server seems to work.
- The Illusionist console seems to work.
- The console communicates with the server, and one can use the console to "control" the battens, so far as the server shows numerical positions and status.
- BUT, any action taken on the console/server has no actual effect on the battens/motors/brakes. In fact, when one uses the manual control to move a batten, the server/console doesn't register any change in position, and vice versa.
Now, its not user error, because many people (all with considerable technical experience) have spent hours (probably days, collectively) trying to fix it - even Texas Scenic tried to come out and repair it. Every concievable combination of modes, commands, and voodoo spells has failed to make the console communicate with the actual system. There was, at one point, a remote that seemed to communicate a little (certain battens could be coaxed into moving), but it never worked right and had a short... now it doesn't work at all either.
So, while I suspect that there is something fundamentally screwed up in the way the system is put together (there's an unplugged wire somewhere or something along those lines), does anyone have any experience with this or similar systems that could shed some light on what the problem is?
If anyone would like more information, I'll try to answer. And no, I don't have the authority to call in Stagetech and have it fixed, I'm just a volunteer - I don't have any of the warranty information or whatnot.
Thanks in advance to anyone who replies.
A venue I work in has this very nice motorized fly system thats about 4 years old. The problem: It has never worked properly.
Its a Chameleon system from Stagetech (a UK company), with an Illusionist control console. The actual install was done by Texas Scenic, however (who are good guys, I just don't think they really knew what they were doing in this particular case ). Anyway, here's the deal:
- Manual control works (but obviously isn't nearly as useful for performances), and actually moves all the battens.
- The Chameleon server seems to work.
- The Illusionist console seems to work.
- The console communicates with the server, and one can use the console to "control" the battens, so far as the server shows numerical positions and status.
- BUT, any action taken on the console/server has no actual effect on the battens/motors/brakes. In fact, when one uses the manual control to move a batten, the server/console doesn't register any change in position, and vice versa.
Now, its not user error, because many people (all with considerable technical experience) have spent hours (probably days, collectively) trying to fix it - even Texas Scenic tried to come out and repair it. Every concievable combination of modes, commands, and voodoo spells has failed to make the console communicate with the actual system. There was, at one point, a remote that seemed to communicate a little (certain battens could be coaxed into moving), but it never worked right and had a short... now it doesn't work at all either.
So, while I suspect that there is something fundamentally screwed up in the way the system is put together (there's an unplugged wire somewhere or something along those lines), does anyone have any experience with this or similar systems that could shed some light on what the problem is?
If anyone would like more information, I'll try to answer. And no, I don't have the authority to call in Stagetech and have it fixed, I'm just a volunteer - I don't have any of the warranty information or whatnot.
Thanks in advance to anyone who replies.