VL2500s behaving oddly

[theatre4jc]

I have an 11 fixture VL2500 Spot rig in my room. We run it off a Jands Vista S3. Fixtures were all purchased on May 7/2008 so they have a couple years on them. Here is my issue. One fixture started with the Magenta wheel slipping on it's calibration so suddenly the magenta wheel at 50% was actually no color and no color was full magenta. Resetting the fixture didn't help and recalibrating did nothing. Sensor appeared to be clean and undamaged. So we just adjusted the programming to keep it working as it should because the budget is tight and repairs are only if 100% neccessary (not based on my opinon sadly). Anyway now the dimmer wheel has joined in the fun and is doing something similar, but it's very irradic and unpredicatable. This is the second fixture in my rig to do this and today two other units started showing the same problems. My questions are:

1) what would be the cause of this? PCB board failing?

2) Is this such a common problem that I would now have 4 fixtures in a 5 month period develop the same issue?

3) Should 2 year old fixtures that have been perminately installed and are cleaned regularly be having the same major issue on multiple fixtures that were all purchased the same day?

Advice/help comments?

 

[JChenault]

One quick thing to check - make sure the timing channels are set to 255 ( 100 percent) . This makes the board follow the control console. We had some issues with various attributes of some VL 2000 getting wonky when the timing values were not set to 255.

 

[rsmentele]

I have had this issue in the past also, and although the sensor for your color mixing may be clean it could still be bad. The fixture will give you an error message if this is the case, to check for any errors hit 'menu' then 'fixture' then 'status' and it would say Dimmer no sensor, Cyan no sensor, exc. If this is the case you need a new sensor, or another thing you could do to check is to swap the suspicious sensor with one from a working fixture and see if it solves the problem. If it does... you need a new one.

Hope that helps, PM me if you have any other questions.

Good Luck!

 

[Les]

Why do you need 11 VL2500's in your room. I do just fine with my ceiling fan and a torchiere.

 

[JCarroll]

Why do you need 11 VL2500's in your room. I do just fine with my ceiling fan and a torchiere.

Mood lighting...

 

[lightman02]

Could be bad motors. I would buy a couple spare motors and try that, they are not that expensive and are good to have around anyway. I've seen faulty motors do a lot of funky things. If it's happening to a lot of lights, it may be just that time where they need to have motors changed as the heat they are exposed to makes them go bad. Also you should call Vari-Lite and check, they could have had a bad batch of motors or something, it happend with High End Sytems years ago.

 

[theatre4jc]

It's not giving me a sensor error of any kind and after I did call VL. No bad batch of motors or anything they knew of. The guy actually didn't think it would be motors at all but instead either the paint on the wheel that the sensor reads fading off or maybe the pcb board going out. Which is what happened with my last instrument. But I have trouble believing that another pcb board would go out that fast on another instrument. 2 lights failing in a couple months time with pcb board issues and 2 more lights starting to show the same symptoms... seems a bit off to me.

 

[lightman02]

It's not giving me a sensor error of any kind and after I did call VL. No bad batch of motors or anything they knew of. The guy actually didn't think it would be motors at all but instead either the paint on the wheel that the sensor reads fading off or maybe the pcb board going out. Which is what happened with my last instrument. But I have trouble believing that another pcb board would go out that fast on another instrument. 2 lights failing in a couple months time with pcb board issues and 2 more lights starting to show the same symptoms... seems a bit off to me.

I'm slightly confused, does the wheel line up correctly when the light homes and then slips off almost immediately??? Intelligent lights only use the sensors for homing the position of the wheels, etc. After the home is complete they no longer look at the sensors and rely on the stepper motors to make the appropriate steps sent by the processor. If the motor does not make all the steps the light will not know that and you will have wheels out of alignment, the only way to fix that is to re-home.

 

[theatre4jc]

Rehoming the fixture does nothing. I don't think it is because of a motor misbehaving. Reason why is I will have full control still just not at the percentages I should have it at.

 

[techno89]

Rehoming the fixture does nothing. I don't think it is because of a motor misbehaving. Reason why is I will have full control still just not at the percentages I should have it at.

Maybe its an issue with the dmx board on the VL.

 

[lightman02]

Rehoming the fixture does nothing. I don't think it is because of a motor misbehaving. Reason why is I will have full control still just not at the percentages I should have it at.

Ok here is what I suggest, remove the dmx lines and run self tests through the menu on the fixture itself to rule out any DMX issues or programming problems, etc. If that works ok then look towards external problems or DMX board issues. If you don't get any errors after the fixture does a home then your sensors are working and motors are rotating the wheels to the proper positions. However even with a bad motor you will still have full control over the functions and will get a normal home. Stepper motors usually don't just stop working they atart loosing accuracy in the steps. You will still have control but things will be offset then what they should be. Could it be another issue, possibly but motor failures are more common then any other. Try swapping motors just to rule it out, that's my opinion.

 

[theatre4jc]

So I went in to look at the fixture today. Did all the tests and everything read ok. I looked at all the sensors and motors and all seem to be working as they should be. With the VL2500 open I started going through the controls at my console and could not get the fixture to respond in any way that it shouldn't. So I close the unit up and instantly the dimmer wheel goes wonky on me. I have the dimmer at 255, then the unit flashes to 0, back to 255 and then fades out all in about a 2 second period. I can still have full control of the dimmer wheel manually. Oddly if I put the intensity at 254 it works perfectly, but at 255 it will repeatidly fade away. But then if I put the fixture at 0 and slowly fade up at 135 the fixture begins to fade to black and by 170 it is completely black and stays out until I put it to 255, then it does it's flash/fade thing, but then I can put the intensity back at 254 and all is fine. So weird...

My thought now is that the issue may be caused by a heat problem. Or at least instigated by one since it did not do this till it was closed up. Any ideas?

 

[lightman02]

So I went in to look at the fixture today. Did all the tests and everything read ok. I looked at all the sensors and motors and all seem to be working as they should be. With the VL2500 open I started going through the controls at my console and could not get the fixture to respond in any way that it shouldn't. So I close the unit up and instantly the dimmer wheel goes wonky on me. I have the dimmer at 255, then the unit flashes to 0, back to 255 and then fades out all in about a 2 second period. I can still have full control of the dimmer wheel manually. Oddly if I put the intensity at 254 it works perfectly, but at 255 it will repeatidly fade away. But then if I put the fixture at 0 and slowly fade up at 135 the fixture begins to fade to black and by 170 it is completely black and stays out until I put it to 255, then it does it's flash/fade thing, but then I can put the intensity back at 254 and all is fine. So weird...

My thought now is that the issue may be caused by a heat problem. Or at least instigated by one since it did not do this till it was closed up. Any ideas?

Is there any wires getting piched or anything by the cover??

 

[theatre4jc]

No cables being pinched that I can see. I swapped the color bulkhead out with a known working fixture and the issue did not follow the bulkhead so that completely rules out motors and sensors. But now the issue is not presenting itself on the dimmer wheel but on both the cyan and magenta wheels. So it's a board issue somewhere. Didn't do the problem manually so like mentioned earlier it could be the dmx board.

 

[lightman02]

No cables being pinched that I can see. I swapped the color bulkhead out with a known working fixture and the issue did not follow the bulkhead so that completely rules out motors and sensors. But now the issue is not presenting itself on the dimmer wheel but on both the cyan and magenta wheels. So it's a board issue somewhere. Didn't do the problem manually so like mentioned earlier it could be the dmx board.

Did u try hooking the light directly to the board by itself?? One problem light or cable could be corrupting DMX on the chain somewhere.

 

[techno89]

Did u try hooking the light directly to the board by itself?? One problem light or cable could be corrupting DMX on the chain somewhere.

quite possible, if it has a standalone or automatic mode see if it runs weird in that too, eliminate as much of the other equipment as possible, but I am still leaning towards the DMX board, just like in an opto splitter of mine it went bad and would flash all the lights, bring things up at random intensities

 

[LuxMax]

This sounds like you have dust/dirt/crud built up along the outside edge of the dimmer wheel. This is a very common problem with VL2500s. There is a dab of black paint on the edge in one spot that is referenced by the sensor to tell it where the wheel is. When dust builds up in another spot, the VL thinks it has a new reference point and this is what is causing it to behave that way.
Take a Q-tip or fold a bit of lens tissue around a pencil and swipe the edge of all the wheels in the stack. This should help get rid of the problem.

 

[carlmnz]

Yeah sounds dirty to me. I've had that happen many times and I just had to clean the sensors and wheels really well. It jumps back and fourth when it cant see the black paint on homing. The stepper motors on VL's almost never give out like the cyber motors. They do but it is less likely on Vl's compared to cyber fixtures. If it were the DMX board it is likely you would have trouble with the pan and tilt as well as the color and dimmer. I would take apart the color module and clean all the wheels really well. It wont show up as an error cuz the sensor still works.

 

[theatre4jc]

Well I changed the color bulkheads out with a known working unit and the issue did not follow the bulkhead but stayed with the light. Did the same for the dmx board. Only thing I didn't swap out was the MCB itself. I gave up and called for a RMA and the guy I talked to said he though it sounded like the chips on the MCB going out. So I sent it off...we shall see. It's just out of warranty so now I get to pay a good pretty penny for this one.

 

[theatre4jc]

Few days later and I'm revisiting this issue, yet again. The one that I was originally having this issue with was sent to the shop for a new MCB to be put in. As I mentioned earlier have another light showing the same issue. Well more have started. I'm more than willing to bet that it will also require a new MCB. This now makes 5 lights having the same issue. All have been properlly maintained and are installed, never toured fixtures. All bought the same day in 2008. Fixtures are 2 years old and now 5 of 11 of them are having major Main Control Board issues. I know this isn't a common problem in most fixtures but come on...half of them?! What are the odds that I got a batch of lemons? The way it happens makes me think it is not my console but, maybe something went nuts with my Vista. But my fixtures of other brands work just fine, so I'm doubtful that it's my desk. What do you guys think? All fixtures are out of warrenty and 2 of the 5 have been repaired now, with 3 more showing the same issue. I'm a bit more than frustrated...