Strong Highlight II console
Simplex Millenium with 5-star
TA-10 automations
10-plex

The complaint: Projector motor will not start when the green button is pressed. The lamp starts, and 7 second later, the change-over opens.

Motor always starts when manual switch is activated. (Leeson).

Simple, relays right? Nope, exchanged those, symptom still remains.

"Sweated" the joints on the start button with an iron.

Re-aligned lower roller to assure good purchase on FM-35.

By-passed motion and presence fail-safe along with platter wrap fail-safe. "God himself cannot sink her" - It sunk.

Wiring is good. (checked twice).

Cold solder joint on back of board? Shook and banged the hell out of everything during auto operation. If a cold solder joint should have heard the motor kick out. - nothing

(This, of course, is one of those calls where I could not make the fault happen till the second call, then ONCE out of a dozen times I confirmed it.)

Okay, so not relays then, obviously something in the timer-drive circuitry right? From a spare board, replaced the 4 on board chips. I tried it with an old trailer a dozen more times. Started every time.

It worked great (even with fail-safes "armed"), for two nights. Then tonight, got a page. Damn thing failed again.

Should I advise them to call an exorcist?

Second thoughts : It might well be that a buffer board is required here. Maybe the xenon striking is knocking out the motor signal, but the usual effect of xenon interference is to "reset" the automation, not to kill just one function.

First, check to see if the relay actually closes. If the relay does not close, check to see if the closure voltage to the relay "got lost" somewhere. If the relay does close, check the traces on the printed circuit board for an open trace on the motor feed circuit.

If this problem has been since "day one" - there could be program error.

If it was an interface error, the motor would not start manually, so I don't think it is that type of an error.

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This automation has been working perfectly for the last five years. Then suddenly (and not every time either) this problem occured. Good point tho, if I can find long enough arms to reach around. Could solder a couple of wires to the green starting switch, i guess. It is a bitch being the only one on site with this type of call. Of course the intemittancy of this problem makes it even harder to trace. What do you do with an automation that works perfectly only when you're in the booth. Hang your picture near it?

Tried the ID's, shows up correctly on the remote status. Interesting point there tho, havent tried starting remotely with it. Hmmmmmmm.

I did first try to replace the relays. The problem still happened. For some reason tapping on the relays when ever this problem occured seemed to fix it. This only happened on 1 of 9 screens and only every once every few months with tapping on them.

I doubt it's a logic fault with the TA10 itself as event one and two are working correctly, its much more likley to be a mechanical fault, relay or the socket.

There is one thing you could do if this is becoming a real problem for you and you need to sort it in the short term. It's not a repair but a work around ....

The utility relay can be changed to a 'motor run' relay and duplicate the function of the motor relay itself. It's quite easy to do by cutting a trace and adding a jumper wire between two solder points. It's not actually detailed in the manual but is easy enough to work out. This would allow you to run for a while and see if the problem is still there. If it is, then its a logic problem, or xenon strike problem if not then its a relay problem.

The shield board that is available works a dream, its not expensive and worth a try. I have them in all my shows as we had problems with the xenon strike.

Regards Ken.

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if it is in fact down to current and the contacts degrading... god knows how long the manual switch will last. As I'm sure you know the manual switch does not control the relay but carries the switch load directly. These are very simple low current switches and may only be in the region of 5amp rating... I can't find the info right now but I doubt if the curcuit was intended to carry that much current directly.

As he has a number of other screens that are working just fine it sounds more like one of the problems already talked about and is simply a mechanical failure of the relay or socket or dry solder join.

Faults like this are a nightmare if you can't get it to repeat the fault to order. I have a problem with one of my TA10's that every now and then decides not to 'see' any cue's. The FM35 'reads' the cue but the TA10 ignores them.... It's been a number of weeks now what with swapping components and testing....

quote:

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Paul,
if it is in fact down to current and the contacts degrading... god knows how long the manual switch will last. As I'm sure you know the manual switch does not control the relay but carries the switch load directly. These are very simple low current switches and may only be in the region of 5amp rating... I can't find the info right now but I doubt if the curcuit was intended to carry that much current directly.

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Right on! There are alot of old and new power-hog motors out there running projectors. Ever noticed how heavy the manual switches were on the old RCA (Robbins&Myers) and Simplex (Leland) motors?

Inductive loads are not the most friendly type loads on under-rated contacts in switches and relays.

It is like cramming 10 pounds of crap in a 5-pound bag. It won't hold it for very long.

Thanks for that Paul!!

Oh by the way Paul... love the white wig.... i know a bar where you'd go down a storm....