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Author Topic: unsolved lens automation issues on Barco seriesII - anyone? Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-01-2011 12:34 PM                     We hear a few reports about lens automation issues on current Barco projectors (lost focus after format changes). Does anyone know about 'officially' unresolved issues, other than misconfiguration, etc.? I understand that even the new projectors still need some safe-time after lens-adjustment commands? - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-01-2011 01:07 PM                     I know of no series 2 lens file issues. I only have one customer that ever had problems with any of the Barco series 1s too where he would occasionally get a corrupt file. In fact, Barco series 2 lens settings are blazingly fast and accurate. -Steve  |  IP: Logged Frederick Lanoy Film Handler Posts: 88 From: North of France Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-01-2011 02:37 PM                     I have some issues with Barco serie 2 projectors but only with DP2K32. The motorized lens doesn't always work correctly (image out of focus, too big on screen, too small). You can save new correct settings with D Cine Communicator. But the problem is still there and quite unpredictable... I heard that an update is coming to solve the issue.  |  IP: Logged Jonathan Althaus Master Film Handler Posts: 435 From: Bedford, TX Registered: Dec 2008 posted 02-01-2011 03:28 PM                     We have not had any lens issues with our series 2's (23B model)  |  IP: Logged Jussi Siponen Film Handler Posts: 75 From: Mikkeli, Itä-Suomi, FINLAND Registered: Jan 2010 posted 02-01-2011 03:46 PM                     What I'd recommend you to do if are having lens automation issues: - Verify that you have the correct lens selected in projector setup. - Verify Info-T 890 does not apply (not likely if this is a new installation, possible if the equipment was delivered late 2009 - early 2010) (* - Run the lens homing procedure (so you have a known starting point) - Re-do the lens files Make sure you are not hitting the physical limits in zoom or focus range (this is less likely to happen with lens shift, because you should either start vignetting or trip the prism safety switch). If you hit the physical limit with focus, move the motorized focus to halfway of it's range and bring the picture to focus with the backfocus adjustment. If you hit the physical limit with zoom, you'll have get another lens with the proper zoom range for your setup - most likely the one with one step higher or lower ratio (ie. if you now have a 1.6-2.5 lens, you'd need to get either 1.4-2.05 or 1.9-3.2). Hope this helps, let us know how it goes. (* One production batch of the motorized zoom lenses 0.98" DC2K 1.6-2.5:1 and 1.95-3.2:1 is incorrectly labeled. Based on the product number mentioned on the label wrong lens parameters are selected in the Communicator software. As a result the motorized zoom lenses fail to work or do not work as expected.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-01-2011 03:49 PM                     Jussi brings up a great point...Run the Homing procedure (and verify that the correct lens is selected in Communicator). I also suggest, centering the image on the LENS (regardless of where it is showing in the theatre) before homing the lens. After the lens is verified to be correctly selected and then homed, try resetting the lens files. -Steve  |  IP: Logged Jonathan Althaus Master Film Handler Posts: 435 From: Bedford, TX Registered: Dec 2008 posted 02-01-2011 05:50 PM                     I also believe there are 2 diff makes of lenses, Konica and Invision. I seem to remember my tech saying something was wrong with one type. Any idea on this?  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-02-2011 03:59 AM                     Will the series-ii BARCOs still do a full homing cycle for any format change? - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-02-2011 06:17 AM                     The homing procedure is only done on the installation (it takes minutes to complete as it has to rack the lens and find its "0,0" position for shift, focus and zoom). The time it takes during a normal format change is typically 5-seconds or less, by comparison. -Steve  |  IP: Logged Jussi Siponen Film Handler Posts: 75 From: Mikkeli, Itä-Suomi, FINLAND Registered: Jan 2010 posted 02-02-2011 09:19 AM                     quote: Carsten Kurz Will the series-ii BARCOs still do a full homing cycle for any format change? Absolutely not. The adjustments are and always have been "shortest path": directly from the present value to the target value without driving the lens to mechanical stops as a waypoint. Series I Barcos executed lens adjustments one value at a time (x, y, zoom, focus). In the worst case scenario this could take minutes, though usually it's more like 20 - 30 seconds. Like Steve said, Series II Barcos do this much faster. A large part of the faster lens set times is due the Series II projectors driving all lens values simultaneusly (the rest is due the lens motors being faster than before).  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 02-05-2011 03:57 PM                     Thanks Jussi. Do you know wether these machines have absolute position encoders on these adjustment axes? I would think that on simple systems, a projector would at least have to do a homing cycle on power-on. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Chris Mosel Film Handler Posts: 74 From: New Braunfels, TX, USA Registered: Sep 2002 posted 02-05-2011 05:22 PM                     What I thought to be lens issues turned out to be a bad "local keypad" on the side of the projector. Replacement of the keypad solved all my lens issues.  |  IP: Logged Brendan Penny Expert Film Handler Posts: 121 From: Bundoora, Australia Registered: Dec 2008 posted 02-05-2011 08:39 PM                     Ahh the Barco lens issue. Yes have been enjoying this for oh I'd say 2 years now. Any day now someone will get around to getting off their fat ass and fix this..... Me holding breath..... Here's one fix that works... Don't turn off the projector......EVER!  |  IP: Logged Kris Verhanneman Expert Film Handler Posts: 182 From: Belgium Registered: Dec 2009 posted 02-06-2011 03:32 AM                     Brendan, if you have that much troubles with your lens check out that one of the positions isn't at the edge of the lens. The problem that many encounter are linked to that.  |  IP: Logged Dave Macaulay Film God Posts: 2321 From: Toronto, Canada Registered: Apr 2001 posted 02-06-2011 08:46 AM                     The Barco lenses do not have position sensors. The home procedure sends the lens to each axis's end stop and sets the internal step counter to zero. After that the projector stores the current step count of the lens and the step counts for each preset, just moving the stepper motor to the new step count when you change presets. If you did't do this on installation you will probably see your lens step counts are nutty - high or negative numbers - and you won't be able to home the lens without redoing all the lens files. You may have a problem if you have the lens at or very close any of its stops for any preset. The lens can get "out of whack" a few step counts, if it tries to go past the end stop you get a yellow light error. The projector still works fine but that error message and yellow light keep popping up. Power cycling the projector or homing the lens usually corrects this for a while. Not much you can do about the zoom except reset the lens a bit off the stop and live with the image size. Focus should be moved away from the stop by adjusting all 3 Scheimpflug adjusters the same way and then adjusting all preset lens files. Lens shift hitting the end stop requires a small change in the projector angle and redoing the lens files. This same "out of whack" issue will give you focus, zoom, or shift errors after a longish time. Rehome the lens and this should be corrected. Sometimes the projector just goes stupid and forgets lens or screen files. I don't know how or why. usually a power cycle brings them back, but it's only happened to me a few times and usually on B projectors. If you have Doremi servers I suggest using the "send projector macro" command in Doremi's macro editor rather than "set projector channel". Barco and Doremi both say the channel select function is fine but I've seen several bizzaro problems with it which were eliminated by using the named macro command. The projector macro name on the projector preset must be exactly the same as the one you call in the server - case matters. I've heard that underscores and dashes should be avoided in these projector macro names if you call them from a Doremi server but I haven't personally seen a problem with that.  |  IP: Logged

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