Setup:
My dimming system is four Colortran ENR 96 racks. One rack is dedicated to house, lobby, work, and run lights and the other three are stage dimmers. The House Dimmer rack has a Viewpoint System that has been bypassed with a Doug Fleenor DMX combine unit to control the house lights via an ETC SmartFade for non-show use, for show situations, our Gio takes control. This bypass was installed professionally by Clair Brothers. The dimmer racks are located in a large, well-ventilated, concrete room with 5'+ overhead clearance. The house rack is by itself against one wall, the three stage racks are together against a different wall, the only other thing in the room aside from the dimmer racks are the power disconnects for the building and the emergency lights transfer system. The room has not been overheated at all, in fact the boiler went down the other day and it has been quite frosty in there. We had an infrared electrical inspection last week which included the dimmer racks (in a non-show situation, but house and lobby rack was on and in use). We had no hot spots recorded anywhere.
Problems:
The issue began with an airflow error in the house rack causing all the dimmers in phase B to suddenly turn off. We vacuumed out the front vents of all the dimmer and ENR control modules in the rack and we got that phase back. A few hours later though, the dimmers in phase B began flashing on and off rapidly. Vacuuming had no effect at this point, we also used a can of compressed air to blow out some of the harder to reach spots. We attempted swapping the Viewpoint module with our spare but we had no control at all with the spare in the rack, so we replaced the original module and the flashing resumed. While troubleshooting this, the rack started to power cycle repeatedly and after a few moments, the stage dimmer racks began to power cycle several times as well. We cut power to stage racks and kept working on the house rack until we had managed to stabilize it by removing the viewpoint module entirely and leaving the door that closes over the breaker side of the rack open. This cleared the error and stopped the flashing, though we did lose the phase B set of lights for the rest of the evening. I know this is not an ideal operating condition, but closing the door and/or replacing the viewpoint module resumes the flashing.
The next morning when I came in I noted that phase B was operational. I cut power to all 4 racks and began cleaning each dimmer card and vacuuming/blowing out the inside of the rack and fans. There was a LOT of dust, previous ME confirmed that this had not been done in years (I've been here 6 weeks). After cleaning and restoring everything, we had full control again except that several of the dimmers are now behaving as non-dim (100-51% ON, 50-0% OFF). They are being controlled as they should, just when they hit that 50% threshold they either pop on or off. I cant find a solid pattern to the dimmers responding this way, it occurs across all phases but doesn't affect all lights. The house rack still gives an airflow error and lights begin to flash if the breaker door is closed and/or the viewpoint module is reinserted.
I'm leaning towards a busted airflow sensor in the viewpoint module, though trying the spare did not help. Left-field idea is a CMX/DMX mix-up because we restarted the rack?
I'm out of my depth with this system at this point, we are just trying to get to July/August when we're moving forward with our dimming upgrade. (Which of course was approved mere hours before this problem started.)
Any ideas are appreciated.
My dimming system is four Colortran ENR 96 racks. One rack is dedicated to house, lobby, work, and run lights and the other three are stage dimmers. The House Dimmer rack has a Viewpoint System that has been bypassed with a Doug Fleenor DMX combine unit to control the house lights via an ETC SmartFade for non-show use, for show situations, our Gio takes control. This bypass was installed professionally by Clair Brothers. The dimmer racks are located in a large, well-ventilated, concrete room with 5'+ overhead clearance. The house rack is by itself against one wall, the three stage racks are together against a different wall, the only other thing in the room aside from the dimmer racks are the power disconnects for the building and the emergency lights transfer system. The room has not been overheated at all, in fact the boiler went down the other day and it has been quite frosty in there. We had an infrared electrical inspection last week which included the dimmer racks (in a non-show situation, but house and lobby rack was on and in use). We had no hot spots recorded anywhere.
Problems:
The issue began with an airflow error in the house rack causing all the dimmers in phase B to suddenly turn off. We vacuumed out the front vents of all the dimmer and ENR control modules in the rack and we got that phase back. A few hours later though, the dimmers in phase B began flashing on and off rapidly. Vacuuming had no effect at this point, we also used a can of compressed air to blow out some of the harder to reach spots. We attempted swapping the Viewpoint module with our spare but we had no control at all with the spare in the rack, so we replaced the original module and the flashing resumed. While troubleshooting this, the rack started to power cycle repeatedly and after a few moments, the stage dimmer racks began to power cycle several times as well. We cut power to stage racks and kept working on the house rack until we had managed to stabilize it by removing the viewpoint module entirely and leaving the door that closes over the breaker side of the rack open. This cleared the error and stopped the flashing, though we did lose the phase B set of lights for the rest of the evening. I know this is not an ideal operating condition, but closing the door and/or replacing the viewpoint module resumes the flashing.
The next morning when I came in I noted that phase B was operational. I cut power to all 4 racks and began cleaning each dimmer card and vacuuming/blowing out the inside of the rack and fans. There was a LOT of dust, previous ME confirmed that this had not been done in years (I've been here 6 weeks). After cleaning and restoring everything, we had full control again except that several of the dimmers are now behaving as non-dim (100-51% ON, 50-0% OFF). They are being controlled as they should, just when they hit that 50% threshold they either pop on or off. I cant find a solid pattern to the dimmers responding this way, it occurs across all phases but doesn't affect all lights. The house rack still gives an airflow error and lights begin to flash if the breaker door is closed and/or the viewpoint module is reinserted.
I'm leaning towards a busted airflow sensor in the viewpoint module, though trying the spare did not help. Left-field idea is a CMX/DMX mix-up because we restarted the rack?
I'm out of my depth with this system at this point, we are just trying to get to July/August when we're moving forward with our dimming upgrade. (Which of course was approved mere hours before this problem started.)
Any ideas are appreciated.