Paul

You can home just one attribute (colour, beamshape or position) of the selected fixtures, by holding down the colour, beamshape or position button, then pressing 'home'. This should help when editing palettes.

What kind of application are you looking at which would require 64 remote switches? The MIDI/SMPTE/CAN kit (standard on Frog Box) can also be fitted to Leapfrog, Bullfrog and Mambo Frog.

Your desk was made in week 48, 2002. Hence you definitely have a TDK/Teac disk drive. No worries there! The Frog operating system only supports 1.44M disks, which explains why the 720K disk didn't work. Like you say, formatting the disk in the desk may solve your problems. If not, try a different disk. If you're problem is still not solved, then return the desk to the dealer you bought it from, or give our friendly service man Keith a ring and arrange for the desk to be sent back to us.

Please can you could provide the serial number of your desk, so that we can determine what version of the hardware you have.

The way all 3 wheels are fitted, is that so as you move the wheel away from the palm of your hand, the value increases. If your problem is specifically with Pan/Tilt, then hang on for the next software update which will allow these to be inverted or swapped on a fixture by fixture basis. If your problem is the wheel in general, then pop it out the panel and put it back in the other way round. There's enough cable on it to fit it either way round. You'll need to open your desk to do this.

A trackerball connected to the Illusion's mouse port would not give the pan/tilt feature you are talking about. It would only allow you to move the mouse pointer around the monitor screen and select data fields to edit. Whilst we appreciate that all you want to do with a trackerball on a Frog series desk is control pan&tilt, other users, once the socket appears, may expect to be able to use a trackerball/mouse/joystick to select fields on the monitor screen, as on the Illusion. This would be a substantial change to the operating philosophy of the desk. We wouldn't want to do an incomplete implementation that would frustrate as many people as it satisfied. However keep the ideas coming. If trackerballs/mouses/joysticks become the hot topic on the forum, who knows what might happen after release 9...!!!

Ahh, you're under the impression that software is free It would certainly be *possible* to connect a trackerball to the desk. However features are not implemented simply because they are possible. What gets features onto the list for inclusion in software updates is popular support. At the moment it seems most people are happy with the control wheels, see THIS TOPIC. Also, you need to convince Graham (Zero88 brand manager) that your features ideas take the desk where he wants it to go. Phrases like "I'd buy another one" or "I'd pay £500 more" might come in handy!

The main board does indeed have a socket for a PS2 mouse, as we use the same main board in the Illusion. However the socket is not available on the rear panel, because the Frog software was designed to work around the front panel controls, not around the external monitor screens. This has been discussed extensively elsewhere on this forum. For further discussion on Joysticks/Trackerballs/Mouses, see THIS TOPIC.

Pretty much the entire front panel of the desk has circuit boards under it, so you might run into problems if you start going at it with your jigsaw! We'd love to see a photo if you do install said "submaster naming feature" though. Maybe we could start a new section on the forum, readers desks...

To clarify the current MIDI implementation, and quoting K-Nine... "The only implementation of SMPTE/MIDI on the frog series of desks is using the timecode to trigger memories on the memory stack." Your other option is to use the "Chilli Pro RS232 Link" (see pricelists for details) which will allow control of the Frog Box via its Chillinet port. CLICK HERE for the manual. With the RS232 Node, you can use the command: Command PM Play Memory The syntax is: @PMxx:Dxx:Fxx<cr> PMxx defines the Memory Number, valid for 00 to 99 (whole numbered memories only). Dxx defines the Chillinet Dimmer Number, set to FF to communicate with the Frog Box. Fxx defines the Fade Time, however this parameter is ignored by the Frog Box, instead it uses the fade times programmed in the show, so simply send 00. Hope this helps, Paul. Edit: Added link for manual.

You need to buy the SMPTE/MIDI upgrade kit 00-364-00. You may also need a new base for the desk which has the holes punched for the sockets. See the price lists on the Zero88 website for further details.

We're intrigued to know how you found out that the motherboard is able to support such a tracker-ball. Go on, do tell... :)

The LCD displays are screwed into pillars on the front panel. It sounds like all your screws have fallen out! I recommend you open up your desk and reattach the LCD to the panel, as if it is rattling around, the connections on the PCB could be shorting out against the metalwork. This could be the cause of your desk crashing. The screw size on the wheel LCD is M2x6mm if you've lost them all!

CLICK HERE.

Show Naming Upgrades are available all at good newsagents for about 10p...

Have a look at THIS TOPIC. Also it would be useful if you could tell us the desk serial number, and what version of software it was previously running if possible. edit: fixed link

If you don't have any fixtures selected, then the wheels won't do anything.

Most likely to be a hardware problem I would think. To confirm this, put the desk into test mode. This is done by holding down the F1 key on the panel as you switch the desk on. The channel flash buttons will now select various test pages on the main LCD. Find the one that says 'wheels'. The numbers on the LCD will show you any movements of the wheels that you make. If the numbers do not change for the thumb wheel, then it is a hardware problem. Open up the desk (only 2 screws need be removed to separate the front panel from the base), and check that the wire harnesses from the wheels are securely plugged into the PCB. Also check that the wheel assembly housing and the small optics PCB are securely clipped together - use one of the working wheels as a guide to how it is meant to look. Best of luck! If it's still broke, then give our service department a call on Monday and we'll help you out further.

We did once hook up a PSX controller to a Frog, just to see if we could. It was kind of novel, but without an LCD screen on the controller, a bit tricky to use. The idea never got developed any further, but if enough of you guys wanted to buy one...

When making an upgrade disk, it is important to use a freshly formatted disk. Simply deleting any files previously on the disk leaves behind some hidden garbage which can confuse the desk. Brand new out the box floppies tend to work best if you're having problems. You could also try formatting the floppy on the desk, before copying the OSF file to it. If the desk fails to recognise the disk is present, eject the floppy, pop it back in again, power cycle the desk and try again. Repeat this a few times and the desk should see the upgrade disk. In days of old, we used to use Panasonic disk drives in the Illusion 120/240. Around the middle of 2001 we changed over to TDK/Teac, as users were reporting reliability problems. If your desk has a Panasonic disk drive fitted, then try swapping it out for another type. If your desk is still within it's 3 year warranty period, then get it back to us and we'll sort it all out for you! Make sure when you send it that it is accompanied with a warranty fault report form.

Most of your problems suggest that there could be a problem with the battery in your desk. There are 2 types of main board that are used in the Fat Frog desks. Earlier desks used the STMain1/1B board, which had a 3.6V NiMH battery soldered to the board. Later desks use the STMain2 board, which has a 3V CR2032 Lithium coin cell. In either case, open up the desk and measure the battery voltage with a multimeter to check that it is OK. Your problem with deleting fixtures causing colour information to be lost does sound unusual, I doubt this could be caused by a battery problem. It would help us if you could email your showfile (mailto:techsupp@zero88.com) so that we can look into this.

CLICK HERE.

The message the Illusion BIOS displays should be "operating system not found. please insert an upgrade disk, and switch the desk off, and back on". If the message your desk is displaying anything other than this, then it seems that your desk has the wrong BIOS EPROM fitted! There were a couple of very early prototype desks we made, which should never have left the building, where this might be the case. If you have one of these, then the only answer really is to send it back to Keith to have all the chips upgraded. What's the serial number of your desk by the way? What are it's origins???

The first stage in fixing problems of this nature is to reproduce them under controlled conditions where they can be investigated further. To assist us in this task we often need to ask users to send us their show data, as it may be that there is some way that the desk has been set up that highlights a problem that was not spotted in testing here. We are absolutely confident that if we can reproduce this problem, then it can be fixed. There is no question of that. I assure you that we take stability problems of this kind extremely seriously, and that as soon as we have corrected the problem, a software update will be released on our website.

mailto: techsupp@zero88.com Thanks, Paul.