iank99

I would suspect that the bearings in the fan are beginning to wear, so I'd simply replace it (or get your local service centre to replace it) - it will be a generic 'off the shelf' muffin/computer style fan so easily obtainable from most electronics suppliers. The fans are built to a price (and bought wholesale by Zero88), in the millions of units using relatively low cost materials for bearings so they will age quicker than the rack itself. The longest part of the swapover will be transferring the power connection on the fan I suspect

Depending on the age of the desk (you call if a Leap Frog not a Solution so it might be one of the early ones) it sounds like the onboard BIOS might need updating - I can't offer an explanation of why it's started misbehaving though but I did have a Solution with similar issues last summer. Essentially the original BIOS causes issues on ZerOS starting with ZerOS 'failing' to be able to allocate resources to itself - this was a fault that was identified early on the swap over from Leap Frog as a name to Solution and there is a BIOS update to cure it. Your desk needs to see a service centre/agent I suspect..

This is me via an Incognito window too :)

It looks from your image that the desk might be moved around regularly? In which case I'd be tempted to open it and ensure the Compact Flash drive is seated properly on it's connector - there's no retaining clip on it & it's feasible that it might have worked slightly loose, a gentle push to reseat it might be enough... I'd also change the internal battery whilst you have the case open - just in case or if you haven't swapped the battery lately - it's a CR2032 so commonly available. It would also be worth trying a boot without the keyboard attached, they do go bad & it might be drawing too much current from the onboard USBHub (but to be honest - this is a rare error these days).

@GaztechI have some of those faders in stock along with the fader caps and I have flash buttons for salvage on a Lightmaster & Sirius (though to be honest I've never tried to clean one internally) - I suspect that first 'try' would be to remove the cap, push the activator down & a quick squirt of Servisol might do the job. If you want to eMail me ian@serviceguy.co.uk then we can sort something between us, .

From experience, the actual fact is that most "vintage" lanterns will survive PAT but not the person doing the test unless they're a theatre specialist - the normal PAT person will throw a wobbler at the old round pin plugs, no fuses in the plugs, no decent earth on the patch cords & be unable to properly test a theatre lantern. The only likely pitfall will be if you have old Strand Patt lanterns is that P28 lampholders are getting difficult to acquire so keeping them going is tough - not so much the newer bi post lamps. David is correct - you should be considering some LED lighting but the cost of swapping the whole rig over isn't going to work if the school have to fund it, the kit might be cheap (do NOT buy the cheapest - its false economy) but the infrastructure/power changes are not - a rough ball park would be around £250 per fixture when you cost i the fixture, an electrician and so on - that's using the existing wiring. It would make some sense to buy a handful of LED's to use for flood lighting to replace any conventional floods but replacement LED profiles aren't cheap & you always need a profile sooner or later. The desk replacement is going to be an issue too - you'll want something a 'naiive' user can operate without notice & this counts against PC based software so you're looking at something like FLX S but ideally the FLX because it gives more faders to control lights rather than just scenes - however, not cheap even with a decent discount. As you seem to be coming round to the idea of cleaning the existing kit - have the desk checked & serviced (it will likely need a new battery and perhaps at least one fader replacing) and check the dimmers are OK. Take a note of the numbers on their displays - the DMX address and do a factory reset on each then reset the addresses is all that Beta 3's generally need in a school installation. I can service the desk, David & Kevin can vouch for the quality of my work & I'm sure they could recommend a decent supplier of spare lamps, replacement plugs and so on to service the lantern stock. It will also be cheaper in the short/medium term whilst the school considers replacement - get some external advice & a couple of quotes from reliable suppliers for this - they WILL appreciate the schools situation.

As one of my friends commented - ironic in the 50th year of Zero88

Are the lights "intelligent" i.e. do they move around or have LED's that light up to change the colour they produce? If they're conventional lights like fresnels & profiles that take a lamp then they will be connected to some form of dimmer and that will have the address you need. Usually the dimmer address will be set via an LCD Keypanel, front panel rotary switches or internal DIP switches. If your installation is the latter then a simple 1 to 1 patch might suffice to get things running e.g. DMX channel 1 is patched to Desk Channel 1, DMX 2 to 2 and so on.

What make are the LED fixtures? Are they "name" brand fixtures or chinese produced? I've had experience previously with Chinese fixtures that don't comply with the DMX standard (just enough to be DMX) and they will work happily wth controls & other fittings from the same factory but not with kit that does comply fully - like Zero88 kit. It also doesn't help if the fittings havre a 'Master/Slave" mode - this often means that the fittings are regenerating DMX however they see fit. The cynic inside me says that the chinese do this so that you 'have' to use the LED's with their controllers... Sadly, the symptoms are never the same but mostly can be flickering, colours sticking on or other DMX kit in the data chain not working. The only way around it is to either use a DMX Buffer that regenerates the DMX signal not just amplifies it so that the waveform is crisp, timings are spot on and the signal conforms to standard - usually the £40 buffers won't do this. The longwinded fix is to run two separate cable runs - one to the LED's & the other to your dimmers - you can use a buffer just after the desk to split the output but it's important not to have the LED's and dimmers on the same data chain. You should also as 'good practice' ensure that you have good mains earth integrity on the fittings, desk & dimmers - mains earth is also very often 'technical earth' or nought volts - if it floats high between the kit then that can also cause issues (it also needs to be noise free). Your data cables should only have pins 1 to 3 connected, they should not have any link between pin 1 and the case of the connectors (it still does happen and can itself cause issues) and the desk & fittings should ideally be on the same mains ring/spur so they share a common earth. I'd place a sticky bun on the issue not being the AlphaPack but the LED's or other fixtures on the chain from experience

Having just had another mouthful of coffee and read my post back - it's fair to point out now that "legacy" now covers everything up to the current product range and I'm also authorised for warranty repairs on current kit. 🙂

Terry - I'd be interested in helping to recycle the Jester ML or both - I'm an independent repair centre in the UK and whilst my "specialty" is notionally legacy Zero88 kit (think of Sirius backwards!) I am trying to accumulate a stock of encoders (which are common across Frog, Solution, Illusion & Jester) along wth button boards and displays for Jesters. I am always getting enquiries for spares for these desks and often have to disappoint for simple lack of supply - i'd be happy to cover cost of carriage for you to send the desks to me or you can drop them to me. Drop me a Message here or via my website The Service Guy

Eric - I have no direct experience with USB on FLX but if you follow the same practice as for a PC... Buy a reasonably priced USB Hub with an external power supply - USB 3.0 will work with most versions of USB but the external power is the important part. As for ethernet extending - it's going to get complex I'm afraid... You will need to find some transceivers to convert the copper ethernet to fibre optic and some fibre cable to link them (plus the appropriate terminations). Something like the TP-Link MC200CM ? It MIGHT be possible to use WiFi if you have "line of sight" - there are several companies that supply specially designed antennae to keep the signal as a "tight beam" but not cheap. If the ethernet is going to be used indoors and you have secure accessible storage - it might be feasible to create a daisy chain of ethernet switches - don't use managed hubs but "dumb" switches to reduce the possibility of lag.

"Double CT Orange" Pffft - what's wrong with 134 or 158 *grins*

I'm in Coventry in the UK - WhiteLight in Wimbledon also offer Service. Not sure who else in the UK or Europe but @KWR88 will be along with an offer to pass you details of your nearest service centre soon I'm sure

It's likely to be one of the USB devices - not all USB devices are created equal and the current draw on USB devices can vary wildly (and widely). If your configuration has been working then it might suggest that one of the devices is beginning to fail - if it's a new situation then it's likely that the Keyboard (it's often the keyboard) may draw too much current. "The USB specification allows for up to 500mA of current to be delivered from the USB port. Portable devices are increasingly using the USB power provided by a host computer to power the device system bus and to charge batteries." - Source This was a common problem back when LeapFrog/Solution was first launched and folks were plugging in the first keyboard they could find, their USB coffee warming and their iPad

I've only seen one FLX so far with 'scratchy' faders and some Servisol Super 10 was successful in cleaning them - the other couple of FLX's I've been inside since Christmas, I didn't pay much attention to the fader PCBs but I would suspect that they're no different in size than the Frog & Solution equivalent fader boards (the faders are physically the same). As always, my advice to folks considering fader change - don't try it yourself unless you're 1. Very confident with a soldering iron 2. Have a decent soldering iron and de-solder tool - that £2.99 soldering iron from Laldl isn't probably the best option and 3. You're very confident in your own use of de-soldering tools. Yes - 1 & 3 are almost identical but it can't be stressed enough It's also very worth remembering that if your FLX is still within the 3 year warranty then your local dealer can repair the desk & Zero88 will support them in cost of parts & labour for the repair. If your dealer doesn't want to play ball with a warranty repair - then there are some independent service centres authorised to do warranty repairs too... Hint: you can contact me via my profile

Indeed it should but without knowing the age of the kit involved.. Occam's Razor and all that

Are you connecting your desk and PC via an ethernet switch or a direct cable? If it's a direct cable then it will need to be a "crossover" cable but if it's a switch then it should take care of that for you. That the two units aren't acknowledging each other might suggest a cable/connection issue?

Indeed - for a 50m cable run, I'd expect an almost zero reading for impedance from experience. It sounds like a solder joint has gone bad or there's a cable break near the connectors causing intermittent high readings.

Don't presume that at all - depending on the space, those cables could be made up from almost any cable they had around from 1.0mm to 2.5mm. The plug & socket being rated at 15a is a "designator" for commonality more than anything. It's vital that you check the size of the cable so that if it becomes a long cable run so that the circuit protection between the mains & the dimmer work reliably (it might be an earth leakage breaker or RCD), that the cable is rubber cased not PVC (PVC degrades quicker in use - running it a max load can become fun quickly if it's an old cable) & that it's the right size i.e. 1.5mm TRS such as this - Link to Stage Depot if the runs become longer than 20m then you should upgrade to 2.5mm so that all circuit protection still works.

The main issue likely to occur in future is when the multi processor kernel for ZerOS gets enabled. The Orb mainboard has a dual core processor - the FLX has a quad core processor (if memory serves from a conversation with Jon Hole back before the FLX was officially released). At release, only a single core was enabled (impressive that ZerOS does all it does on a single core!) - this was probably to allow the Solution desks to still run. Jon thought that the second core might get enabled when more extensive features got included in ZerOS - we had been talking about the "stage mode" from the Sirius 250/500 where positions of moving lights could be remapped dynamically by the software according to a "map" of the performance area held by the desk. I think also that some sort of media server might be envisaged to allow "simple" projection via multi cell LED fixtures (a bit similar to how Pixelines were used by Oasis when they played Glastonbury in 2004). Aside from this - the only issue you're likely to have with an Orb now is going to be hardware support down the line. My gut feeling is to say if you can find an Orb for a stunningly low price, then buy it but otherwise - hold out and buy an FLX... To misquote Brian Potter from Phoenix Nights "FLX it's the future... "

I'll offer the first page of my Orion Service Manual from my dealer service folder

Not really - you can set channels to full power via the menu but it's not a pure mains waveform - just the dimmer running at 100%. It will reset to zero when you power cycle the rack too. There isn't an option with the 1210i to do "bypass" like on the newer racks which actually switches the triac out of circuit.

It depends on the age of your Beta 3 - some of the first production batches did have issues with transformers failing, if you can post the serial number of the unit here - that will help identify it's age. I also have a couple of Beta 3's on my bench waiting repair where the opto isolator & it's output stage appear to have been damaged by flash testing - the unit powers up but there's no output from pairs of channels. Your profile doesn't show where you are but it might well be that your dimmer will need to be taken to your local Zero Service agent.

Are you the same person that posted on The Blue Room as well? If so then my answer there still stands (if it's not you then my apologies) If it was you - my offer still stands, drop me an eMail and I'll send a copy of the internal test procedure document.