Mega Flash DXM

Where to begin:

Without you adding extra detail, it can be a bit hard to troubleshoot. You say you have a large lighting system. It might help if you were to elaborate on that.

One of my reasons for asking for more information is perhaps you exceeded the power of the circuit, but instead of popping, it just dropped voltage. But that may not be true. You do say that your strobe took out half your lights, which tells me you had a catastrophic failure of that fixture. It took out the rest of the DMX chain after it. Wow, bad stuff.

I must commend you for doing additional testing later on. Thank goodness nothing else appears to be damaged.

Do you use a DMX Terminator? Are you using DMX cabling? If the answer to either of those are "no", then go fix that issue right away. I don't want to hear "well, I'm using XLR and it's working". I'm an audio guy, I know XLR cable WILL work, but SHOULD you be doing it? No. Also, really, any DMX chain should have a DMX terminator. I don't care what the manual says, make and use a DMX terminator.

Going back to your description, I can't figure out what would cause the arcing. But, as we can infer, that's something bad, but you already know that. There should be no arcing whatsoever. Arcing can cause fire should too many other bad things happen. ADJ fixture's aren't going to arc under normal circumstances. It's almost as if a solder joint broke. How is you light handling? Are you normally "gentle" and how is your transporting? In a case? Retail box? "Throw it on the truck and fly-ass down the road from gig to gig?". I doubt the last is you.

It could also be some metal shaving or something else electrically conductive fell inside the fixture. I would think a quick shake and rotate would clear that issue though. Even if it was a dead bug or something else, moving SHOULD clear it, or a gentle burst of compressed air while the fixture is electrically disconnected.

I haven't had anything remotely like this happen. The fuse didn't blow, so that,s a problem as well. Definately take that strobe out of production and contact support ASAP on Monday.

Thank goodness nobody got hurt or this causing any other issues. Let's hope luck stays on your side and that such a problem never happens again.

Hi Chris, thanks for the reply.

To answer your questions, though I use a larger light system, I am confident that what I had plugged in was not overloading the circuits. The circuits were checked ahead of time (121v) and there was no significant drop in voltage throughout the night (according to the meter). Even though I mix and match different lights based on a gig's needs, I'm very power conscious and make sure ahead of time that the venue can supply the power that I need to run system I want to use, not to mention that I've used this exact configuration countless times before and have never had a problem like this. Basically, I wasn't trying anything new on this gig.

The interesting part is that as mentioned in my previous post, I use 2 daisy chains - one for my movers and one for my DMX effects (Mega Strobes and Chauvet Oceana). When the strobe blew up, not only did it kill everything after it in its daisy chain, it also knocked out one of my DMX scanners on the other daisy chain as well! I've never seen that happen before. The only way they were connected was through the power hookup. So initially I though of a power surge, but I've got power conditioners to catch that. They just sat there all happy like nothing was happening! A power cycle would have probably fixed the problem in everything but the strobe but with only a half hour left to play, I just unplugged everything that was freaking out and ran the gig with the remaining lights (which were more than enough anyway). I wasn't in the mood for a bad situation to get worse!

Yes, I use the proper cabling and terminators.

I figured the internal arcing was bad, but I thought maybe there was a spark gap in there to initiate the lamp's firing. I tried to see if I could see a similar arc in my other (still working) strobe, but it was just too bright to see much of anything! Yes, I treat my gear well. All my units are transported in cases, plus the unit had been working fine for the previous 3+ hours! It just 'quit'.

Good thought on foreign objects in the unit, but I shook and rotated it and still nothing. I'm just going to call ADJ on Monday and talk to them. I was just wondering if anyone had similar problems. I'm just glad nothing really blew up or fried! After just buying some new QSC loudspeakers, the last thing I want right now to have to replace half my light system!

Thanks again,

Well, as long as "lights and sound" don't cross electrical paths, you should be fine. I never run my lights on the same circuit as sound. Man, if I had the choice, I'd run them off sepparate power transformers too.

I would also take it that you're using something like a OptiBranch/4 or similar device at some point in chain to split things up? I'm not going to question why you're running splits or your cable logistics. I don't see your rig and obviously it works.

What are you using to front end your power? Are you sure those are in fact power CONDITIONERS? And not, say, like Furman PL-20's, which offer surge suppression and filtering, but do not condition? How is your power distributed up the rig?

Protecting outselves from power is a necessity due to the poorly designed power grid. Ideally, we should never need to use those sort of things, but alas, we do. And it would be foolish to run without them these days. I'm used to seeing my voltage drop to 98 volts due to the crappy power being supplied. You're seeing 121 volts, which is an overage, but enough within safe parameters.

I think what happened is that perhaps the strobe fried out, and so did something else in the power stream(a power unit that was connected to the other fixtures). It could have been that the power unit sacrificed itself and unfortunately, the strobe was just a half step ahead....

Thank goodness only the strobe ended up dying, at least as far as lighting is concerned.

Any components arcing inside the fixture itself is a not good thing. This can easily cause a fire. Sending the unit for repair immediately.

Also, things jumble loose in transit all the time. So unless all your gear is traveling in shock mounted ATA cases, its bound to happen sooner or later. This can also weaken solder joints as well. A lot of times I am working and a module of a light isn't working, like CMY for example. Sometimes its as simple as cracking the light open and just securing the connector for that module.

Well, you're using more of the "upper end" type fixtures, that are no doubt modularly constructed. I've been inside many of my ADJ fixtures and even done a few repairs myself. Not a whole lot in there or to them. But then again, we're not talking about a blade-based server farm or modular router either. I mean, how many option boards are you gonna cram into a light?

But true, sometimes it can be as simple as cracking it open and re-securing a loose connector. In the case of my Double Twist, the modular design made it easier for me to replace the motor in that little fixture. I forget all I had to do, but it wasn't that difficult.