Studio Spot 250 Lamp Strike Issue (differnt one!)

Did you reset the lamp hours? T-beams and S-spot 250's wont fire if the lamp hours are over 2000 hours. I had this same thing sneak of on me just last week on a clients fixture. I turn it off on my rental units and totally forgot it and was about to bang my head on the wall Till Yoda Zod reminded me. In the menu go to ADD R -- INFO -- L /RS and hold for 5 seconds. Lamp hours will reset to 0 and the lamp ought to fire.

If the unit is older check the wires to the lamp socket carefully, I often find the leak just under the socket. It fires to the frame and you can get a lamp err. Just a thought.

The lamp hours did need to be reset but that was not the problem. The ignitor is not even getting the push to ignite the lamp. That telltale "zzzzzzzzzzt" sound as it ignites.

All the connections from Board to Ballast to Ignitor to Socket are able to conduct electricity.

I am just really frustrated. One other thing is I am not getting any Error MEssage at all. No LAMP ERR. Nada. Nothing. Zilch.

Edit: ok. Strangeness. I am missing a wire. I have two open next to one another. One is working fine. The one that I am having issues with is missing the LAD connecttion to the board. Right in the bank of connectors with the thermal sensor, pan encoder and tilt encoder. There should be another wire that simply is not there.

Some days I wonder what I have gotten myself into here...

The LAD cable is for the Laser in the front that was an option. If you do not have the laser then there is no need for that cable.

I assume that you are feeding it DMX or telling it to turn on the menu to get the lamp to strike. Unless it is receiving DMX or in Self Test or Presets the lamp will not strike on its own.

You can measure the voltage going into the ignitor to make sure that you are getting the 230V into the ignitor.

Just be sure to NOT connect your meter to the output terminal that goes to the lamp as that will be 2.5kV when it is striking and will blow your meter.

Well that is a relief.

I am manually telling it to strike and it is ignoring me.

Call Chris or Zod @ HES for specs check list. Have a meter handy.

Damn...that's a good one Chris. I wouldn't have thought about that possibility.

Right,
And usually when the lamp wires that lead to the base fail, (on Xspot at least).
Instead of a buzz when it tries to strike the lamp, you just get one quick SNAP!
I have seen this a few times on Xspot X-treme, although I don't ever think I have seen a 250 lamp base go bad, except on one that the fan died, and the people running it just kept restriking it until it would thermal again.... and so on and so forth....

Joshua Wood

SBlairDamn...that's a good one Chris. I wouldn't have thought about that possibility.

Check post #2. :D

I replace about 5 a year out of the 150 around here. 50% are over 4 years old and the others developed nicks or damage from heavy handed techs and club minions yanking the wires during lamp swaps.:blackeye:

Find a dark room. Set up the fixture and remove her covers top and bottom. Mmmmm sexy... Check the lamp wires from ignitor to lamp. Pay close attention to "pinch points" When your done turn out the lights, crak open a beer and sit and enjoy being in a totaly dark room with a naked fixture for 10 minutes. Turn on the unit, after reset go thru the menu and fire the lamp. If the ignition jumps out of the wire you can see it but you got to be quick. Its lo-tech but it does work.

No dark room? Wet you hand and finger the cable...:eek: It works too but your gonna have a bad hair day when you find the break!:p But whats 30k in volts between friends.... had to...

These units are tuff even on the road. Club abuse (no cleaning, no love at all) is really hard but they come thru quite well till they choke and die from lack of air. I pound cleaning into all club owners heads from the get-go. I'll even show them how and what to do so they can do it to save money.;)

Those who don't are evil and sadistic bastards.:09: :18:

Puffyfish, i think you have been hit by voltage too many times.