Old system need help please

L

lochness

Member
Hi, hope someone here can stear me in right direction. Ive been struggling with this for sometime now. I am the "IT & Tech" guy at our local Loch Ness Exhibition.
Until recently we had a laser running via Showtime , that did 6 animations during a 5 minute video show etc. We had a refurb in Jan (though I cant get the money from the powers that be to upgrade the hardware and software for this sadly) and when we restarted the laser and software we now only get a green strip on the wall.

Its playing through the animations on the computer ,seemingly, but on the wall it plays its all in one thing strip,almost like we were seeing it side on.

I'll give you or hardware ad software specs (and they are OLD!) and hope someone out there takes pity on this rather frazzled tech lol

Quadmod32 Hardware
Showtime.exe V2.26 (23/03/1999)
LD.dll Library (11/09/1998)
LD.Q32 Library (11/09/1998)

It worked fine before the switch off . It receives the signal to start stop etc vie midi cable and I have made sure that the correct channel is selected.

Thanks anyone that can help
 
Sounds like you are missing one of the scanner axes. With everything powered off, check signal cable connections from the Quadmod 32 to the laser projector and or scanner amplifiers. Check the cables from the scanner amplifiers to the scanners. The scanner amplifiers may be external or internal to the laser projector, depending on who built that projector and how it is configured. Also look for fuses on the scanner amplifiers if apparent, as these sometimes blow, especially in older systems.

Some more information on the laser projector and scanner amplifiers would be helpful for people to give you some more possibilities to check.

Hopefully that will help point you in the right direction to finding the problem.

John
 
Thanks for the reply. I will check today and see if I can find what you mentioned. At first glance it looks like a computer with a midi cable going in, and a ribbon cable coming out which then is attached to another cable that then runs into the wall and off to the laser.
I dont see any external amps unless they/it is beside the laser perhaps and not the computer.

I've no idea on the laser but I am sure someone must know (its built into a wall as such and not very easy to get to but there must be a way :) )
 
I agree with John, it sounds like a connection problem somewhere between the QM32 and the scanners; most likely exactly what John is saying that a scanner axis is not connected.

Can you take some pictures of the inside of the laser projector; specifically of the scanners, the wires going to the scanners, and of what the wires going to the scanners are connected to? I would suspect there is only one wire going from your control computer with the QM32 in it to the "laser projector" which I suspect could be "larger" than most. %)
 
Took a look into the area where the laser is.Its up a ladder and not very easy to get into ie for me impossible. But I can see the laser which is rather huge and going into that is two sets of wires.
One seems to be a D type plug and one is a small twin wired (low voltage?) connection.Both come from a small blue box which is powered and has a fan.

I cannot see into the laser proj itself without moving it and I would need help for that given where it is.

We recently refurbed our control room and I replaced loads of things the old ICT guy was happy with eg computers with win95 on them! I think its very possible that a wire is lose in the connection at back of computer connector.

This is basically a cable that ends in some lose wires that are then inserted to the back of a D type plug(not soldered or even secured!!) and this then plugs into a ribbon cable that goes into back of the computer (at the add on card im guessing)
The whole things terrible really and no wonder its stopped working properly. Getting our local sparky who does our stuff here now , too look at it this week. Hopefully that will sort it..or i will try convince the powers that be to upgrade and buy a new one etc :)
 
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