I have a couple movers that I use mostly for painting on stage backdrops (don't/can't use haze), and as such, I suspect I am more sensitive to certain issues than the average person who primarily uses them for beam effects.
Anyway, since the fixture was new, one of my fixtures has had trouble with one of the gobo wheels coming back to the same place - depending on which gobo, sometimes I would have to re-aim the fixture to get it in the right place. It's been in and out of the shop a couple times, but the shop never found the issue. I was suspecting that the stepper motor was losing steps or there was some electrical issue, but recently I needed to get inside the fixture for another error, so I tried to dig into it.
It turns out that the gobo wheel is riveted to the hub, and the rivets were loose, allowing the gobo wheel to move a degree or two. After disassembling half the fixture to get to it, the fix took about 8 seconds with a punch to make the rivets tighter.
It turns out that the other error I was having (gobo index sensor) was the sensor being too far away, which was solved by bending the bracket closer.
This was a good exercise for me for a couple reasons - I'm now much less scared of working on the fixtures, and I have been reminded that I need to think about the mechanical side of things, too, and not automatically assume the issue is a complicated electrical/software problem.
Anyway, since the fixture was new, one of my fixtures has had trouble with one of the gobo wheels coming back to the same place - depending on which gobo, sometimes I would have to re-aim the fixture to get it in the right place. It's been in and out of the shop a couple times, but the shop never found the issue. I was suspecting that the stepper motor was losing steps or there was some electrical issue, but recently I needed to get inside the fixture for another error, so I tried to dig into it.
It turns out that the gobo wheel is riveted to the hub, and the rivets were loose, allowing the gobo wheel to move a degree or two. After disassembling half the fixture to get to it, the fix took about 8 seconds with a punch to make the rivets tighter.
It turns out that the other error I was having (gobo index sensor) was the sensor being too far away, which was solved by bending the bracket closer.
This was a good exercise for me for a couple reasons - I'm now much less scared of working on the fixtures, and I have been reminded that I need to think about the mechanical side of things, too, and not automatically assume the issue is a complicated electrical/software problem.