Strike issues with StudioSpot 575

[quote=TimMiller]I bet it is the lamp power supply, They do go out, especially if they have been connected to a dimmer, and yes a dimmer is still a dimmer even if it is set to Full, they are still recieving a square wave. I would meter the power comming from the lamp power supply into the ignitor. You should be seeing around 400V. Be careful not to shock yourself, it hurts a lot. I have a scar on my hand from touching the wrong part of an x-spot by accident, needless to say the lamp powersupply was good.

As a quick refresher, dont you meter the black leg and the white leg of the lamp power supply independtly, and the chasis is the ground, and dont you measure in DC? I cannot remember its been a while.

Not that it has any bearing on this problem, but dimmers *NEVER* output a square wave . . . ever! The chopping of a sine way that occurs in an SCR or Triac dimmer will yeild a very fast rise on the leading edge of the wave, and a normal waveform on the backside . . . and when at full, the "chop" is typically .7 to 1 volt or so before the device conducts, so if you were to look at the sine wave, it would be almost perfect, with one little "glitch" right after the zero crossing point . . .

Granted, chokes and voltage regulation makes the situation a wee bit more complicated than this with inductive loads, but my underlying point holds true.

(I tried to find a graphic online of a phase control output, but couldn't come up with anything in a timely manner, nor do I have an oscilloscope camera to generate my own . . . sorry!).

- Tim

[quote=TimMiller]I bet it is the lamp power supply, They do go out, especially if they have been connected to a dimmer, and yes a dimmer is still a dimmer even if it is set to Full, they are still recieving a square wave. I would meter the power comming from the lamp power supply into the ignitor. You should be seeing around 400V. Be careful not to shock yourself, it hurts a lot. I have a scar on my hand from touching the wrong part of an x-spot by accident, needless to say the lamp powersupply was good.

As a quick refresher, dont you meter the black leg and the white leg of the lamp power supply independtly, and the chasis is the ground, and dont you measure in DC? I cannot remember its been a while.

Not that it has any bearing on this problem, but dimmers *NEVER* output a square wave . . . ever! The chopping of a sine way that occurs in an SCR or Triac dimmer will yeild a very fast rise on the leading edge of the wave, and a normal waveform on the backside . . . and when at full, the "chop" is typically .7 to 1 volt or so before the device conducts, so if you were to look at the sine wave, it would be almost perfect, with one little "glitch" right after the zero crossing point . . .

Granted, chokes and voltage regulation makes the situation a wee bit more complicated than this with inductive loads, but my underlying point holds true.

(I tried to find a graphic online of a phase control output, but couldn't come up with anything in a timely manner, nor do I have an oscilloscope camera to generate my own . . . sorry!).

- Tim