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Author Topic: NEC NC900 IMS Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 08-21-2019 05:53 AM                     I'm not sure about the U.S. insurance market, but I do have an insurance that covers damage by lightning strikes up to a certain degree. An active UPS will not help you with any serious lightning strikes. It will get rid of normal power peaks, but since there is no real galvanic isolation in them, they won't help you if it really hits. There are UPS systems that run everything through their batteries and hence a separate transformers, but those are usually only employed in datacenters and hospitals. Some of our stuff in our screening room is now double protected. Via a large active UPS and a surge protector. Since I don't trust UPSes (I've seen one go up in flames and I've seen the results of a fire caused by them), the UPS is now in a shed outside. I also don't trust those surge protectors, but they come with a big warranty from the supplier (which has yet to be tested). Most power surges aren't direct hits though, they're caused by induction, that's why you always need some kind of protection near the devices you want to protect. Those surges caused by induction will usually be handled without big fanfare by most UPSes and surge protectors. Also keep in mind that any copper connection coming into your premises is prone to lightning strike, cable, telephone, etc. Even the dish you put on your roof is a potential target, make sure there is a good, separately grounded metallic conductor near it to avoid it being a target for juicy direct hits, because that could potentially fry anything connected to it...  |  IP: Logged Bruce Cloutier Expert Film Handler Posts: 161 From: Gibsonia, PA, USA Registered: Aug 2016 posted 08-22-2019 09:30 AM                        You probably cannot totally eliminate the risk of damage from a lightning strike unless you enclose the whole facility inside of a hefty Faraday Cage (metal box). Most of the devices afford some protection from one kind of damaging current or another. Nothing guarantees complete protection. I had my home struck years back and at least 80% of the electronics were taken out. Yet there was absolutely no evidence of a direct hit. Not a toothpick of seared wood or missing shingle. An anemometer up on a small grounded mast on the roof was completely disintegrated. Parts were found in the front and in the back yards but no melted metal or plastic. My guess is that some (not an awful amount) of energy entered there and came down through the weather station into the wall power. Not far away was my Klipsch subwoofer which was a fatality. From there it followed the LFE cable to the surround system... gone. That let it onto the network. Every device on that network segment (wired) was history. Some of that was on a UPS. I had surge protectors. This you might not believe but none of the remote controls worked after that. They all had dead batteries (0V). That includes the wall thermostat whose batteries were measured at 0 volts as well. I don't know if an EMP somehow can kill an alkaline battery. I couldn't believe that they all just died at that moment by coincidence. Normally there is some voltage left on the battery. Those things weren't connected to anything. My insurance was great and replaced everything covering the replacement cost. I am emotionally attached to the SW and an engineer at Klipsch was great in providing schematics and an accurate Bill of Materials. There was no PCB damage. I replaced probably 50% of the components and that sub is still in use today. Without asking, the insurance company selected an hourly rate and paid me for the time to repair the subwoofer. Yeah, also unbelievable. When I left for work that the morning there was a very active storm off to the West. There was a lot of strange cloud to cloud bolts of lightning that reached down from the clouds and seemed to return. I didn't pay much attention. My wife was still in the house when it reached us. Scared the crap out of her. I had to turn around and rush back home when she called. So... S&*t happens.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-22-2019 10:23 AM                     Back in the 1970's when I was a tech at Panasonic I used to see lightening damage electronics come in all the time. Some could be repaired but then others were literally blown apart inside and totaled. There is no predicting what lightening can do or where it will go within a building. There is one fairly reliable way to stop it from traveling and that is to install whole panel surge protectors on all the panels in a building. In the booths that had whole panel surge protectors installed we never lost a single piece of gear. But I did see failed surge protectors at several sites I replaced. Note that you do need an extra three pole breaker for any of these surge protectors.  |  IP: Logged Ioannis Syrogiannis Expert Film Handler Posts: 147 From: Reykjavík, Iceland Registered: Jun 2005 posted 08-26-2019 03:21 AM                     If I may turn this thread a bit backwards, to the update subject, does anyone know of key software versions, that would be preferable for one to go through, in an incremental update? Some companies keep such key step versions in their release notes. Others don't. I can't find anything in the NEC's latest release notes. I came upon some "forgotten" NEC (NC900 mostly) projectors that are in the same booth but with different software versions. I'd like to update them, but with long-time-no-update equipment my experience taught me to be extra cautious.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-26-2019 09:37 AM                     There is only one version of each presently shown on the NEC FTP site. Software: 2.6.7-0 Firmware: 4.6.6-D Security: 6.1.133-0  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-26-2019 11:17 AM                     quote: Marcel Birgelen There are UPS systems that run everything through their batteries and hence a separate transformers, but those are usually only employed in datacenters and hospitals. Thats a regenerative type UPS and it's the type I used at all my install sites. I just never ran the xenon supply off them because they become really costly when you get to that size. The type I used is like this one in the link, except I used all 220 volt UPS's and it ran all projector related items except the Xenon LVPS. You can run an entire NC-900 with IMS off one as long as you run the projector on 220 volts. Max draw is only ~8 amps. Tripplite On Line UPS  |  IP: Logged Ioannis Syrogiannis Expert Film Handler Posts: 147 From: Reykjavík, Iceland Registered: Jun 2005 posted 08-26-2019 11:22 AM                     Thank you for your response Mark! From what I gather, you are referring to the Server's update versions. I am mostly interested on the projector's software versions, that were discussed before in the thread (even though, admittedly, the title of the thread is "NEC NC900 IMS"). More than that, I am afraid that if the NEC FTP site keeps only the latest of the projector's firmware/software/Release Package, or the latest two, as it might seem to do, that don't quite means that an update from, say, a Release Package issued back on Q/4 2013 or mid-2016 to the current 4.314 would work flawlessly. For that reason, and since I would like to take advantage from whatever advancements were made during the last three or six years, I am trying to establish the safest way, if one of you could share. Documentation I found on NEC didn't shed any light on the issue and I was wondering if someone here might enlighten me.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-26-2019 11:52 AM                     Oh, thats very different. NEC has everything back to version 1. Although the sites I service got all the major NEC updates I never had trouble jumping ahead on NEC firmware. Just make sure you use the matching DCC for each update. You can mess up the projector if using an old DCC to update to a lot newer firmware version. The TI part of it for the ICP is written by TI and not NEC. So depending on what TI versions you are at... if it's really early, you might want to cycle through those releases going foreward to 4.312. Also: In the projector firmware section there were a lot of updates done to the lamp ballasts and lamp cooling fan controling. Those improvements are important if using version 2 lamps. Mark  |  IP: Logged Ioannis Syrogiannis Expert Film Handler Posts: 147 From: Reykjavík, Iceland Registered: Jun 2005 posted 08-27-2019 09:49 AM                     Thank you again Mark for your response. So, according the version table, you suggest, if I want to play it safe, to go (for instance for the machine with 4.208, that was October 2013, if you can believe it) first to 4.310, where the ICP software changed from 4.2 to 4.5 and then to the latest 4.314. And all that with the latest DCC, being 5.1.8.10 for both upgrades, right? Or, maybe, since between the 4.208 and 4.314 there is no other ICP version in between, go from one to another in one and only step? Regarding the DCC software, if I understand it correctly, you don't suggest to use different versions for different Release Packages, when you write "use the matching DCC", but "no earlier issued DCC than the Release Package you are about to install".  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-27-2019 10:04 AM                     That shold work fine. The rest of the changes will automatically be applied when you run 4.312. Just be sure to use the LATEST version of DCC 5.1.8.6 when you are updating. I ran an update back about 2011 once with a firmware version that was quite a bit newer than the DCC I had and it reset the projector IP to 0.0.0.0! Mark  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 08-27-2019 10:16 AM                     I would probably try to go to one of the later 4.2x versions first (most actual NC900 improvements incl. lamps/lamp supplies happened there). I think not much happened after 4.219 projector wise. Then go to 4.3/ICP4.5 from there. Should be safe to go from 4.208 any later 4.2 version. The auto updater is pretty safe, and it goes without fuzz and pretty quickly. Ioannis - what the hell are you doing on Iceland now? - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Ioannis Syrogiannis Expert Film Handler Posts: 147 From: Reykjavík, Iceland Registered: Jun 2005 posted 08-27-2019 10:34 AM                     quote: Carsten Kurz Ioannis - what the hell are you doing on Iceland now? To put it in just a few words: Avoiding the high temperatures of Greece (or the European mainland), enjoying crystal clear water and fresh air (in various speeds) and -more interestingly- dealing with long un-updated projectors and servers... Það er allt í lagi. (It is O.K.)  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 08-27-2019 07:53 PM                     Enjoy Iceland before it melts! It's going fast.....  |  IP: Logged

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