This is topic Preparing Barco 32B for drive-in off-season in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 10-28-2013, 09:53 PM:
 
Just curious if there are any specific recommendations for preparing my 32B for the 6 months of non-operation during the off-season. Should I drain the coolant, remove the lens, remove the bulb, or anything else. I have already removed the exhaust tube to ensure no moisture gets in from there.

For what it's worth, my area can see winter lows in the low teens. Since the building is completely unused during the off-season, it is possible the inside temperature could get below freezing if we have an extended cold spell.

I am already aware that I should run the projector for an hour or two once a month to recharge the battery on the ICP board.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-28-2013, 10:31 PM:
 
It takes 50 hours to fully recharge a near-dead enigma battery.

The enigma batteries are only good for 6 months, and that's when new. Like with any battery, the older it gets, the less the battery will last.

I wouldn't just power it on for an hour or two. I would run it for a solid day each month.
 

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Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 10-28-2013, 11:04 PM:
 
That leads to a question that has crossed my mind before, even though it doesn't really affect me. What do drive-ins do with their digital equipment when they're closed, anyway? There is a drive-in not too far from me that just got their digital projector this summer (I have no idea what kind). They are on the outskirts of a small town. They run weekends in the summer and they obviously close for the winter. I've never seen the place, but I get the impression that the drive-in is more-or-less just a shack in a field, and probably uninsulated and unheated since why would you need heat there?

If it were mine I would be concerned about environmental conditions (what would happen to this thing in -50 degree weather) as well as vandalism or theft.

Do drive-in owners with digital equipment in cold climates have to unhook the whole thing and take it home for the winter, then get it re-installed next spring?
 

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Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 10-28-2013, 11:20 PM:
 
Frank
I think much of it would be the same as any other building. If you have an alarm system and/or closed circuit cameras, then leaving it unattended is probably not a huge issue.

As for the temperature, I would have to assume they install some kind of heating system - probably with a low limit control. From what I see in the Barco manual, the 32B has a non-operational temperature range of 5°F-140°F; I imagine other brands and models are similar. In most situations the temperature wouldn't be any kind of issue, but if you can see -50°, then more precautions are necessary. If it's the kind of place that is completely unreachable in the winter, then I would think they have no choice but to put the projector into storage somewhere over the winter.

As has already been pointed out, these have to be powered on for a period on a regular basis to ensure the battery stays charged. Unless you're planning on hooking it up to 3 phase power in your home or storage unit, it's probably better to leave it in place and just go turn it on periodically. I've heard some conversation about a specialized trickle charger these boards can be hooked up to during long term shutdowns, but I don't know if that's a practical solution for a single screen situation.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-28-2013, 11:23 PM:
 
There are all sorts of things that can be done. You just have to decide what the threat is. Cold? Theft? Then to what level do you want to protect yourself?

At our NOC we don't charge our regular drive-ins for off-season months. We do however continue to monitor them and turn them on remotely every month to make sure that battery doesn't die during that time. We can also control the heater (or a space heater) and also monitor for theft. Technically yes we are still performing work during their non-operational months, but everyone at FT thought it was senseless to charge for what is in everyone's best interest when we are just going to be there once they re-open taking care of it for them.

Last winter the only drive-in at our NOC that had any issues whatsoever getting going again was the one that decided to disconnect their internet connection for the winter despite our recommendation not to. It was an expensive mistake for them.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-29-2013, 07:17 AM:
 
Not sure about the projector, but I would be concerned about condensation in the server and other electronic bits. Some form of climate control (maybe a small heater set to something like 40 degrees) would be cheap insurance against premature failure.

It would probably be a good idea to remove the lens, too.
 

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Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 10-29-2013, 11:51 AM:
 

quote: Scott Norwood

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It would probably be a good idea to remove the lens, too.

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Actually it would be a very bad idea to remove the lens.

Remember that in ALL video projectors including D-Cinema, removing the lens leaves the imaging system completely exposed to dust, dirt and humid air.

Now IF you remembered to save the cap that is in the lens barrel on a new machine you could put that back in place..but why create extra work?

I'm sure Brad will know if it is better to leave the lens in place or remove it IF you have the proper cap.

That said, good call on the condensation issue with the server and other electronics.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-29-2013, 12:19 PM:
 
Definitely agree on the lens cap.

But isn't there a condensation issue with lenses? As in, what happens if there is moisture between the elements. Plus, there is the issue of theft and/or vandalism.

I suppose that insulation and a small heating system would solve most of these potential problems.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-29-2013, 05:25 PM:
 
Leave the lens in, and of course at MINIMUM get some sort of space heater to keep the booth at some sort of very cold, but reasonable temperature.
 

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Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 10-29-2013, 05:45 PM:
 
I have to agree with leaving the lens in, not just so projector's internal optics aren't exposed, but I just can't fathom the point of removing it.
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 10-29-2013, 06:01 PM:
 
There's been some discussion about this in another forum. A Barco owner has suggested that he'd be more comfortable, pulling the "heavy lens" out for the Winter. He also thinks storing the bulb vertically is suggested by the manufacturer, though I guess I've somehow missed that one.

The guy is no dummy, but I wonder... If a lens is OK, sitting in an indoor Barco 24/7, why would it be different in a drive-in.

With no other information to go on, other than the many Winters I've put my 35 gear to bed, I've made no special plans for the new equipment.

I have 7 computers and myriad other electronics in the booth. Condensation has never been a problem for that gear, so I don't expect the Barcos to suffer. No special plans there.

I keep my booth at a minimum of 55 degrees over the Winter. Automatic forced-air ac/heater in the wall.

Not planning to do anything with the lens or bulb, other than put the lens caps on. I've had much better service from xenon bulbs by leaving them alone until it's time to change them. Couldn't even rotate these things if you were inclined... wire's not long enough.

I do have some furniture pads here that I'm thinking about putting over the machines, but I don't really see any major reason for doing that.

We have a 2nd floor booth. Those with ground floor, & concrete block structures might have other issues to consider.

Thanks for the info about the battery. I did know about the 6-month limit, but not the long recharge time.
 

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Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 10-29-2013, 09:42 PM:
 
My concern with removing the lens is that you simply increase the chances of damaging the lens or the connections to the projector. Unless there is a documented reason to remove the lens, I think it's better to keep it in place.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-29-2013, 10:16 PM:
 
The Barco B lens mount is also a joke. It is fine on the C units, but not the B. I would strongly not recommend mounting/dismounting the lens anytime it isn't absolutely necessary. At a drive-in, any shaking will be exaggerated even moreso due to the long throw and every time you put a lens back in you are making it slightly worse.

Best to leave the lens mounted for this reason and also to keep dirt out of the engine.

It's also a good idea to cut the power to the 220v or tape a note to the projector or something reminding you that you have the lens cap on. If you light the lamp with the lens cap on, by the time you remember the cap is on, it may have become a part of the lens optics by melting into it. I've seen this happen.
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 10-30-2013, 03:39 AM:
 
Good point about the lens cap. I'd heard the story, too.

In our case, my daughter and I are the only ones who touch the machines, and we both still carry the "first time on the screen" paranoia from our mechanical film days. One of us is in the booth at least during the first start of the evening and we watch the automation start all 3 machines at the same time, so the possibility of leaving a lens cap on for more than a few seconds is essentially zero.

On power... that's another issue I made a decision about when we installed last December. I see no good reason to permanently leave something on that I only use 5 hours a day. So, everything is powered down when we close for the night, including the UPS boxes... right down to the (switch rated) breakers on the wall.

That's 19 hours a day that I don't have to worry about dust, lightning, bearing time on the fan motors, hours on the hard drives or the additional heat load of 3 projectors and their servers (and those things do generate heat, just sitting there).

Aside, maybe, from the daily use of the power switches, the equipment seems to suffer no ill effects from this practice.
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-30-2013, 06:36 AM:
 
We have exactly one (7-day) theatre where the servers are powered down nightly. Care to guess which theatre has had a hard drive failures in the past year?

While you can say you've had success thus far...statistics will show that on average, shutting them down is a false economy. We've seen the increase in drive failures.

In our 3-day a week theatres, then yes, everything but the automation shuts down. So far, not significant increase from them.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-30-2013, 07:47 AM:
 
On the topic of space heaters: I would be nervous about using one in an unattended booth, as these can be fire hazards.

I would try to get something that is permanently installed for this purpose. Electric baseboard heaters are cheap to install, but are expensive to operate. Not sure what other options exist for a booth-type building, where a full-blown oil or gas boiler would be overkill. Someone here must know, though.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-30-2013, 02:16 PM:
 
Scott:
There are through wall gas furnaces that use the outside air for combustion. I had one in my shop back in Illinois and it worked great. The pipe that goes through the wall was a coaxial pipe that was well insulated. The exhaust went out through the center pipe. It's a very safe way to heat with gas or propane. I remember getting mine at Grangers and it was about 400 bucks.

Steve G: Almost all my customers shut their systems down at night. Thats about 180 screens worth... Only a few HD failures, no OS drive failures and several NEC power switches. I've seen no more HD failures then had they left the gear running. Only switch failures.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-30-2013, 03:42 PM:
 
I firmly agree with Steve that he has the right practice by leaving the servers on. Everything will work great for the first couple of years, but daily powering off will cause more service calls and repair expenses due to additional equipment failures.

I would be particularly scared of powering down a GDC daily, as they have only one ordinary off-the-shelf SATA hard drive running their OS. At least with a server such as Dolby that is RAID'ed so if a drive dies upon startup, you aren't down and can simply replace it.

Again, don't confuse "haven't had any problems" statistics with new equipment. EVERYTHING as it gets older (including us) has reliability issues moreso as each year passes. Powering off those servers is sort of like kicking an old man repeatedly in the head. He is only going to be able to handle so much of that before he croaks.
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-31-2013, 06:15 AM:
 
As it so happens...the server that just lost a drive in less than a year's use...a GDC...but that is besides the point...they are using the same drives we use in the other servers. The fact remains, we have more drive failures in servers that power down than those that leave them up.
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 10-31-2013, 07:17 AM:
 
OK. That's all fine. However, a drive is a mechanical beast and it likely will fail someday. For the operator, the balance could be the cost of a service call and a new drive against the electricity and environmental equipment necessary to run the same drive(s) 24/7, just to (maybe) extend their life.

I have Doremi servers here, and I'll have no problem being the example of how nightly shutdown affects the equipment, if at all.

I will also say that the people I bought my equipment from don't have a problem with the practice. One might suggest they would say this because they'd be the ones I'd call to fix a problem. On the other hand, I've personally known the owner since around 1976, and I doubt he'd run his business that way.

My office computers are on all the time, but drive life has nothing to do with that. My booth and POS computers shut down every night. My laptop takes a beating and only runs when I'm using it. I may not see as much of this stuff as some of you guys do, but I've been working with hard drives since you could plug one into an Apple II, and I've never felt I had to treat them special.
 

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Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-31-2013, 08:14 AM:
 
It's a classic PointOfView issue - think of what Brad and Steve are doing and why they follow the 'no shutdowns-lower drive failures' route.

These are RAIDs (GDC system drive being the exception). Under typical operating conditions, I can calculate the added cost by leaving the servers on against a potential higher failure rate of hard discs. Some people weigh energy conservation higher than slightly higher replacement cost for harddiscs. The less technical skilled staff is on site, the less you want equipment failures.

Of course, it doesn't make sense to save 3kWh per day on the server if you blow out 50times as much with your heating, HVAC or lighting. It needs to be balanced.

Our Sony has a RAID6 and will survive two failing harddiscs. I shut it down daily, even though it only eats very little power. We also have just one show per day on average.

There are other Pro/Cons as well - dust built-up, daily boot is good for OS clean state, increased wear out of other components of the server like power supplies, fans, etc.

- Carsten
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 10-31-2013, 11:07 AM:
 

quote: Carsten Kurz

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The less technical skilled staff is on site, the less you want equipment failures.

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quote: Carsten Kurz

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These are RAIDs (GDC system drive being the exception).

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quote: Carsten Kurz

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Our Sony has a RAID6.

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quote: Jack Ondracek

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However, a drive is a mechanical beast and it likely will fail someday. For the operator, the balance could be the cost of a service call and a new drive against the electricity and environmental equipment necessary to run the same drive(s) 24/7, just to (maybe) extend their life.

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To save this thread from beating a dead horse, go HERE for the discussion on servers left on or shut down. Bring your popcorn it was a rather interesting discussion.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-01-2013, 02:42 PM:
 
I agree completely on RAID 6, in fact the new generation GDC allows one to use an NAS that IS raid 6 if you want to. Pick your raid on that one so to say, OS is solid state. Some day when I SEE an actual difference in left on vs. left off I might say to leave em on. Some locations rn but one show a night. The amount of power wasted over a three year period however is also considerable and way more than the cost of a replacement HD and taking the 5 min.to move cables over. On servers that have no air intake filtration this will also mean more frequent cleaning out of dust will be necessary.
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-01-2013, 05:45 PM:
 
It is, indeed, a judgment call. We have some operators that run 3-days a week. Fri-Sun...they shut down after Sunday. So far, no-ill has come from it and it makes sense there. If one runs one show/day...I'd be more inclined to leave em running.

This is something that we keep re-evaluating but, thus far, leaving them running seems to win out. In our VPF/NOC systems, it is a requirement.

With some IMB systems, one has to shut the server down BEFORE the IMB or risk data corruption. So we are forced into the experiment whether we like it or not. I definitely don't like running projectors all night...that just makes them dirt pumps.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-04-2013, 02:53 PM:
 
Agreed Steve. GDC I believe does not have a 24/7 power on requirement like Cinedigm. All but two of my GDV VPF customers shut down at night. The TMS still grabs the play out list at some point in time irregardless...
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-05-2013, 01:01 AM:
 
Mark, you can specify the time for GDC when to pull logs for VPF purposes. We like to pull at 3am, then firewall the TMS off during normal operating hours. I think if you don't specifically modify it that it keeps trying at whatever interval until it gets them, which is probably what your sites are doing that power off at night.
 

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Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-05-2013, 06:38 AM:
 
The GDC "Daily Reporter" does indeed retrieve the information when it can...it can be quite persistent. When we first put them on line...it took its time but it pulled logs all of the way back to 2009 (before we installed) and over the course of a day had grabbed them all up to current time.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-05-2013, 02:03 PM:
 
Yea, it doesn't really matter if projectors are on or off for this. Just the TMS has to be on which they ALWAYS are. Daily Reporter is going to grab the play out list from the servers and store it on the OS drive no matter what time you request it from the TMS.
 

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