My friend asked me if I could repair his MAC 500 - Restoration

This completely bent out of shape mac 500 was a challenge to resstor. But I was confident because it was complete, wasn't rusty or anything and most part inside seams to be working fine.
Light fixture is from : / lecolectioneurdespro
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[@The_Light_Project]

Congratulations on restoring this beautiful light!!! I still want to add at least two of that model in my collection!

[@Lighting_Desk]

I just bought a bunch of these units. Live a mac fixture. Sturdy build and great little work horses.

[@sophiarodriguez1861]

Tgank you so much!!! ❤

[@dominikksol325]

Great Job!!! I wash repairing mac500/600/700/2000 many years ago:) there was few strange and sometimes funny issue :) a still have half of basement of parts 😂 and have nothing to do with them but dont want to throw them away 😂 i still have somwhere programem to change motherboard from Mac 500 to 600 etc. And few motherboards 😂nice time it was:) Now im light engineer and dont have time to repair 😢

[@H2Oredfirefox]

Can't believe how complicate that moving head is compared to the ones I've got my ones are very simple compared to this they certainly changed a lot I'm glad to see you're able to get it working.

[@icepick_method3439]

Just found one of these at a thrift store. Bewildered as to why it was so heavy. When i opened it up i was amazed to find 14+ different stepper motors inside.

[@H2Oredfirefox]

@@icepick_method3439 funny thing is the one I have is maybe 4 servos Max

[@julianreverse]

@@H2Oredfirefox Because it's crap ...

[@SpotOn-AV]

15:12 yeah I also know that moment ;)

[@Light-up-your-life]

Enorme bravo à toit c'est du travaille de pro!!

[@Ndarrow1]

I would love to see someone convert this to LED. I know it’s a 25 year old fixture but would be fun to see

[@Colonel_Flanders]

I heard PRG converted a bunch of Varilite 3ks to LED. I haven't seen them in person, but it's a pretty rad concept.

[@ChristopheSimonnot]

bravo pour ce travail !!!! est il facile de depanner des lyres mac 600 car j'ai une opportunité d'en avoir a restaurer

[@M0rtin67]

Nice job! I'm also tring to resurrect two old MAC 500(mine's were mechanically mostly okay, but were very dirty and had a ton of bad electrical contacts) but after all the repairs i'm still having a very strange problem with them: The fixture turns on, goes to "index position" on all sensored motors, EXCEPT on ColorWheel2. There's no error message, fixture thinks everything's all good, but ColorWheel2 only jumps a little(when colorwheel1 reached its sensor), than stays in a random position and does not move in any demo mode. Its as if it isn't even there. Unpluging the motor and/or its sensor also doesn't cause any error message! The stepper motor is energized (I've checked the motor diver ic, the wiring, the sensor for that wheel, even replaced the whole color mixing assembly and sensors, but still nothing changed. In the end i've swapped the sensor and motor wiring between the two color wheels and the fault went to the other wheel, so the wiring, motors and sensors are all known good, also did measrements to confirm continuity and, correct voltages) From the manual menu i see the sensor signal coming in as it should when the magnet passes by, and i can go through the supposed color positions and the wheel moves as expected, but since it never indexed, the positions don't line up with the light. Some more strange things: -the RotatableGoboWheel indexes correctly, but when i try to rotate it from the manual menu, it seems the open position is exactly two places off. (I've checked the user manual, also your video, and gobo wheel assembly is put together correctly) -i can't read the two themperature values of the head and base, only shows "N/A" (the sensors are good and unplugging the one in the head, creates an error message) -in your video, the cooling fans audibly run on low while the lamp is off, then they speed up, mine only slows down to around 70% and stay there all the time, regardless of the lamp state, or temperature The most interesting thing is that the main pcb of my other fixture also produces the exact same fault. Everything's good, but not doing what it suppose to do. Factory reset also didn't help. I'm starting to think that this is a software issue, that somebody may have uploaded the wrong firmware onto these lights at some point. Is that even possible? Any ideas what could cause this behavior? If there is a forum for troubleshooting like this, that would be helpful too. Thanks for any help in advance

[@redking7051]

If you can, try with another board that you trust is good. That way you make sure it is and actual board issues. Try swapping drivers. If you still have these wierd bugs, I guess the main board as a problem. I know you can upgrade the firmware through DMX using a special adapter but it's getting rare to get. Good luck on your fixtures

[@M0rtin67]

@@redking7051 Thanks for your reply. I went further with my diagnosis and i found out that although both of my boards have the same issue with ColorWheel2, one of my boards can at least measure the air temperatures correctly and control the fan speed. As far as i can tell both of my boards run the same firmware so the different behavior seems strange. Upon closer inspection i think my boards might have gone through an over-voltage situation at some point, because at least the 30V DC line (24v ac from the transformer) had a burnt 33V protection diode on both boards. I have to check for more possibly damaged parts in the logic power circuitry. Since these boards are rare and expensive, i will probably order a couple from every single ic on the board and replace the suspected ones one-by-one and see what changes(replacing everything is still way cheaper than two used, old board). I think even the processzor can be cloned to a new chip to rule out any damaged parts. I really hope that in the end i can get them working, it'll be an interesting project that's for sure.

[@redking7051]

@@M0rtin67 Seems like someone forgot the 120/230v selection and plug it straight to 230v mains and it went kaboom

[@icepick_method3439]

I picked up 2x Mac 500's and 600's for $20 each at a local thrift store. They came from a church apparently. When I plug them in they all show **** on the screen. I can't get them to do anything. Are they able to be brought back to life?

[@icepick_method3439]

Screens show four astrix's * * * *.

[@redking7051]

@@icepick_method3439 seams like a faulty screen or motherboard not booting. Maybe cheak on the voltage regulator. If you have spare parts, try swapping them to isolate the fault

[@tabrezsayyed399]

Send me this light I will do this