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Help needed with new ATI lights ?

Trevor Pleco

Trevor Pleco

Member
Joined
21 Oct 2012
Messages
298
Location
Cape Town
Hi All, registered on this great site some time back, but have not posted.. just been exploiting your expertise and admiring 🙂 .

I've had some teething problems with my new ATI Sunpower Dimm 80w unit, as detailed in this other forum thread - http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/12440-ATI-help-needed

I've now worked out that some of my concerns were as a result of being 'lost in translation" with the English version of the ATI manual, as down loaded form the ATI site..crazy stuff. Where in 3.8, it suggests you have to switch all three parts to Auto including the cooling fans to engage the TMS, which I understand is not true, as the fans actually engage automatically. The other misleading section regarding the fans and TMS is in 3.4 where it indicates, be it in poor English, that the the operation of TMS will be shown by an exclamation mark '!' , or is this perhaps a thermometer icon 🙂 ? I gather from some other ATI owners that they have never seen this sign or only once and it's more a warning sign, rather than showing you that the TMS is active ? Would be keen on some advice here, please..?

My last concern is that I have noticed that when the lights switch off, either in the Auto programmed mode or in manual, the tubes continue to flicker, be it very dim and can only be seen in a dark room. I'm still running these tubes in and they have only clocked up about 36 hours or so. I'm using Grolux (from Lampspecs), Osram 6500k and the Radium 880. It's been suggested that I'm only using ''entry level" tubes which could be causing the problem ?

ATI suggested that I should run the tubes in for 60 hours and I could do this in the Auto mode by ramping the lights up and down in a minute each way, until the 60 hours were up ? The problem I have with this is that when all 6 tubes were on together for a couple of hours the TMS kicks in and CH 1 dimms to 60%, which is not what I want at this stage. It seems in retrospect that the best bet to run the tubes in would be to simply use an ordinary plug timer and go to Manual mode for the first 60 hours ?

I've been waiting quite a while for the ATI folk to get back to me, so keen to hear your thoughts ?
 
ATI got back to me, they agree that their English manual needs to be updated, as originally there were three options in the Manual mode with Dim channels 1 & 2 plus the fan, but the fan is now automatically included..

Still working out what's happening with the TMS ''!'' sign, as ATI say you should see this as soon as the TMS is engaged. Tom has only seen the sign once, I have yet to see it ?

As for the flickering tubes when unit turns off in Auto or in Manual, they suggest swapping the polarity of the two pronged plug adapter, so need to check this out..
 
Just a quick follow up.. I understand from speaking with ATI that only one turn on and turn off period is permitted per dimm channel within a 24hr period which has surprised me, given that there are 10 options per channel... is this really correct ? So if for example you ideally want two turn on periods per day with Ch 1, say on either side of Channel 2 being on, the only way you can do this is to keep Ch 1 on for the complete duration of both periods, but just ramp it up and down from say 1% when you need it, so you are just left with one turn on and turn off period per day, but two periods of light ? Seems quite odd ...
 
Trevor Pleco,
Please see the text below as an explanation of dimming points. First part I need to clarify for this example, you will need to accept that dimming is a generic term and can mean dimming up (increasing brightness) and dimming down (reducing brightness).
This is my understanding of dimming points, however ATIs may be different. 😉
You select time for light to start igniting (Dimming Point 1) the time, say for example, 0730hrs this means that the first entered time will be 0730hrs and dimming up period will be for a period of, say 30 mins, to get to a level of tube brightness of say 10%.(for this example shown)
This means at 0800hrs the tube will be at 10% brightness of tube capacity. (point 1) (0730 +30mins=0800)
Dimming Point 2 will follow. In this example point 2 is at roughly 50% tube brightness capacity. Input details of point two it may look like this. Point 2 commences at 0930hrs and dimming up lasts for 1hour. (0930 + 60 =1030) At 1030hrs the tube will be at 50% brightness of tube capacity. (point 2)
The above is repeated for as many dimming points as you can have for each channel. ( I think you said in your case this was 10) Then it is done for each channel depending on how many channels you have.
Normally the first point is switching on and the tenth point, in your case, would be switching off. In the example shown it is point 8 for switch off. This would be repeated for every lighting channel. The example shown below is for one channel but it has eight dimming points.
Hope this helps?:crazy:

H3mJPEJ.png
 
Hey Troglodyte, thanks for this in-depth reply !

The actual dimming function is working fine, however my prime concern and major headache is that two out of the four tubes in CH2 fail to come on in Auto mode when scheduled, but strangely they do work fine when in manual mode and ramping up to say 100% or when doing the ATI diagnostic test. Interestingly after running the unit for about a month things started to improve with all four tubes in CH2 coming on most of the time and as scheduled. It's almost as though the ballast had to be trained over several weeks to turn all four tubes on...

In the meantime I had various conversations with my local ATI distributor and with ATI in Germany and they agreed to replace the unit as it was still brand new of course. However when six weeks later I received the new second unit and installed it with the same tubes, it did exactly the same thing as the first unit, with only the front two tubes of the four coming on in Auto mode as scheduled. As both ATI units are doing the same thing there must be a logical technical explanation as to what is happening here !

It can't be the T5 tubes themselves as they eventually worked fine with the first unit. I have again tried to contact ATI, but after five days have received no reply from them..

A really frustrating scenario, so would welcome any suggestions ! :arghh:
 
lol, it would sadly not be of use to you unless you can get off work each day to switch CH 2 on...🙂
 
I've met with the ! sign 2 times til now. This is when the ballast get too hot. The unit decrease the power til the temp gets normal again.

Typical with bad ventillated room, no airconditioning, summer heat, the unit is closed to somewhere etc.
The sign may have other functions too, but we've seen this only when the unit overheated.
 
Thanks Viktor, I have never seen the '!' yet. It's surprising how much heat is released between the perspex cover and gap on the left end of the unit. I feel I need to slide the cover out a little to create a little gap on the right side as well so heat can escape there also. I assume the fans blow the heat out this gap and don't really suck out the heat through the fan vents, as the air always seems pretty cool at the vents. Given the amount of heat generated when all six tubes are on max I'm surprised what a low speed the fans still run, as I've never heard them run at the high speed they reach when doing the fan diagnostic test !

My big problem is not really with the fans, but that two of the four tubes (the back two) in CH 2 fail to come on in Auto mode, although they always work fine when doing the diagnostic test or in manual mode and then ramping them up..
 
Still having hassles with my second ATI replacement unit, has been six months of frustration not to mention having to get my neighbor to turn my lights on daily when I'm away ! The local distributors are now saying they will try out the third unit before they send it. I'm still waiting for some basic answers from ATI, .. such as how many ballasts does the x6 80w dimm unit have, as clearly the one ballast in Ch 2 is faulty with only two of the four tubes coming on in Auto mode, although strangely they work fine in manual mode and when I do the diagnostic test. ATI suggested it was a problem with the tubes, but the same tubes work fine in other slots in the unit, while none of the six tubes work in the two problem slots in Auto (slots 4 and 6 if counted from the front).

Another concern that I experienced this week with the newer unit is that when there is a power cut the clock reverts back to factory settings which of course throws your lighting schedule completely out ! Surely there is an internal battery which at least maintains the time, this is not rocket science or am I missing something?

Not a happy camper having spent a fortune on supposedly upgrading my lights !

Final word and while the knives are out 😉 - ATI how about splashing out and including a hard copy instruction booklet with your light units, like all other manufacturers do ? :banghead:

Apologies for the moan !
 
Trevor Pleco,
There may be a requirement to burn in the tubes for a certain amount of hours before they can be dimmed.:bookworm: Arcadia units need 100 hours use before dimming if I remember correctly. Or it may be a simple programming issue that has not allocated the tubes to the correct channel for programming. However this would appear to not be the case if after a month they worked on ch2? 🙄 The lack of a battery to retain RAM memory is an economic decision made to keep the costs down.:arghh: I fail to see the benefits of this economic saving personally.😡
 
Yeah agree, imo burning the tubes in is an issue on the dimm unit as you can only turn them on by dimming up from 0 to 100% even if you programme it to do it quickly, in say a minute. The point being you are still dimming them on every day you turn them on while the are being run in, which can't be good for the new bubs, surely. A 60 hour burn in time was recommended to me by ATI and I certainly tried to do this, probably close to 100 hours in the end.

The problem is that no tubes work on those two problem slots in Ch 2 in Auto mode, but all the tubes work fine on the other slots .. conclusion - something is wrong with the ballast ! However as mentioned the odd thing is these two 'problem' tube slots work fine when doing the diagnostic test or in manual mode...:banghead:

Have to say I have not been hugely impressed with the feedback and technical response form ATI in Germany..as my calls and many emails are just fielded by their public liaison person, rather than the technical folk that presumably know the answers here and can help me.

Not having a, internal battery to keep the digital clock going during power shortages is crazy for obvious reasons. Had I known this to be the case upfront I would never have gone for ATI. Why go to the expense of having a smart automated light unit when in reality this is not the case. What is more ludicrous is that your other digital programming times in the menu apart from the clock do remain as programmed. Only last week when I was away there was a two minute general power outage, when the power came back on the unit reverted back to the factory clock settings, so my unit then turned on late in the evening, sorry correction.. two of the four tubes turned on, two failed to turn on. By then my C02 was already off for the day. Fortunately I did not gas my fish during the day in the darkness.

Have I lost the plot or have ATI ? :arghh:
 
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