I have an L1, model 2, with double subs and a T1 that I bought last November. Up to this point I’ve been extremely pleased but boy, did I almost get egg on my face last night.
I DJed a school dance and apparently ran into some power issues. After setup, I put some music on, moderate volume to test things out. I thought I’d separated my L1 rig (L1, T1, laptop and a couple of wal-warts for the wireless units) to a separate circuit. Apparently, the plug 40 ft away where I plugged about 2000-2400 watts worth of lighting was apparently sharing the same circuit. I have the laptop running USB into channel 4 of the T1. BTW, no red lights to show I was over-driving any channels or the tower. Nothing but green lights all around.
Basically, the L1 would play for 1-3 minutes, then sound would shutoff. The T1’s display would still be lit but the screen was blank. It would not re-establish connection to the laptop and required a hard power down at the tower to get it going. In trying to debug, I plugged in the power supply for the T1 and ran an analog line to the tower. Same problem. I then tried running the T1 to a separate wall plug, but discovered later it was apparently still on the same circuit (who wires these friggin schools?). I did not try cycling power on the T1 by itself.
I ended up grabbing a <lousy> P.A. from the music room and used it for a half-hour until I finally re-routed the L1 to a different circuit. BTW, I did pop the circuit breaker a couple of times until I finally moved a 1500-watt stage wash off that circuit to the other side of the gym.
Now I can understand the L1 <failing due to a> on a line sag but the thing that ticked me was it wouldn’t reset itself without a hard power down. I watched the signal/overload light on the tower for a bit and the green light was only coming on every few seconds. It’d blip, then go back off (this is with sound going into the tower). After a half-dozen blips, boom, down it goes.
I don’t know what the firmware version is. I bought the T1 around Christmas, 2007 and it still has the original firmware version.
Fortunate for me, I skated by with the school P.A. and it was a fund-raiser and local. Had this been a high-profile event, or one where I’d travelled 4-5 hours to get there, I’d have been toast and giving a refund.
Any suggestions on where to look or how to debug this in the future would be greatly appreciated. I know that with an analog mixer, I can have a power sag and everything comes back on when power’s back up. The fact that the T1 didn’t reset is what’s got me up in arms.
If that <stuff> happens again on a gig, I don’t care how good it sounds or how good dispersion is, that <thing> will be in the dumpster. Any suggestions in regards would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks in advance.
Rick,
Sorry to hear about your power issues. the model II works over a fairly wide voltage range. If you are having the unit cut out on you it means the voltage is either dropping below 100 volts (your case), or going above 140 volts (hens’s teeth rare).
*** First of all, please, upgrade the firmware on your T1 and L1. We implemented fixes to ensure the L1m2 and T1 reset without needing to toggle the power. This won’t be an issue after you update.***
As far as debugging a setup like this, the best way is to test beforehand to see if you are on the same breaker. When possible, if access is available to the breaker box you can test directly, and see how many watts you have to work with. If that is not possible and you are comfortable with a multimeter, you can check the power available at the wall with a.) nothing running b.) everything running(lights, music full blast etc.). If you see a significant drop in line voltage (from say 120 to 100) you are probably on the same circuit and you may have problems. Unfortunately, if you do encounter an issue the only easy answer is to either use less power (dim the lights if you have switching dimmers), or find more power on a different circuit as you did.
Hope this is helpful,
Mike
quote:I don't know what the firmware version is. I bought the T1 around Christmas, 2007 and it still has the original firmware version.
Hey Rick...this sounds similar to a problem a lot of us had which was corrected with a firmware update just after New Years.
I know that I had a dozen such instances prior to updating and zero since.
JD
Thanks guys. I’ll update the firmware, as suggested. I was REALLY hoping for a fix as I’ve fallen in love with that L1. I did a 300 guest wedding a few weeks ago at an AirForce base in St. Louis. Man, it was off the hook. I’d sweated that I could cover a 12,000 sq ft room (very wide, 150ft deep) but the Bose worked like a champ. Oh yea, they had a piano player during dinner in the same room. He had a L1, M1, 1sub; sounded great as well.
BTW, here are a couple of pics from last night: