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R/E/P => Recording - Engineering & Production => Topic started by: KyleG on May 16, 2011, 05:28:07 PM

Title: power issues with 003 rack
Post by: KyleG on May 16, 2011, 05:28:07 PM
The Problem: anytime I turn on the fan or air conditioner in my room it causes my computer to lose its connection to the 003 rack, forcing me to restart the 003 as well as my computer.

I'm looking for the most economical way to prevent this from happening, but can't seem to find any definitive answer. UPS or power conditioner? Specific models would be great, I'm really not trying to spend more than $200. Feel free to direct me to another thread if you've heard this one before.
Title: Re: power issues with 003 rack
Post by: boggy on May 16, 2011, 10:32:03 PM
The Problem: anytime I turn on the fan or air conditioner in my room it causes my computer to lose its connection to the 003 rack, forcing me to restart the 003 as well as my computer.

I'm looking for the most economical way to prevent this from happening,.......


Try to use different phase, if you have three-phase power system, for supplying your audio equipment and computer. I mean different from those which your fan and conditioner use.


Best regards,
Title: Re: power issues with 003 rack
Post by: kevin on May 17, 2011, 05:11:29 PM
In order to know what's going to help, it would be useful to capture exactly what is occurring on the phases using a scope or a power disturbance analyzer.  It's possible that there is a corroded connection on the power service to your building.  When a surge current is pulled through a resistive connection on the neutral, you can get a voltage spike on both phases.  It's better to fix that problem directly than to mask it. 

It might help to move the audio equipment to another phase, or even a different circuit from the breaker panel (if possible). 

In any case, what they call "power conditioners" are not likely to solve the problem since their main function is to clip high voltage surges.  Some power conditioners have noise filtration, but that's still not a guaranteed fix.  A UPS might help.  However, keep in mind the cheap UPSs don't give you nice sine wave AC, just a square-wave approximation.  True sine wave UPSs (e.g. Furman F1500-UPS) are better, but even they still take several 60 Hz cycles to kick in, which might be too late.  A voltage regulator may be a better bet.  Unfortunately, most viable solutions are not under $200. 
Title: Re: power issues with 003 rack
Post by: David Hoover on June 06, 2011, 01:18:10 PM
I had that problem before.  My firewire port on my computer is sensitive to power changes.  That could be the problem.
Title: Re: power issues with 003 rack
Post by: KyleG on June 07, 2011, 01:01:33 AM
I had that problem before.  My firewire port on my computer is sensitive to power changes.  That could be the problem.

Interesting, I had not considered that and it may be exactly what's going on. I'm assuming there wasn't any simple fix?

Thanks all for your responses.
Title: Re: power issues with 003 rack
Post by: Fletcher on June 08, 2011, 02:02:39 PM
The Problem: anytime I turn on the fan or air conditioner in my room it causes my computer to lose its connection to the 003 rack, forcing me to restart the 003 as well as my computer.

There are a bunch of fixes for this - most are expensive, a couple are not. 

What is happening when an air conditioner kicks in is that it is drawing most of the available current from the area - meaning that your computer / 003 are momentarily starved for electricity.  As they work on electricity, they get pretty bummed out when they're denied said juice and go on strike.

The cheapest fix will be to get something like an APC "UPS" [Utility Power Supply] conditioner... the problem with those little guys is that they're fine for computers... but not so great for "audio" as they tend to output a clipped wave form [the computer will work - the audio gear will also work but won't sound that great]... in the case of your 003 you probably won't notice the difference [yes, that was an elbow to the ribs of our friends at Shiti-Design... the company logo on the box before they took the parent co. "AVID" name].

The more expensive, but in the grand scheme of things not too expensive solution would be to get a system from like California Instruments instead of APC.  The last one I got for a client ran about $3500 with a 1.5kVa rating.  The bright side is that they output a really clean wave form... and if you have a few of them you can set the output voltage on them to any frequency at any voltage [things like Marshall amps love 220v 50Hz... as do units like V-76's, 72's, Studer 1" 4trk tape machines etc.].

The big time fix is to pull a new line from the pole, have it run through an isolation transformer and then do a few CI UPS's... but we're talking about something the price tag of a used Lexus at that point which is probably more than you're willing to go if you're playing with a 003 system.

I hope this is of some assistance.

Peace
Title: Re: power issues with 003 rack
Post by: DarinK on June 09, 2011, 04:54:23 PM
Fletcher (& others) -

Any experience running from a UPS unit into a power conditioner?  I know I read something about that recently on some forum, but can't recall the details.  Could this solve the "UPS waveform bad for audio" problem?
Title: Re: power issues with 003 rack
Post by: KyleG on June 09, 2011, 08:09:33 PM
Thanks so much for your detailed response, Fletcher. I think I'll deal with the inconvenience for the time being and save up for a CI UPS.
Title: Re: power issues with 003 rack
Post by: amarshism on June 17, 2011, 11:46:16 PM
I ran into this problem a few times this week thankfully when powering down at the end of a session. Turn guitar rigs off, 003 loses 1394 connection. The DUC says it is a known power harness issue.