Martin Wizard Extreme lamp adjustment

[dicky]

Some of you may recall I was looking for a centrepiece light

Well not doing things by halves I am now the owner of not one but three Martin Wizard Extremes - got them at a cheap price and have space for one on each tripod to the sides of me (between the two iShow 4's) and the third to use as my centrepiece, all synchonised together

Two are working pretty much fine and the third needs some bits to repair it, but I only paid £30 for it

They were supposed to be spotless inside, but they were not - I felt the light brightness was low and it turned out the colour wheel dischoics were really filthy

I've got that sorted - figured out how to set them to music triggered with constant white colour and changing gobo using me DMX controller (the way I like to see these working)

So all looking good - but one of the working ones has this light adjustment problem - or at least that is what I think it is

I tooks ome pics which will show this better than I can describe, but holding a hand-held mirror in front of the drum and set to white+open gobo (as recommended in the manual) I find some of the circles have horrible dark blotches in them and soome are OK. The instructions on adjusting the lamp don't seem to mention this eventuality - adjusting the three screws seem to move the dark blotch around a bit.

Could some nice person with experience of servicing or adjusting these fixtures give me some advice on how to set this up properly, or if there is some other cause of the problem

Cheers
Rich


PS - for the faulty one that cost me £30. I need a ballast, the temp sensor that fits onto the lamp housing, and the focus adjust shaft/bolt/rod thingy (the rest of the focus adjust assembly is there. I could probably improvise something to replace the focus adjust though if I can't find an original one. Anyone got any spares fo sale do let me know

[Pe7e]

If you sort that one out I've got a wizard with exactly the same problem LOL. You can find the lamp adjustment procedure in the owners manual which is available to download from the Martin.com website. I followed these instructions to the letter with no success, after a bit of head scratching I came to the conclusion a replacement lamp had been fitted, but not the recommended brand/model, and this lamp I think is too tall causing the optical problem. At that stage I left it since buying the specified lamp would cost £80+ and no guarantee the problem being solved. I couldn't justify the cost as this was around the same price I could have sold the working Wizard for. You could try swapping the lamp out of one of the ones you have that are displaying correctly and see if the problem is fixed. I would be interested in knowing the outcome. I think I got a temperature sensor from CPC for a couple of quid, there're a standard part.

[dicky]

Cheers Pe7e

I'm pretty sure one does not have that problem - in whch case I will have a look to see if the lamp is shorter compared to this one

Cheers for the info on the temparature sensor. I can get a genuine Martin ballast from the states for about £40 delivered - though I probably have to pay VAT on that so most likely call it £50. Sometimes I don't have to - it depends which courier they use, in my experience. However if I can get my hands on a scrapper going cheap which has the bits I need to resurrect my third one then I'd be happy to take that option.

BTW I'll get to have a look at your other stuff for you this week mate ;)

Rich

[DazzyD]

How on earth do you manage to get your hands on a Martin Wizard Extreme for £30??? :eek: In any condition, that's got to be one of the bargains of the century!

Any chance you could get me a couple of moving heads for around a tenner each?? !! ;)

[dicky]

LOL

Well I bought the other two working ones and my mate bought a pair of Martin Sychrozaps of the guy and the faulty one had several bits missing more than I mentioned.... ballast, lamp, mounting bracket, focus control rod and temperature sensor - and I suspect it has some underlying fault as well which is why it had been canabalised for parts in the first place though he said it hadn't.

So the guy had already a wad of cash heading towards his hand at this point and I haggled hard to clinch the deal lol

Rich

[Nakatomi]

How on earth do you manage to get your hands on a Martin Wizard Extreme for £30??? :eek: In any condition, that's got to be one of the bargains of the century!

Any chance you could get me a couple of moving heads for around a tenner each?? !! ;)

I was thinking that!

Is there some magical disco gear car boot sale we need to know about? Certainly not Ebay - used Wizard Extremes are changing hands for upwards of £200 a pop on there.

[Pe7e]

How on earth do you manage to get your hands on a Martin Wizard Extreme for £30??? :eek: In any condition, that's got to be one of the bargains of the century!

Any chance you could get me a couple of moving heads for around a tenner each?? !! ;)

Fantastic price, but these bargains are out there to be had, you just need to get around, and more importantly get lucky. Two of my 'best buys' were 3 Martin mini macs (150W discharge moving heads) for £75 ie £25 each, they all needed minor repairs total repair bill under £25. My best ever ebay buy/sell disco related deal 6 x OHM Moon speakers, which returned an astonishing 32 x the buying price.

[Nakatomi]

Fantastic price, but these bargains are out there to be had, you just need to get around, and more importantly get lucky. Two of my 'best buys' were 3 Martin mini macs (150W discharge moving heads) for £75 ie £25 each, they all needed minor repairs total repair bill under £25. My best ever ebay buy/sell disco related deal 6 x OHM Moon speakers, which returned an astonishing 32 x the buying price.

You must have to spend a heck of a lot of time on Ebay then. Or are there tools which help you search for bargains?

[dicky]

No it wasn't ebay, If they had gotten onto ebay before I found them then I wouldn't have got the price I payed ;)

OK I had a look at both the working ones properly now - indeed they do both have this shadow problem on the projected image, though one is worse than the other

Both have the correct Phillips MSD 250/2 lamps fitted

Both lamps could be quite old and the internal glass enclosure is all white on both of them. I have seen this before on discharge lamps in other fixtures but it doesn't appear to stop them from lighting up. However is this possibly the cause of the odd dark shadows?

Pe7e - does your wizard with the same optical problem have a lamp which looks like this?

BTW - anyone know how much the Martin Synchrozaps that my mate bought are worth, market value. Can't find any for sale.

[Pe7e]

You must have to spend a heck of a lot of time on Ebay then. Or are there tools which help you search for bargains?

There's no tools I know that can search for bargains but you can list search terms that you are interested in, and eBay emails you when they matching items are listed. The big profit speaker buy was a result of me spotting the 6 speakers lying on the floor in the guys garage when I went to pick up a pair of OHM BR12s I'd won on eBay, I thought they could be used around my house. I enquired if he was selling them and subsequently purchased them, I had no idea of what they were or their value at the time, in fact I was disappointed when I got them home, coupled them up and found they sounded like a cat being castrated. A few months later I googled the make/model and discovered they were in fact super expensive high frequency drivers for one of OHMs Planet series systems. Like I say, you need to get lucky sometimes.

[Pe7e]

Pe7e - does your wizard with the same optical problem have a lamp which looks like this?

BTW - anyone know how much the Martin Synchrozaps that my mate bought are worth, market value. Can't find any for sale.

No the one in mine is very different, it has a cylinder bit in the middle where yours has a globe and there's no glass tubes in the lamp, I suppose that at least indicates the lamp is the wrong one

Regarding the synchrozaps, they are quite an old, heavy effect, and as such are not in great demand. they have a problem with the mirror drums becoming dull and the light output being diminished. Without seeing them it's hard to put a value on them, but I can't see them going for more than £75 each unless they are in exceptional condition

[dicky]

Cheers Pete - the MSD lamps I have seen all have the globe in the middle, albeit they are clear not white when the lamps are new

I do have a new MSD 200 lamp - it's a spare one for the four TAS Mini Ultrascans I bought but have never used because they are too bloody heavy :rolleyes:

From the documentation these fixtures also support the MSD 200 lamps so when I can get my spare one out of my storage unit tomorrow I will try it and see if that makes any difference. It's not a philips one but I think it is worth a try. I can also compare it for physical the dimensions.

Could you upload a piccy of your lamp Pete?

Rich

[DazzyD]

I was thinking that!

Is there some magical disco gear car boot sale we need to know about? Certainly not Ebay - used Wizard Extremes are changing hands for upwards of £200 a pop on there.

The Wizard Extremes that we use we a fair bit more than that and they were second hand, too! You can get the normal Wizards for cheaper or the Warlocks but the Wizard Extremes still tend to change hands for a fair wad!

I've just checked eBay (a place a rarely go!) and found one for a straight £200 but most are £350 upwards. Still a good price if they are in good working order.

[stormproductions]

I serviced an Extreme about 2 years ago - can't remember though if there was that issue with the dark spots. Realistically in use you'll be the only person noticing, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

The lamp looks right, it looks like a very old Philips MSD250/2 from what I can see. The one described as having a tube inside sounds more like a CDM-150 (all sorts of varieties) but they're not the right lamp to be using!

SynchroZaps - I've got 6 that I got extremely cheap ex-install and serviced up at least 2 years ago and they've not yet been out on a job, partly because they've mostly got really old lamps in and give such little light output. Must get round to changing them... Value, well I've seen a few on ebay over the last few years but as already mentioned, £75 is vaguely in the right ball park. You might get £30 each, you might get £120, as ever it depends on how well you try selling them and who's interested!

[dicky]

Well may as well come clean as it is causing some discussion here

Got the two Wizard Extremes for £140 each.. Having agreed that price I haggled and haggled to pay £300 for the lot including the faulty one with bits missing but try as I might I ended up paying £310 for the three so the faulty one cost me £30

Nope they never reached ebay or any other open market for that matter and if they had have done I know damn well they would have cost me a lot more should I want to buy them! Like Pete says just a matter of getting 'out there' or in this case just getting lucky which I openly admit :beer1:

Rich