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121 Posts
Me too. Haven't had any lockups in over 2 months as long as I keep tuner in DTV mode on power-up & down.
Me too. Haven't had any lockups in over 2 months as long as I keep tuner in DTV mode on power-up & down.
Magnavox 557, 537, 535, 533, 515, 513, 2160A, 2160, 2080 & Philips 3576, 3575
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Looks like we are on to something. Did you have a lot of lockups before that? I had about five in the first couple of weeks I had the 515.
Kind of a pain to make sure it doesn't turn off on an analog channel. I have to program a digital channel timer for a two minute recording immediately after an analog recording.
Kind of a pain to make sure it doesn't turn off on an analog channel. I have to program a digital channel timer for a two minute recording immediately after an analog recording.
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2,754 Posts
That's the best point. Before buying a new one I always first look at the cost of a replacement battery or batteries.
After (barely) surviving hurricane Katrina and Rita, I got a whole-house generator (NG). When the next one came through the power was out again for about a WEEK, but the generator powered the entire house without a single issue (best $5k we ever spent). I still use UPS units on all electronic devices because we're prone to outages and a crappy elec company/bad hardware that constantly cause that annoying rapid cyclic off/on/off/on that can fry an electronic device. UPS units protect from that, plus it takes about 20 secs for the generator to come on and during that time the UPS protects those non-capacitor backup products that will loose their memory/programming.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jjeff /forum/post/20846529
.....The downside to a larger UPS is the battery is much more expensive to replace when the day comes, and it will. UPS batteries generally last ~4 years and depending on where you buy it, it can come close to the cost of a new UPS![]()
That's the best point. Before buying a new one I always first look at the cost of a replacement battery or batteries.
After (barely) surviving hurricane Katrina and Rita, I got a whole-house generator (NG). When the next one came through the power was out again for about a WEEK, but the generator powered the entire house without a single issue (best $5k we ever spent). I still use UPS units on all electronic devices because we're prone to outages and a crappy elec company/bad hardware that constantly cause that annoying rapid cyclic off/on/off/on that can fry an electronic device. UPS units protect from that, plus it takes about 20 secs for the generator to come on and during that time the UPS protects those non-capacitor backup products that will loose their memory/programming.
I've been following the discussions re UPS. Always planned on getting one for the HT system - "someday."
Well gentlemen, last night I had the whole HT system turned on and the 515 was busy recording to the HDD while I was watching chase play. It was a beautiful night, no storm activity at all.
Suddenly, the room lights, which were on dimly, surged in brightness way past the normal max, surged again, after which I was left sitting in the dark - no power. To make matters worse, the lights surged on again THREE more times and then off, flickered wildly a couple times and then a two hour wait to see how much of the gear was going to have to be replaced.
We had had a major storm and power outage 4 days earlier, which had apparently caused weakness in a tree a couple miles from here. Came down and took out critical lines for the entire nearby community.
I've seen bad power failures with contiguous major spikes like this one in the past, but normally they've happened when they're turning the juice back on and I've already shut down the gear or the gear was off beforehand due to storm warnings. This one caught me flatfooted.
Long story short - no damage to the electronics. I'm overjoyed to report that the Maggie is one hell of a stable piece of gear! Yes, that's no excuse for me not having a UPS and that WILL be corrected. All the gear is plugged into a couple of those power strips that do have a minimum of protection, but I doubt it's what made the difference here.
I checked the 515 and it had merely stopped recording at the point the power failed. All stored titles were in place and the 515 began recording again on command. Even the clock did not lose a tick! I set the clock manually one time when I first got the unit and continue to use the manual setting, so it's not picking up the time signal from tv programming. It has never gained or lost a second. Amazing.
I know I was lucky and I won't stretch that luck any further.
Yet another testimonial from a satisfied customer!
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Well gentlemen, last night I had the whole HT system turned on and the 515 was busy recording to the HDD while I was watching chase play. It was a beautiful night, no storm activity at all.
Suddenly, the room lights, which were on dimly, surged in brightness way past the normal max, surged again, after which I was left sitting in the dark - no power. To make matters worse, the lights surged on again THREE more times and then off, flickered wildly a couple times and then a two hour wait to see how much of the gear was going to have to be replaced.
We had had a major storm and power outage 4 days earlier, which had apparently caused weakness in a tree a couple miles from here. Came down and took out critical lines for the entire nearby community.
I've seen bad power failures with contiguous major spikes like this one in the past, but normally they've happened when they're turning the juice back on and I've already shut down the gear or the gear was off beforehand due to storm warnings. This one caught me flatfooted.
Long story short - no damage to the electronics. I'm overjoyed to report that the Maggie is one hell of a stable piece of gear! Yes, that's no excuse for me not having a UPS and that WILL be corrected. All the gear is plugged into a couple of those power strips that do have a minimum of protection, but I doubt it's what made the difference here.
I checked the 515 and it had merely stopped recording at the point the power failed. All stored titles were in place and the 515 began recording again on command. Even the clock did not lose a tick! I set the clock manually one time when I first got the unit and continue to use the manual setting, so it's not picking up the time signal from tv programming. It has never gained or lost a second. Amazing.
I know I was lucky and I won't stretch that luck any further.
Yet another testimonial from a satisfied customer!
All I can say is that the power situation is going to get worse before it, if ever, gets better. The margin of capacity is nearing the limits, and more plants are being taken out of service as time goes on. Nothing is being built to replace them.
More demand , less capacity... Hmm, what d'ya think? Better or worse?
I know what I expect.
tom
More demand , less capacity... Hmm, what d'ya think? Better or worse?
I know what I expect.
tom
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2,198 Posts
I'm happy with the quality of my power. They buried the cable 12 years ago, so downed trees don't take out the power. Improved safety comes with it, no live wires down.
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121 Posts
I did have lockups but had a Funai engineer come by a few months back to document everything and of course it locked up on him too while powering up in analog mode.
Sounds like these cable systems are sending out analog signals that screw up the 515 tuner during power up boot sequence. IMO
I did have lockups but had a Funai engineer come by a few months back to document everything and of course it locked up on him too while powering up in analog mode.
Sounds like these cable systems are sending out analog signals that screw up the 515 tuner during power up boot sequence. IMO
Not having above ground power is normal and nice in most cities. I miss it. My borough is just the opposite. You might remember a few years ago when CA had rolling outages. That got me into the power backup planning in a serious way. I lived in CA (San Mateo) and would get 5 minutes notice for a 90 minute blackout. But the web page was nice:
http://www.caiso.com/outlook/SystemStatus.html
Now my power is really bad and I feel better with a nice 1500VA UPS for my entertainment stuff and a 1500VA UPS for my computer. Each has an extra battery pack. I have several smaller ones too. And if they get low, I have a 2500W inverter for resistive loads and a 1500W inverter for inductive loads, like the fridge & oil burner. I get about two short power failures a month. So far I have had three this month, the last one six hours ago during a nice storm. The electric company will cut power for 6 minutes if any surge is detected. They have a good web site too. The pure sine wave inverter has paid for itself by keeping the freezer running for 12 hours last fall. An unlucky squirrel I think.
The 515H has a good power supply. But I'm really lazy and hate to reprogram stuff.
Not having above ground power is normal and nice in most cities. I miss it. My borough is just the opposite. You might remember a few years ago when CA had rolling outages. That got me into the power backup planning in a serious way. I lived in CA (San Mateo) and would get 5 minutes notice for a 90 minute blackout. But the web page was nice:
http://www.caiso.com/outlook/SystemStatus.html
Now my power is really bad and I feel better with a nice 1500VA UPS for my entertainment stuff and a 1500VA UPS for my computer. Each has an extra battery pack. I have several smaller ones too. And if they get low, I have a 2500W inverter for resistive loads and a 1500W inverter for inductive loads, like the fridge & oil burner. I get about two short power failures a month. So far I have had three this month, the last one six hours ago during a nice storm. The electric company will cut power for 6 minutes if any surge is detected. They have a good web site too. The pure sine wave inverter has paid for itself by keeping the freezer running for 12 hours last fall. An unlucky squirrel I think.
The 515H has a good power supply. But I'm really lazy and hate to reprogram stuff.
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2,754 Posts
When you say "on command" do you mean it automatically started recording again, or you had to manually tell it?
I guess that* would depend on how long the outage lasted. I've heard of numerous problems with the auto clock setting on these units, but you use manual and say it's been fine. So I'm curious as to why everyone doesn't use the manual method if its clock is accurate without the auto setting enabled.
When you say "on command" do you mean it automatically started recording again, or you had to manually tell it?
I guess that* would depend on how long the outage lasted. I've heard of numerous problems with the auto clock setting on these units, but you use manual and say it's been fine. So I'm curious as to why everyone doesn't use the manual method if its clock is accurate without the auto setting enabled.
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148 Posts
My 513 gains about 4 seconds a day. Every two weeks I would manually set it back a minute. I now have it on auto, but with a manual digital channel.
My 513 gains about 4 seconds a day. Every two weeks I would manually set it back a minute. I now have it on auto, but with a manual digital channel.
My $10 Walmart watch loses about 1 second per month. My 2160A gains about 5 seconds per month. My 515H gains about 5 seconds per week. I guess it's all relative.
About time: time.nist.gov is working but time.windows.com seems to be down for a while.
My $10 Walmart watch loses about 1 second per month. My 2160A gains about 5 seconds per month. My 515H gains about 5 seconds per week. I guess it's all relative.
About time: time.nist.gov is working but time.windows.com seems to be down for a while.
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14,210 Posts
Two reasons:
1. You can get a good Auto Clock signal without fear of it finding a rogue signal by using The 11:57 Procedure to find and CONFIRM a good time signal. You set a MANUAL channel so it searches ONLY that channel and can't run across a rogue channel during the all-channel search with Auto Clock set to ON.
2. You get additional power-backup time with any Auto Clock option on, MANUAL is best of course. The normal 30-sec for 3575/3576/2080/2160/2160A goes to 2+ min., and on the MDR's people regularly go from the normal 1-hr to 2 hrs, and on one case to 60 hrs! with a MANUAL channel set.
Two reasons:
1. You can get a good Auto Clock signal without fear of it finding a rogue signal by using The 11:57 Procedure to find and CONFIRM a good time signal. You set a MANUAL channel so it searches ONLY that channel and can't run across a rogue channel during the all-channel search with Auto Clock set to ON.
2. You get additional power-backup time with any Auto Clock option on, MANUAL is best of course. The normal 30-sec for 3575/3576/2080/2160/2160A goes to 2+ min., and on the MDR's people regularly go from the normal 1-hr to 2 hrs, and on one case to 60 hrs! with a MANUAL channel set.
Just a 515 cooling fan questions:
Upon arising this morning, I detected a very slight sound coming from my new bedroom equipment stack. I realized that the fan on my #2 515 unit was running, even though the unit was in standby mode. The air coming out of the fan was barely warm, so there was no great heat being generated. The 515 is at the bottom of a non-enclosed stack, with a totally cool VCR above it (see attached pic). The unit had been turned on approximately 24 hours before, but had not made any timer recordings since last Thursday.
So I checked on my #1 515 unit in the living room, which had finished a timer recording 9 hours earlier, and the fan was also running, with the unit in standby. This one is in a glass-fronted cabinet (normally left open) on top of a little-used DVD player, with plenty of air space all around both.
Just to see what would happen, I powered on the #2 unit, left it alone for 30 seconds, then powered it off. Within 15 seconds, the fan stopped. Then followed the same procedure with 515 #1, with the same results.
What is the general experience with normal fan operations on the 515? Do these fans cycle on and off at certain times/heat levels/randomly? Obviously, the fan would be on when the unit is on and running (?), but how about at other times? The sound is not particularly loud (though discernible), and I do not have a harmonic buzz...yet.
Thanks.
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Upon arising this morning, I detected a very slight sound coming from my new bedroom equipment stack. I realized that the fan on my #2 515 unit was running, even though the unit was in standby mode. The air coming out of the fan was barely warm, so there was no great heat being generated. The 515 is at the bottom of a non-enclosed stack, with a totally cool VCR above it (see attached pic). The unit had been turned on approximately 24 hours before, but had not made any timer recordings since last Thursday.
So I checked on my #1 515 unit in the living room, which had finished a timer recording 9 hours earlier, and the fan was also running, with the unit in standby. This one is in a glass-fronted cabinet (normally left open) on top of a little-used DVD player, with plenty of air space all around both.
Just to see what would happen, I powered on the #2 unit, left it alone for 30 seconds, then powered it off. Within 15 seconds, the fan stopped. Then followed the same procedure with 515 #1, with the same results.
What is the general experience with normal fan operations on the 515? Do these fans cycle on and off at certain times/heat levels/randomly? Obviously, the fan would be on when the unit is on and running (?), but how about at other times? The sound is not particularly loud (though discernible), and I do not have a harmonic buzz...yet.
Thanks.
Fascinating! I'm going to remove the case on my 2160A and see if a blow dryer can warm it up. When in standby the fan should only come on during recording and at 12am/pm. Unless 234 can find out for us that there is a termal sensor. I wish you had a Kill-A-Watt to monitor power use.
Don't try this at home kids. My 515H is the active unit, the 2160A is for testing things.
Fascinating! I'm going to remove the case on my 2160A and see if a blow dryer can warm it up. When in standby the fan should only come on during recording and at 12am/pm. Unless 234 can find out for us that there is a termal sensor. I wish you had a Kill-A-Watt to monitor power use.
Don't try this at home kids. My 515H is the active unit, the 2160A is for testing things.
Additional data:
Ambient room temperature is 79.5 - 80.5° F. This is normal for our home in summer, with the AC cycling on/off about 2-3X per hour. I turned both units on, and they powered up normally and the fans came on. Turned power off, and fans went off about 10-15 seconds later.
So perhaps when the units powered on for their midnight Auto Clock Set (Manual mode using Fox-digital channel), they both "forgot" to turn their fans off afterwards?? Seems odd, and perhaps yet another reason to NOT use Auto Clock Set at all.....
Ambient room temperature is 79.5 - 80.5° F. This is normal for our home in summer, with the AC cycling on/off about 2-3X per hour. I turned both units on, and they powered up normally and the fans came on. Turned power off, and fans went off about 10-15 seconds later.
So perhaps when the units powered on for their midnight Auto Clock Set (Manual mode using Fox-digital channel), they both "forgot" to turn their fans off afterwards?? Seems odd, and perhaps yet another reason to NOT use Auto Clock Set at all.....
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Interesting solution, compared to a gasoline generator with a crossover switch.
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NICE web site!!!
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Thanks!
- What are the manufacturers and models of the inverters?
- What did they cost?
- What powers them?
Interesting solution, compared to a gasoline generator with a crossover switch.
NICE web site!!!
Thanks!
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