Mackies (srm450)

[Steve_Mitchell 0]

On NYE one of my Mackie`s went on me about 4 times.

 

Now I had them both on 12 o`clock . Due to the odd space I was working in I had one on a speaker stand (which was ok) and the other was on the end of a pool table, this was the one that kept over heating. When it went off I felt the metal grill things on the back and they where hot.

 

Now you can imagine how high the one on the pool table was ( waist height) and the other on the stand was above head height.

 

Is this the reason do you think. I must admit it was hot and busy in there.

 

like I say it was the first time but also the first time I used my sub through the sub connection on my mixer. I usually go xlr (from mixer), left & right to sub and then my cabs go xlr, left & right from sub crossover.

 

I also pressed the low button on my mackie`s so I was only getting top end out of them.

 

I have read before on here about some guys putting fans behind them, has anyone got any pics of how you did it?

 

Regards.

 

 

http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/thanks.gif

 

 

[FrankieJ 0]

This is excatly what happened to the speakers I used for a xmas gig I did, unfortunatley both of the speakers went off for ages and were red hot.

I have been informed that this is a common problem with these Mackies.

 

I had a guy call me last night to see if I still wanted to swap his mackies for my RCF Art 300 plus 2 amps. I think after reading about these problems I will keep what I've got. http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/fear.gif

 

Steve have you tried finding your local Mackie expert? I had one of my RCF cones go on me a while back and managed to find a factory in England who specialised in my speakers and would deal with me direct, its worth calling them to see if they can help. If im right in thinking RCF and Mackies are the same company?????

[brianmole 0]

Just fit one of these behing the speaker, should keep your audience cool too:

http://observe.arc.nasa.gov/nasa/aero/tunnel/graphics/wind_fan.jpg

[Hayd 0]

I have a pair of 450's , used to overheat so I added 2 240v 15cm fans from maplin ( £15 each ). I attached them to the heatsink on the back with 4 self tapping screws and made a short cable to wire them into the mackie power supply. Although you could just as easilly run a plug to them. Since doing so ( about 2 yrs ago ) they have Never! overheated even when pushed in smokey hot club enviroments.

 

Put simply just add a fan to the centre of the heatsink on the back and it will solve the problem.

 

Mackie know about this problem and there is an official way to add a fan but it is beyond my technical expertise to do. ( they have simply got the thermal cut out set too low on the amp as I understand it )

 

Hayd

 

 

[FrankieJ 0]

QUOTE

Mackie know about this problem and there is an official way to add a fan but it is beyond my technical expertise to do. ( they have simply got the thermal cut out set too low on the amp as I understand it )

 

Surely you should'nt have to do this though, if your Mackies are under guarentee and Mackie know of the above problem they sholud be fixing the fault free of charge.

You would'nt go a buy a new car only to find there was a known fault you would return it straight away to be fixed. I would'nt let theses big companies get away with it.

[ChrisPointon 0]

Get a service centre to replace the 70c thermal cut out which is fitted to the heatsink, to an 80c version

 

The problem lies in the tolerance of the component, although rated at 70c, allowing for the tolerance swing some could cut out at as little as 65c http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/rolleyes.gif . Most amps typically have thermal cutouts in the range of 85 - 90c however in these units somebody chose a 70c thermal cut out temperature, possibly because of the many plastic parts within the unit and body.

 

 

[Steve_Mitchell 0]

With heat rising, I would of thought my mackie on the stand was more prone to heat. Obviously not. The one at waist level got the hottest. I even felt the one on the stand and it was ok,just cool.

[Andy Westcott 0]

"Get a service centre to replace the 70c thermal cut out which is fitted to the heatsink, to an 80c version"

 

Would probably reduce the number of cut out incidents, but in my opinion these devices shouldn't be running 'finger lickin' hot' anyhow - it has reliability implications, and for a bit of professional gear this seems to be a very poor design.

 

Shurely the correct solution is to design in better heat-sinking from the start? If something is running that hot, attention should be paid to it. The designers should have taken into account the higher ambient temperature in typical operating environments, so can't use that as an excuse.

 

The fan cooled heat-sinks on my trusty modular amps feel barely warm to the touch even when running near full output - this, I feel, is the way it should be.

 

Boycott the buggers, I say!! http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/sterb188.gif

 

 

[stevie 0]

http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/042.gif

 

Hi i must agree with hot fusion.

 

The mackies cost a lot of money and altho they sound great they just aint up to it its a serious design fault.Maybe thats why there's quite a few knocking around second hand?

 

A friend of mine has some and they kept cutting out all nite nye.

 

http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/offtopic.gif How many of you guys n gals had a problem with ther normal set up(separate amp and speakers) over the festivities?

 

I know i gave mine some stick and they arnt the best in the world but i had no clipping lights come on no over heating no problems http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif and on nye they were on from 7.30 till 5 am and it was very hot in the building and they still kept there cool.

[RobbieD 0]

QUOTE (stevie @ Jan 4 2006, 08:56 PM)

altho they sound great they just aint up to it its a serious design fault.

Could it be that they were originally designed for live bands rather than discos.

http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/533.gif

Bands tend to have gaps between songs (chance for the Mackies to cool a little) and don't play for the whole night, like a disco does.

[superstardeejay 0]

QUOTE

If im right in thinking RCF and Mackies are the same company?????

 

 

The italian company RCF used to be owned by U.S. giant Mackie, internally the RCF ARTs were an RCF design and the Mackie SRMs were a joint mackie-rcf design and internally miles apart from the ARTs. However there's been alot of shenanigans recently, I think that Mackie sold the RCF brand name to DB Technologies last year and alot of the original RCF staff went to KV2 Audio. I dont know the state of the various factories or where the different brands are actually manufactured anymore, which is typical.

 

Mind you since I wrote this it may have changed again...!!

 

You can always just run them a little quieter!!!

 

 

 

[ChrisPointon 0]

QUOTE

The mackies cost a lot of money and altho they sound great they just aint up to it its a serious design fault

 

QUOTE

Shurely the correct solution is to design in better heat-sinking from the start? If something is running that hot, attention should be paid to it. The designers should have taken into account the higher ambient temperature in typical operating environments, so can't use that as an excuse.

 

I agree with both of these statements, and i've said many times before on the various Mackie SRM450 overheating threads that this flaw should have been identified in the early stages, and an upgrade kit sent to all of the main Mackie dealers at the earliest opportunity. Similar to the way in which Car Manufacturers recall cars with known faults back into dealers for FOC rectification.

 

Given the cost of the Mackies, it shouldn't be Speaker roulette, or seat of yer pants DJ'ing on whether your speakers are going to actually stand an average chance of making it through the night http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/188.gif .

 

Had a similar fault have occured on speakers which carried the badge of a budget or lesser manufacturer then there would have been an outcry and a mass slagging off throughout the industry, similar to the attitude towards funky lighting currently http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/rolleyes.gif . However because they are Mackies, it seems that everybody just accepts it! http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/scared.gif

 

QUOTE

Could it be that they were originally designed for live bands rather than discos.

 

This reminds me of the 'Duty Cycle' often printed on Chinese budget lighting effects. 20 mins on - 30 mins off. I wouldn't expect a leading speaker manufacturer imposing wax on - wax off style duty cycles on products costing £1000+.

 

I appreciate that on newer versions the fault has (I hope) now been cured, however judging by the the fact that hardly a fortnight goes by without a reference to the problem, that there are a lot of units out there which suffer from the fault, and potentially many more which may begin to show the same signs as the component gets older and its tolerance drops.

 

 

 

[superstardeejay 0]

I think Mackie themselves will admit they're meant for musicians rather than DJs although the dealers do plug them as suitable for anything. The Behringer B300 speakers have a similar problem, except when they get too hot they just go bang.

 

Regarding the duty-cycle in the small print, Martin and Abstract, two respected names, have both printed these in their manuals in the past.

 

As Ive said, if any equipment gets too hot, the simple thing is to turn it down a little, or buy extra sound reinforcement! Its the old cliche of 'You wouldn't buy a car whose top speed is 75mph, and then flog it up and down the motorway at 70 all week would you..?'

 

The Funky lighting (esp. the moving heads) used to be sold by Source under their own brand name, so they're pretty road-tested one way or another.

 

 

 

 

[Andy Westcott 0]

"You wouldn't buy a car whose top speed is 75mph, and then flog it up and down the motorway at 70 all week would you..?"

 

Interesting comparison, but I think PA amplification is a different thing. If an amp is rated at, say, 400 watts into a certain load, then it should be able to supply that with no qualifying statements such as 'only operate at two-thirds maximum' etc. It should be able to tolerate a square wave signal at full output, in my opinion, as nothing less is going to be ultimately reliable enough.

 

This is important because some music is highly compressed dynamically meaning the average power in the music signal is higher than in normal or older music, and some contains sustained bass notes, for example speed garage as one type was branded by the media. These signals may well put the ol' red light on occasionally, and this state of affairs can go on all night. The amp needs to be able to cope with it without overheating.

[Steve_Mitchell 0]

I asked a local dealer yesterday and he said that mackie`s are designed to go on stands or wall mounted as the amps are on the bottom of the cab and needs plenty of air to get around it.

 

Bull or not? I wasn`t convinced myself.

[norty303 0]

It's a design flaw, pure and simple and part of the reason why i..

 

a) Don't like Mackie

b) Don't like active powered systems.

 

There's simply no redundancy if something does go down. Give me an amp rack any day (or night!) at least i can find a spare side of an amp if one does go down.

 

I'd hate to see what would happen if QSC or Crown said 'Don't push it too hard for too long'

 

I've only had one amp ever thermal on me and that was a QSC RMX2450 in bridged mode driving a (nominally) 3 ohm load with what amounted to sine waves (6 hours of DnB) for 6 hours and i had to flicker the clip light continually to do that!!

[superstardeejay 0]

QUOTE

I asked a local dealer yesterday and he said that mackie`s are designed to go on stands or wall mounted as the amps are on the bottom of the cab and needs plenty of air to get around it.

 

No the amps are long-thin affairs bolted to the rear of that finned heatsink on the back of the speaker.

 

QUOTE

Interesting comparison, but I think PA amplification is a different thing. If an amp is rated at, say, 400 watts into a certain load, then it should be able to supply that with no qualifying statements such as 'only operate at two-thirds maximum' etc. It should be able to tolerate a square wave signal at full output, in my opinion, as nothing less is going to be ultimately reliable enough

 

Yes as an honest person, I agree with you really but this is the real, competitive, sales-orientated world!! AndI was referring to the Mackie SRM450 specifically as an active speaker. Who's to say they aren't being driven too hard? A reputable PA installer / specifier will always build-in lots of headroom over and above the rated capacity of an amp or speaker, because the unit designer will usually never quote an MTBF (reliability factor) based on 'flat-out' tests. Unfortunately the user of mobile DJ stuff is usually the specifier and buyer too, so, (respect where due) he will try to squeeze out every last drop of performance in a value-for-money drive.

[jeffwall 0]

Ste you mentioned you had the "low" button pressed

 

Thats prob why they over heated matey

 

The low button pressed is for enhancing the bass at low level only, like just for background music etc (waste of time in my opinion...just turn bass up on mixer does the job!)

 

So if you were driving them hard....full range, in a warm room on pool table with this pressed.......think thats your prob

[Award Entertainment 0]

For the record, I've owned mine for four or five years and have run them at 80% for 6 hours straight in hot, humid bar environments. Never once had a thermal shutdown. Never even seen the lights illuminate. That's not to say that there aren't faulty units out there- it's quite possible that there are, but I can state categorically that mine have been faultless performers and have done everything I've ever asked of them.

 

Now my old English Watkins amp and my Crown CSL1400 DID both switch off on occasions due to thermal problems, although in the case of the Crown it was a design fault that allowed the internal cooling fan to fall off it's shaft. Regardless of reason, when an amp goes in a passive speaker system, it's the end of the entertainment until another amp can be sourced, but with an active speaker system, you can at least carry on with one channel.

 

My days of passive speakers are over for good. I'm a confirmed active-speaker convert for good now!

[norty303 0]

QUOTE

Regardless of reason, when an amp goes in a passive speaker system, it's the end of the entertainment until another amp can be sourced, but with an active speaker system, you can at least carry on with one channel.

 

I'm confused by your reasoning there, it's common thinkng that it's the other way round.

 

If you lose an active speaker you lose one whole box. With separate amps you can run in mono by paralleling existing speakers off the remaining good side of the amp. It's VERY rare for both sides of a single amp to go at the same time as they're generally 2 mono amps running from a single power supply in a single box. Redundacy is far better when using separate amps as you're not tied to the built in amp in the box.

 

This is exactly the reason why you don't see too many active systems with arrays and flown rigs, all the amps are at ground level and onlt necessitates a re-patch to be up and running again - no good if the offending amp is in a box 20 feet above your head!!

[Award Entertainment 0]

QUOTE (norty303 @ Jan 7 2006, 04:59 PM)

I'm confused by your reasoning there, it's common thinkng that it's the other way round. If you lose an active speaker you lose one whole box. With separate amps you can run in mono by paralleling existing speakers off the remaining good side of the amp. It's VERY rare for both sides of a single amp to go at the same time as they're generally 2 mono amps running from a single power supply in a single box.

With the Mackie SRM450 (for example) you've got a bi-amped setup, plus there are two cabinets, so therefore two completely independent bi-amped channels. With an amplifier like my Crown driving a pair of passive speakers, you do have a pair of mono amplifiers, although they share a lot of circuitry, cooling and power supply. When a common component fails in a stand-alone amplifier, you've got a big problem.

 

It was this that caused my rig to be completely silenced when I had 500 teenagers at a school function some years back. The only thing that saved the night for me was raiding their school hall's amp rack for a Peavey 800 amp and cobbling together the right leads. This problem could have been averted if I'd had a backup system in the car, but I didn't. Later this year, I'll retire my pair of Mackies and powered subwoofer and carry one of them as an emergency backup should my new system develop a problem.

 

As for not seeing active systems in arrays, that's changing very fast. You should hear the stunning Meyer active serise array. Man those things can go!!!

[jeffwall 0]

the losing an amp applies in both cases

 

The mackies (as most other powered speakers) have 2 amps per cabinet, if a single component fails (like a power supply faulty circuit board etc) the whole speaker will stop, but you still have the other speaker and poss the bass bin (if used) which will keep you going....agreed on less power tho

 

Un powered system is the same from a loss point of view, if the amp goes completely down (like a power supply component etc) you will lose everything from both speakers......so you could therefore say that active speakers are less likely to "lose the lot"

 

But agree that most amps will only lose one channel, therefore still have the other one to play with

 

The most important reason i went active (for me) is just simply coz of less gear to carry and very quick set up times and unset up times, and coz of the quality of the mackie sound for me is great

 

But not for everyone....its like choosing a car, auto or manual, estate or saloon....bla bla individual choice at the end of the day

[Andy Westcott 0]

QUOTE

when an amp goes in a passive speaker system, it's the end of the entertainment until another amp can be sourced

 

Might be the case with certaim amplifiers, but better quality units will have completely separate power supplies, meaning one channel will probably still work.

 

I'm a little paranoid about possible failues like this during a performance which is why I use 4 amps: One for each bass unit, and one for each mid/top unit. Should one amp fail, it is completely separate from the other modules and a simple re-plugging of the speakers during mid-song will get things going again, albeit at slightly reduced maximum power.

 

The only component I did worry about was the crossover unit, but I now have a spare and it will be in the rack next to the other, ready to change the leads over if one fails.

 

 

[superstardeejay 0]

Its a trade-off between reliability, convenience and price, though, isnt it? You wont get many installations using powered speakers, nightclubs of any decent size will have an amp-room with a bank of them, so that if any amp or speaker fails, they can soldier-on at reduced power without having to refund entry-fees to disappointed customers! And an amp is more likely to blow than a common link such as, say a mixer or crossover.

 

Mobile guys dont have the luxury of a mobile amp-room, so its up to you and your muscles, as well as your wallet to decide which way to go. Powered speakers were conceived for convenience above all, its like comparing a laptop computer with a desktop PC.

 

 

 

 

[norty303 0]

The other issue against active (for me) is that once you get much above a pair of speakers and a sub, the amount of power and signal cabling becomes unwieldy.

 

I can run 14 boxes of rig with just 4 main speaker (using 4 core cable) runs from the amp rack and a single power run to the distro.