Clubmax 3000 FB4 vs Clubmax 3400 FB4 & Discoscan 2.0

[RyanLD]

Hello All,

I have just ordered a Clubmax 3000 FB4, based on a discussion with a Pangolin rep about the red having a larger diameter beam than the other colors on the 3400.

A note to anyone else looking at ordering: shipping is from Slovakia and is approximately $325 to the continental US.

I will update this thread with more when it arrives in a few weeks. Let me know if there is anything specific you want me to look at.

Thanks,
Ryan

[Wolf]

Hi!

I already have a CM 3400 FB4 projector. In my experience, the extra 300 mW red diode is significant. White is indeed "white", with no strong pink tint. It's worth the extra cost. No need to worry because this is a very professional projector so you get value for money.

Greetings: István

[White-Light]

I can't see why having extra red would alleviate a pink tint to the white on the 3400. If anything a pink tint is an indication of too much red. The typical antidote to a pink tint would be to add more blue or reduce the red power. Given these two projectors have the same amount of blue and green, if the 3000 you had was exhibiting a pink tinge, I'd suggest either your blue or green was turned down on the 3000 projector or a module was faulty and under powered - maybe the loss of a diode in a multi-diode module.

With any projector you should balance the colours and if using Beyond that means using Advanced Pallete Training which will yield excellent results. That would be my advice to the OP - use APT if you have Beyond and you will be able to get exactly the colours you want.

I can understand the OP's concerns and Kvant's advice if the red is fatter in the 3400, because what you will get is red fringing in the 3400 with beams where the red is fatter than the other 2 beams. There is no antidote to that as no amount of pallete training can affect beam diameter.

[RyanLD]

Hi all. I have had a few weeks with the Clubmax 3000 FB4. As far as the main concerns with beam diameter and color balancing, the red on my unit has the smallest divergence of all of the colors, but is MUCH dimmer. In order to get a good color balance the blue needs to be around 30% of full power and green needs to be at around 50%. The divergences are relatively close to each other horizontally, but vertically the difference in as little as 50ft is significant with both the green and blue forming 4 distinct stripes. Overall the build quality is truly excellent with the exception over some concerns I have with the color alignment screws, even after aligning it once the hex slot in the screw heads seems to become significantly looser than factory which gives me concerns about longevity. The projection quality is excellent and the scanners are fast and accurate. There is a weird quirk in that if you drive the scanners slightly too fast a safety seems to kick in to prevent damage that stops the axis and returns the mirror to center. This can cause issues as the unit does not blank the output when this happens and has the potential to put the beam directly into unintended areas such as projectors, cameras, or even audience. This seems dangerous to me and I will be reaching out to Pangolin about this. A weird note is that the actuator used on the shutter is NOT a VRAD506 as the cut sheet indicates, but some different model. Justin at Pangolin assured me that it meets the same response time however.

As far as accessories the included case is very nice but comes very tightly packed. You should not expect to fit any more in it than the unit, e-stop, interlock keys, power cable, and a medium sized clamp (a Light Source cheeseborough fits perfectly, a Mega Claw might fit but it would be very close). If you are looking for locks for the case I found that the ABUS titalium 64TI/40 fits perfectly leaving no wiggle room and I would be confident with one on each side that not even a business card would get lost even if the latches were left open.

[buffo]

There is a weird quirk in that if you drive the scanners slightly too fast a safety seems to kick in to prevent damage that stops the axis and returns the mirror to center.

This doesn't sound right. I think you may be tripping the poly-switch on the scanner amp. If so, then either the switch is faulty or one of the scanners is pulling a lot more current than it should. Definitely get in touch with Pangolin about this.

There used to be a problem with club-max projectors that would close the shutter during the middle of a show if you were scanning too wide. The problem was caused by a safety circuit that Kvant added; in theory it was supposed to function like a cheap scan-fail system, but in practice if you scanned really wide (or really tall) the circuit would detect the slowing and stopping as the mirrors reached the end-points of the pattern and interpret this as a scanner failure. Thus the shutter would slam shut for a moment. Most of the time the shutter wouldn't open back up before the circuit triggered again when the scanners reached the other end of the pattern, so you would have zero output until you reduced your scan angle...

I don't know if Kvant ever fixed this problem or not, but I know a lot of Kvant Club-Max owners ended up removing the beam-blocking flag on the end of the shutter arm to prevent this bug from messing up their shows. (Of course, this effectively disabled the shutter completely.)

Regardless though, the problem you are describing does not match the scan-fail circuit problem I'm describing, which leads me to believe that you have something else going on inside your unit. Let Pangolin know and they should be able to guide you through some troubleshooting steps to nail down the issue. But I strongly suspect you're going to need to return that unit to them for repair.

A weird note is that the actuator used on the shutter is NOT a VRAD506 as the cut sheet indicates, but some different model. Justin at Pangolin assured me that it meets the same response time however.

Does it look like a small, round scanner body, or does it look like a square stack of metal plates? If it's a small round unit it could be any one of the Pangolin scanner-based actuators (including the open-loop designs used for industrial applications), but if it's the square stack of plates it might be the older, original VRAD actuator that is no longer in production.

Regardless, I suspect Justin is correct and the speed is similar to the 506. (It definitely is for the original VRAD design.)

Adam

[Wolf]

Hello!

I suspect this was made by KVANT, not Pangolin. It doesn't look like previous rotators. Looks like a little DC motor. The shutter itself is quite light. Unfortunately, the projector is not here right now, so I can't take pictures.

Greeting: István

[Wolf]

Hello!
We were able to take photos. That's how the shutter moves.
Greetings: Stephen

[buffo]

Wow! You're right, that definitely doesn't look like any of the Pangolin actuators.

Hmmm... It might be worthwhile to send that picture to Pangolin and ask about the specs of this new shutter design. I don't see how that can compare with the VRAD 506.

Admittedly the problem with the scanners returning to center is not caused by the shutter, so you're still going to have to look into that issue, but I'd definitely ask about the shutter as well.

Adam

[rns0504]

Wow! You're right, that definitely doesn't look like any of the Pangolin actuators.

Hmmm... It might be worthwhile to send that picture to Pangolin and ask about the specs of this new shutter design. I don't see how that can compare with the VRAD 506.

Admittedly the problem with the scanners returning to center is not caused by the shutter, so you're still going to have to look into that issue, but I'd definitely ask about the shutter as well.

Adam

We discontinued all open loop actuators. End of 2017 or 2018, dont remember. No $$$$ in that market. The same hands that made a VRAD 506 open loop actuator could also make a Saturn scanner, and a set of Saturn scanners sells for 25x more than a VRAD actuator. Once Kvant depleted their stock they swapped over to this little spring loaded motor thingy thats in the picture. We were delivering to them a few hundred pieces a month at the peak.

[RyanLD]

Wow! You're right, that definitely doesn't look like any of the Pangolin actuators.

Hmmm... It might be worthwhile to send that picture to Pangolin and ask about the specs of this new shutter design. I don't see how that can compare with the VRAD 506.

Admittedly the problem with the scanners returning to center is not caused by the shutter, so you're still going to have to look into that issue, but I'd definitely ask about the shutter as well.

Adam

Kvant technical support informed me that this is the overdrive protection for the scanners and that if the beam enters unsafe areas the emergency stop should be used to terminate the output. There is no safety system that compares the expected angle of the scanner to the actual angle.