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[Taylor Hall]

A local HOW has several PLD amps as part of an install that are wondering if it's possible to have them turn on/off remotely instead of someone trekking to their rather inconveniently placed rack before and after each service. They've been having issues with people forgetting to turn them on and off and would love to have a way to operate them from FOH or an otherwise remote location.

I don't have any of these amps to test with, but looking through the manual for their navigator software I don't see anything that would allow you to do this through there so they might be SOL. These amps use a soft-touch button to turn on and off and not a rocker switch or toggle button. They do have a rocker switch on the back, but this is more of an emergency failsafe and only puts the amp into standby when flipped on.

Any ideas?

[Caleb Dueck]

A local HOW has several PLD amps as part of an install that are wondering if it's possible to have them turn on/off remotely instead of someone trekking to their rather inconveniently placed rack before and after each service. They've been having issues with people forgetting to turn them on and off and would love to have a way to operate them from FOH or an otherwise remote location.

I don't have any of these amps to test with, but looking through the manual for their navigator software I don't see anything that would allow you to do this through there so they might be SOL. These amps use a soft-touch button to turn on and off and not a rocker switch or toggle button. They do have a rocker switch on the back, but this is more of an emergency failsafe and only puts the amp into standby when flipped on.

Any ideas?

If there's no GPIO (I didn't see any), then something like Furman CN-1800S at FOH and CN-20MP's at the rack circuits is inexpensive and works well.  If they have good surge protection already - then RS-2 keyed switch at FOH and CN-20MP's at the circuits. 

[doug johnson2]

My go to for this are Furman CN-20ps at the amps and a Furman Ps-Rel connected to a power strip/conditioner at front of house.

[Robert Healey]

part of an install

It does not look like there is a remote shutoff on the PLD. The installer should have used the CXD series which has GPIO - PLD is the touring version.

The idle current draw is 0.5-0.8A per amp - do you really need to turn them off?

[Mike Caldwell]

The idle current draw is 0.5-0.8A per amp - do you really need to turn them off?

If left on and the rest of the system gets turned off there could be pop snap crack noise issues through the system.

With the PLD does it remember the power state it was in if you pull the plug, as in if it's turned on and the power gets pulled does it power back up when you plug it back in?

If so the mentioned Furman power sequencing system would work, put the entire system on it.

[Taylor Hall]

It does not look like there is a remote shutoff on the PLD. The installer should have used the CXD series which has GPIO - PLD is the touring version.

The idle current draw is 0.5-0.8A per amp - do you really need to turn them off?

Good to know, I'll relay that too them so they can potentially swap them out at a later date.
Manually switching/cutting power and turning it back on results in the amp coming into standby mode, then you have to push the power button to actually turn it on. So switching outlets like the Furman won't work.

They don't really need to turn them off, the issue is that there's no rigidly adhered to process when it comes to opening/closing the room. Some people turn everything off, others don't. So they either run into a situation where everything at FOH is on and ready to go, but the amps are off, or vice versa. So an experienced person knows to go schlep off to the amp rack to turn things on there, or a newbie starts freaking out because there's no sound and eventually figures out that the amps are off minutes before the pastor starts the service. Or as Mike said, pops and thunks get injected into the system when things are done backwards.
Wishful thinking on my part, I'll just let them know they have the wrong gear and to crack the whip on their volunteers a bit harder

[Kevin Maxwell]

Good to know, I'll relay that too them so they can potentially swap them out at a later date.
Manually switching/cutting power and turning it back on results in the amp coming into standby mode, then you have to push the power button to actually turn it on. So switching outlets like the Furman won't work.

They don't really need to turn them off, the issue is that there's no rigidly adhered to process when it comes to opening/closing the room. Some people turn everything off, others don't. So they either run into a situation where everything at FOH is on and ready to go, but the amps are off, or vice versa. So an experienced person knows to go schlep off to the amp rack to turn things on there, or a newbie starts freaking out because there's no sound and eventually figures out that the amps are off minutes before the pastor starts the service. Or as Mike said, pops and thunks get injected into the system when things are done backwards.
Wishful thinking on my part, I'll just let them know they have the wrong gear and to crack the whip on their volunteers a bit harder

I have never tried this on any of the QSC PLD amps I have used. But on page 10 of the user manual it says “When you remove power from the amplifier, then re-apply the power, the amplifier returns to its last state”. And on page 12 “Turn the AC Mains power switch to on. The amplifier starts in the Run mode, or the last mode it was in before power was turned off.”

[Taylor Hall]

I have never tried this on any of the QSC PLD amps I have used. But on page 10 of the user manual it says “When you remove power from the amplifier, then re-apply the power, the amplifier returns to its last state”. And on page 12 “Turn the AC Mains power switch to on. The amplifier starts in the Run mode, or the last mode it was in before power was turned off.”

Interesting, I'll go test this for myself as I told them to try just that and see what happened. It could have been the amps were already in standby when they flipped the switch so it returned to standby mode.
I wonder how that would affect the inner workings since usually anything with onboard processing doesn't appreciate ungraceful shutdowns...

[Kevin Maxwell]

Interesting, I'll go test this for myself as I told them to try just that and see what happened. It could have been the amps were already in standby when they flipped the switch so it returned to standby mode.
I wonder how that would affect the inner workings since usually anything with onboard processing doesn't appreciate ungraceful shutdowns...

I have felt the same way about things with internal processing. But I think the kind of things where that is an issue is that the setting that were changes weren’t all saved before shutting it down. Or I should really say losing power before being shut down properly. It is in the kind of things where something changed like in a digital mixer but the save part was never done before shutdown. Some devices automatically save but it is usually after a small period of time and some need to be manually saved before it is writing into memory. And if you lose power or just turn it off without the proper shutdown routine in the unit, your last changes aren’t stored.

And as I experienced recently with a DSP in some units the memory is maintained by a battery and if that battery dies it will never come back with the proper setting when turned back on. I reloaded settings and everything was working fine but I forgot to power sequence it and leave it off long enough to make sure that it would come back to where it was supposed to when turned on again the next day or days later.

All that to say that something like the QSC DLP amps that have been all setup and settings saved would hopefully not lose their settings.

[Taylor Hall]

I have felt the same way about things with internal processing. But I think the kind of things where that is an issue is that the setting that were changes weren’t all saved before shutting it down. Or I should really say losing power before being shut down properly. It is in the kind of things where something changed like in a digital mixer but the save part was never done before shutdown. Some devices automatically save but it is usually after a small period of time and some need to be manually saved before it is writing into memory. And if you lose power or just turn it off without the proper shutdown routine in the unit, your last changes aren’t stored.

And as I experienced recently with a DSP in some units the memory is maintained by a battery and if that battery dies it will never come back with the proper setting when turned back on. I reloaded settings and everything was working fine but I forgot to power sequence it and leave it off long enough to make sure that it would come back to where it was supposed to when turned on again the next day or days later.

All that to say that something like the QSC DLP amps that have been all setup and settings saved would hopefully not lose their settings.

Yeah that's what I'm hoping, It'd be really easy to do a quick and dirty USB extender run using the print server method from FOH to there, so if they ever did lose their settings, it'd only take a few seconds to flash them back in.

[Kevin Maxwell]

Yeah that's what I'm hoping, It'd be really easy to do a quick and dirty USB extender run using the print server method from FOH to there, so if they ever did lose their settings, it'd only take a few seconds to flash them back in.

I bought an iogear USB extender (over cat5 cable) so I could setup some backstage DLP amps while out at the mixer. It worked just file. There are 2 relatively small units one at the computer end and the one at the amp end and that one has 4 USB ports on it and it came with a small power supply.

If I am remembering correctly the only issue I had was it only worked if I used the power supply on the unit at the computer and not at the amp end. Or was it the other way around? 

[Taylor Hall]

I bought an iogear USB extender (over cat5 cable) so I could setup some backstage DLP amps while out at the mixer. It worked just file. There are 2 relatively small units one at the computer end and the one at the amp end and that one has 4 USB ports on it and it came with a small power supply.

If I am remembering correctly the only issue I had was it only worked if I used the power supply on the unit at the computer and not at the amp end. Or was it the other way around? 

We use something similar in our XTI2 amp rack. Ours our powered on both ends by a wall wart, however, so we don't have the same issue as you. Works out well since we have a dedicated FOH PC in our mixer rack so it all tucks away nicely out of sight and just plain works.

[Taylor Hall]

Ok, I was able to facetime with someone at the church and walk them step-by-step through a couple scenarios (flipping switch on the back vs 'pulling the plug') while ensuring the amps were powered on. The amps do remember their previous power and preset states in both scenarios as Kevin and the manual said, so they're going to get some remote switchable outlets and run some simple controls back to FOH.

It seems that the power recovery routine is quite robust, even over the call I could hear all the relays tripping on and off when power was removed, and then brought back. It also took the same amount of time to power down using the front power button as the other two "ungraceful" options, so it seems that it goes through the same shutdown procedure regardless of how you 'turn it off'. Time will tell if it causes any damage, but given how they behaved during this test I doubt anything will happen.

[Brian Jojade]

I bought an iogear USB extender (over cat5 cable) so I could setup some backstage DLP amps while out at the mixer. It worked just file. There are 2 relatively small units one at the computer end and the one at the amp end and that one has 4 USB ports on it and it came with a small power supply.

If I am remembering correctly the only issue I had was it only worked if I used the power supply on the unit at the computer and not at the amp end. Or was it the other way around? 

You can also build a solution with a raspberry pi that then can connect over TCP/IP. If running a dedicated line is impossible, that's a workaround too.

[Brian Jojade]

The idle current draw is 0.5-0.8A per amp - do you really need to turn them off?

A .8 amp draw would cost over $100/year in electrical costs per unit if left on 24X7.  It certainly adds up over time.

[Taylor Hall]

You can also build a solution with a raspberry pi that then can connect over TCP/IP. If running a dedicated line is impossible, that's a workaround too.

There's a few issues with that depending on how you're suggesting to implement it. If the amps are able to be controlled via IP, controlling them via a pi is more or less impossible since no one makes a *nix distro of their amp controller software, and a pi doesn't have enough grunt to run a full Windows or MacOS install. You could run the Windows IoT edition, but I don't know if that has the necessary features to run full applications needed in this use case. Also using Wine to virtualize the app is more often than not an exercise in futility, especially for apps that require the use of network or hardware controllers. If you're suggesting to use the Pi as a USB extender, that also has drawbacks as only certain USB ports can be used on the pi in such a way (unless that's been resolved in the latest pi4 board revisions), so if you need to control more than 1 or 2 amps, you may as well have just bought the dedicated USB extenders as most pis I've dealt with had instability issues with USB hubs.

I only know this because I went through the same process when setting up our amps racks and had a stack of unused pis in the shop 

[Thomas Le]

I might have missed this but why was a power sequencer not spec'd?

[Taylor Hall]

I might have missed this but why was a power sequencer not spec'd?

Ask the original installer.

[Brian Jojade]

There's a few issues with that depending on how you're suggesting to implement it. If the amps are able to be controlled via IP, controlling them via a pi is more or less impossible since no one makes a *nix distro of their amp controller software, and a pi doesn't have enough grunt to run a full Windows or MacOS install. You could run the Windows IoT edition, but I don't know if that has the necessary features to run full applications needed in this use case. Also using Wine to virtualize the app is more often than not an exercise in futility, especially for apps that require the use of network or hardware controllers. If you're suggesting to use the Pi as a USB extender, that also has drawbacks as only certain USB ports can be used on the pi in such a way (unless that's been resolved in the latest pi4 board revisions), so if you need to control more than 1 or 2 amps, you may as well have just bought the dedicated USB extenders as most pis I've dealt with had instability issues with USB hubs.

I only know this because I went through the same process when setting up our amps racks and had a stack of unused pis in the shop 

No, I wasn't suggesting running the amps directly with a PI. The USB extender solution is an option.  I've successfully ran a rack of 3 amps off a single PI with no issue, other than a little laggyness in screen refresh.

The point being, if you don't have access to a dedicated piece of wire, this could be a viable option if necessary.

[ProSoundWeb Community]