If the lamp fails to strike on the MAC 500 E or MAC 600 E, a LAMP OFF command must be sent before another LAMP ON command will work.

There is currently no way to detect if the lamp fails to strike with the electronic ballast. Once a LAMP ON command is sent, the electronic ballast models assume the lamp is on and additional LAMP ON commands have no effect. The solution is to turn off the fixture or send a LAMP OFF command. In the magnetic ballast versions, a lamp error is returned if the lamp doesn´t strike.

Trouble can occur if, for example, the lamps are on and the power goes out. When the power returns, the lamps will not strike if the operator does not wait for the lamps to cool, or if the units are set for automatic lamp strike. Therefore, with electronic ballast versions it may be wise to enable the DMX lamp off command by setting SPEC/dLOF to ON. It may also be a good idea to disable automatic lamp strike by setting SPEC/ALON to OFF. If the DMX lamp off command is disabled from the control panel, the overrides are as follows:

MAC 500: Color wheel 1 (ch. 3) to blue 111 (177-180), color wheel 2 (ch. 4) to red 308 (165-168)

MAC 600: Cyan, magenta, and yellow wheels (ch. 3, 4, 5) to DMX 230 - 232

To send the lamp off command, set channel 1 to 255 and hold for 5 seconds.