| Sales |
| Can I upgrade
my Theater Grand Processor to the latest model? |
All Sunfire products and current product upgrades are
only available through authorized Sunfire dealers.
|
Where
can I buy Sunfire products?
|
Go here
to find a local dealer.
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| Technical |
| What is the power consumption of my Sunfire component? |
The easiest way to
calculate this is to use the value of the line fuse in the Sunfire
component. A Cinema Grand Amplifier has a 10 amp line fuse. We multiply
10 amps times 120 volts to get 1200 volt/amps or watts. However, 1200
watts is the absolute maximum the amplifier will consume, in normal
operation we can multiply this times 0.7 to get our normal power
consumption of 850 watts. A True Subwoofer Mark IV has a 6.25 amp line
fuse; times 120 volts produces 750 watts. Times 0.7 equals 550 watts
normal power consumption.
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| What is the
IEEE 1394 (Firewire™) connector on the Ultimate Receiver and TG-III
used for? |
The IEEE-1394 (Firewire™) port is provided for future
use once a standard is adopted and accepted by the major source
component manufacturers. In the consumer electronics market, video
transfers from camcorders to PCs are commonplace, while multichannel
audio transfer schemes are not yet *fully* standardized such that
equipment is interoperable among different manufacturers. Consumer
audio companies currently shipping product with IEEE-1394 interfaces
have incorporated their own proprietary systems.
An optional IEEE-1394 update card will be made available for the
Theater Grand III and IV if and when suitable market demand warrants
it. Until such a time comes, the wide-bandwidth direct-path 8-channel
input is intended to be used for such high-resolution sources.
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| What is the blinking green light inside of the Ultimate Receiver and Theater Grand Processor? |
If you look through the
ventilation openings on the right side of the Ultimate Receiver you
will see a blinking green LED. This is the '' of the
microprocessor. It's there as a convenience for the technicians when
the unit is being assembled and tested in the manufacturing process.
Basically it's just a indicator that tells them the microprocessor is
alive and well. This is totally normal and will continue to blink even
when the power is switched off, see below.
|
| Why does my Sunfire component stay warm
even after the
power is off? |
As with most modern
components the internal circuitry in Sunfire products is always
active
even when the power is switched off. This allows the units
to
respond to remote control turn-on commands and also enables the
"Fully
Automatic Operation" to sense signals. In the standby mode the units will only draw a few watts from the AC mains.
|
| Service |
How do I get my Sunfire product serviced?
|
If you
suspect your Sunfire
product has a problem, please do everything you can to confirm it
before calling for service. This includes reading through the
Troubleshooting Guide of your user's manual, also see the FAQs Product section on this site for issues that
may be specific to a particular model. A large
percentage of products returned for service are coded "NTF" or No
Trouble Found, which usually means the problem lay somewhere else in
the system. If you have determined you need to return your Sunfire
product for repair go here for
instructions.
|
| What
is the warranty period? |
Details of the warranty
period can be found here
|
| What was done to my
repaired unit? |
A Repair Log with the technician's
comments and what parts were used for the repair will be included with
your repaired Sunfire product.
|
| Why did my unit fail? |
This question is asked
almost every time we receive a unit in for service. Then usually
followed up with, “Was there anything I could have done to have
prevented it?” or “Was it something I did wrong?” Most of the time the
answer is no, normal everyday use should not cause a problem.
Sunfire equipment has many protection features built in to safeguard
against what would be considered abuse by some manufacture's standards.
For example, compressor and soft clipping circuits utilized in our
subwoofers are used to protect against over-driving the transducers.
Protection at the component level can be also be found through out
Sunfire products, examples are, voltage regulators with internal
over-temperature shut down protection and transformers with internal
thermal switches that disconnect the power at high temperatures.
Now for the "Why did my unit fail?" question. This can be one (or more)
of dozens of believable or farfetched answers.
- Power Surges
Line conditioners regardless of quality or price may or may not protect
you audio components from damage due to power surges.
- Heat One of
the most lethal conditions for electronic devices is excessive heat.
Semiconductors (transistors, diodes, ICs, etcetera) are usually rated
for operating temperatures between -55°C to +150°C, this rating
is given for the actual surface temperature of the device, not the
ambient room temperature or the temperature of the unit as a whole.
Power transistors and voltage regulators are normally mounted to some
sort of heat sink to dissipate heat away from the device. The common
practice is to use part of the case or enclosure, for example, the
amplifier plates on Sunfire subwoofers and the bottom chassis of the
Ultimate Receiver serve as both housing and heat sink.
Guidelines for proper ventilation can be found in your Sunfire
product's User Guide.
- Lightning Strikes
The actual strike could possibly be miles away but can follow the power
lines straight to your audio equipment. Here again, line conditioners
may or may not protect your components from damage. Remember, lightning
has been known to arch across miles of thin air (sky), what's to stop
it from jumping across the .100” space between contacts in a power
conditioner or for that matter arching and bypassing the entire power
conditioner altogether. Lighting has also been known to get in via
cable TV lines.
- Mechanical Vibrations
can cause broken solder joints or wires to come loose. If you were to
look at inside our products you would see many of the susceptible
components and wires are reinforced to reduce the effects mechanical
movement and vibration.
- Component Failure
Semiconductor manufactures estimate failure rates in parts per million
(PPM ) and long term failure rates in units per billion device hours.
Although these number are quite impressive, they do fail. That being
said, even the best designed electronic circuits can fail under optimum
operating conditions.
When asked this question "Why did my unit fail?", the response from
most service technicians is usually, what parts had failed and what was
replaced or that some thingamajig
was probably the culprit,
then at best, a guess as to what may
have
caused the problem. The reason for the vagueness is, 99 percent of the
time it is literally impossible to tell exactly what caused the
component(s) to fail or the exact sequence of events after the fact.
For example, integrated circuits such as BIFET op-amps can be damaged
by voltage spikes or surges. Components such as CMOS (Complementary
Metal-Oxide Semiconductors) can be damaged merely by static electricity
(electrostatic discharge). Bipolar power transistors such as those used
in most modern amplifiers can breakdown when operated outside the rated
for operating temperature. Excessive collector to emitter voltage can
destroy power transistors. And the list goes on and on and on...
That being said, the exact explanation as to what actually caused the
malfunction would require, sending each failed device from the unit
being serviced to the manufacture for analysis as to why it failed,
then attempt to determine the component-level sequence of events and
why. In other words each failed device would have to be labeled as
either the cause or effect of the malfunction. As you can see this
would not be very practical.
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