Hot sun & hardware

Another idea is in this thread → A tale of Gig Performer, an old Roland, a river and the sun!

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As mentioned in the thread this certainly did the trick with just very thin ply cut to length… sprayed with black paint and put together with the solution to all perplexing problems… black gaffe tape!

A sun umbrella on a moveable stand also was very helpful. All the best with it!

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Definitely.

About 11-12 years ago I had to do an Outside wedding on a hot June Day in Atlanta. The event itself was supposed to be short (like an hour or so) and i had a task of playing background piano music while the attendees entered in. At some point the event player would signal me to stop and my job would be done.

So at some point im playing my Korg Triton Extreme, all is going well while people are walking in and all of a sudden, i stop hearing sound. I look at my touchscreen and Triton shows a bunch of gibberish. i power cycle the unit and it comes back up and im back to playing and less than a minute or so later, it happens again. This time a power cycle wouldnt save it. The event planner eventually starts looking my way signaling me to play my keyboard. I shake my head no. I think they had to end up playing someones laptop or CD player.

Im pretty sure, it was because of the heat, because i had that board for about 10 years but mostly in a well controlled studio environment and it never gave me any crashes. I started using the thing for occasional gigs but most gigs where either indoors or not on an insanely hot day. The moment i do the hot day, i get the crash i never seen before.

A repair shop fixed the issue, i think they had to replace a CPU board, and after that i just regulated the Triton to indoor studio use. But it eventually failed again after about a couple of years of Studio use (same issue). The second time i was told by the repair shop that issue was unfixable due to Korg stop making the Component that was needed.

That said i never had a computer crash because of heat.

My guess is about any synth/computer gear would have potential issues playing in really hot humid places.

Probably at minimum good to have a tent to prevent any direct sun radiation (although where im at it is usually the humidity im more worried about), and popup storms.

Most laptops ive used seem fairly good for typical hot day use, but id be concerned on those muggy days.

Recently i just did an outside gig and had the reverse issue. Nighttime came and it got nippy. As the show was over i notice condensation on the gear.

Yes. The biggest issues i normally have with sun is it blinding my view whether we are talking laptops or keyboard touch screens.

I was working at FOH on a major concert series this summer in Germany and I had to use space blankets to shield my equipment from direct sun. Solar heat gain is a real factor and we had equipment that was succumbing to its effects. Light weight space blankets do a great job at reflecting away the Sun’s rays and will protect your gear.

Your iphone is a good bell weather… try leaving that in direct sun on a hot day and picking it up. If it says try again later I’m too hot… all your other gear is suffering too.