HELP! I need a quick fix!

[hans44]

My school is running a Lehigh Millenium dimmer board, using DMX 512 wiring. We have multiple juniors and borders, and a few 6" Shakespeare Ellipsoidals.

I HAVE checked the Channel <> Dimmer mapping options and setup, so don't say that that is the problem.

Dimmer 52 doesn't work. Channel 52 is patched to Dimmer 52, and that is it. Raising 52 to 100% does nothing. 52 will occasionally flash "01" or "02".

Here's the freaky thing: Whenever I raise Channel 51 to 100% (nothing mapped but Dimmer 51), 52 goes to 98%/99% and parks. I'm thinking short circuit or tripped breaker.

Any Suggestions?

[zac850]

Are you getting all of these numbers from your lighting board? As in when you hit Channel 52 your screen you see it flickering between 98% and 99% or 01 and 02.

I don't quite understand your question. Is this problem that the dimmer is not being told to turn on or that the board is not telling it to turn on? Where are you getting these level numbers from?

[propmonkey]

sounds like the patching is off, though it says its not. and or the label of the circiut is wrong. and dumb question but its happened to me, you sure the instrument works?

[EPAC_Matt]

I've never used a Lehigh Millenium board, so I'm not sure if this will work -- but do you have a dimmer check button/function on the board? On other boards, you can test an individual dimmer by typing 'Dimmer 52 at 100' or similar.

When you say 52 goes to 98/99%, does the screen (I'm assuming the Millenium has a screen?) tell you that 52 is at that level or do you just see the light go on?

If you're typing "51 @ FULL ENTER" and 52 begins to act up, it could be a software issue with your board. Software issues are tricky to troubleshoot, as many different things could lead to failure such as unstable RAM or a partial EEPROM firmware memory failure.

[ship]

Could also just be a bad dimmer card or connection within the dimmer to it. If it's possible to swap individual dimmer cards, that is where I would start.

[bdesmond]

Is DMX terminated properly? Sounds like a goofy issue that could be a result of this.

Not sure how your dimmer system works or where you're getting these numbers. Blowing out and reseating dimmers would be another good place to start as ship mentioned...

[hans44]

The MilleniumML board available here has a computer monitor and a Windows 95 interface. (You can download the offline editor for free if you want to see what I mean).

The actual board has 96 dimmers in 2 rows of 48. Pushing dimmer 52 up to full does nothing, while pushing dimmer 51 raises 51 to full and 52 to 98/99.

I will (hopefully) have 15 minutes tonight to debug the wiring, so I hope that these suggestions are helpful

Thanks!

[avkid]

I had a channel that went up and down by itself on our Scenemaster 60 plus, it turned out that the fader was broken.

[DJErik07]

We had a dimmer channel acting wierd. It turned out someone played with the dipswitches that assigned the channel during that weekend. It just messed up the patching. Check those.

[cutlunch]

If you are comptent in electronics and allowed to, I would open up the lighting desk and check around slider 51, 52 to see if there any bad joints, loose wire, short circuits etc. Does the board work in two preset mode as well as wide. If it does I would try the faders you have been using it in two preset mode. This would probably make the faders control channels 3 and 4. If you have the same problem controlling the lights connected to channels 3 and 4 then it is a hardware problem around those faders.