Dimmers comming up as different Dimmers?

[Thranduil]

So recently we have had our whole host of problems with the lighting system(20 year old switchcraftamx cables finally breaking, the express psu spiking and frying and what now) Well we got the express fixed, and we also wired new signal cable and so thats all happy happy fun fun. BUT, something which was happening before the board fried, and before the signal cables completely died, was all the dimmers were comming up as the wrong dimmer on the board.

The way the system is, we have circuts->hardpatch->strand cd80packs->switchcraft amx cables out->AMX to DMX converter box->express 48/96.

Currently, if i plug something into dimmer one, it is comming up as dimmer 2. This is not a problem with the softpatch, because the light will move channels when i move dimmer two. Each dimmer is getting bumped up one dimmer somewhere between the patch and softpatch in the board. I updated the software on the board, this didnt fix anything, and also its not a time pin in one of the signal cables because those were recently fixed, which didnt make the problem go away. A few people think its a setting on the express, which it may well be. I assume it could also be the converter box, or possibly even the packs. Thoughts?

[jbeutt]

sounds like a brain issue on the packs. When were they cleaned last?

[SketchyCroftPpl]

Hey

Can you try backing up everything on the board, and then clearing it all? Its what we'll have to do on ours because it recently fried itself and now the submasters don't work. But if you have a backup of everything it would allow you to freely change all the system options w/o worrying at all and see if any of them fix it.

~Nick

[Thranduil]

Clean, pack brains? whoops well im gonna guess the 70s, when they were now, how do you clean it? just contact cleaner or compessed air? and Sketchy, their is nothing on the board, we just got it back from the shop because the PSU was fried. Out of curosity what do you mean the subs dont work?

[SketchyCroftPpl]

I've made posts asking for help which, now that they were working, have much greater detail in answers but a sub on my board, omega II, is a set of circuits which is set aside along with a group of physical sliders. You can program each of the circuits to be any light or group of lights (dimmer numbers) you have in the theatre. You control their level manually with the slider or on a timed prograssion of fade up, stay, fade down by hitting a bump button. Recently the board randomly cleared itself totally and when we loaded it all back on, none of the submasters worked. They are physically and program wise there, they just don't work.

~nick

[jbeutt]

you have different packs, so could it be an addressing problem? Considering they've all moved up by one. Seems awfully consistant. Did this start when the board came back?

[Thranduil]

Sketchy, i guess i prhased that wrong, i know what subs are, i was just wondering what in particular was wrong, like if they just wouldnt program, of if they wouldnt come up after you programmed them.

Jbeutt, yea their are four packs(each with 12 dimmers) I believe the adressing is right. Pack one has one as the number on its adress, but i can mess with those thats a good idea. This started before the board died, but then again they didnt do anything to the board i dont think, just to the PSU, so just because it came back from the shop doenst mean its fixed, as it wasnt identifyed as a problem with the board. The converter box has some settings on it that i dont know what do, but i dont think anything would cause it to bump everything up one, and the settings are set to what they are supposed to be acording to the box.

[jbeutt]

from epanorama.net

The age and condition of receiver cards and power supplies can affect how well the data link works. The type and length of cable can also be a factor when changing to a different transmitter, such as a protocol converter.

EDIT: this is in reference to amx protocol.

So it's possible it's that converter and it's possible it's the dimmers. I'm slightly tempted to retract my brain statement, but it's completely possible if they're daisy chained. Because it's something you can easily do, that'd be the place to start, safely of course. Yeah, you can go ahead and vacuum or use compressed air on them. clean out air filters and everything. Considering they haven't been cleaned in a while, that's definitely something to do no matter what.
Another thing you can do is do a complete reinstall of the software (another easy thing).
Now the harder possibilities: A funky converter or broken brain/reciever (look at that quote) or a broken board. This would require professional replacement/repair of course, which would be the thing to look at if the afformentioned suggestions don't fix anything. I'd say considering the recent board problems look at it first, but it sounds too consistant to be a burnout.

[npihl]

I've heard of old capacitors on amx receiver boards causing problems like this. Is the problem limited to just one dimmer pack?

[npihl]

You can also ckeck the speed of the dmx output on the express board. ETC boards can send DMX often faster than some equipment can process it.