Chauvet LED Colorbank

[branflake]

I have rented 4 Chauvet Colorbank LED lights for a production I am directing and lighting and they look fantastic, but the problem I keep running into with them is that they periodically flicker. It looks like lighting when it happens. The guy I rented them from and I have tried everything to fix the problem and it just doesn't seem to go away.

The lights work in stand alone mode, but when you put them into dimmer mode they freak out. With a newer board it happens less frequently, but it still flickers. Also when we add the third color they go crazy too. With any combination of two colors they flicker intermitently.

Some of the possible solutions we came up with were:
-Use a newer lighting board (the one we have is older and possibly does not have a high enough refresh rate)
-Check/replace all the cables for damage

Can anyone offer some wisdom on this matter? How do I get them to stop blinking?

[Pie4Weebl]

Do you have a DMX terminator on the last unit?

[MNBallet]

I've had leds freak out because of a bad cable. hard to find, easy to fix.

Currently, most of my leds also do a quick flash anytime the computer does a saving action. Like if I record a submaster, the leds will flash once. If I save a show to disk they flash each time a saving motion is started (save cues, save subs, save patch....ect.) I've found out that it does it with two different boards that I have. Lower end stuff I'm sure will do this. This isn't the flash you're talking about, right?

I've also had a time where I thought one light was freaking out, and it turned out my board had one fader up just a bit, but hardly noticable by the eye. That one channel that was up just happened to be the "color macro" channel that told the light to flash thru a rainbow of colors. I was greatly relieved to find that my board was sendind unwanted data and the light was doing what it was told to do.

[gafftaper]

I'm going with two CB favorites...

1) No DMX termination.

2) Not using a TRUE non-dimmed power source.

[gafftapegreenia]

Originally Posted by gafftaper

I'm going with two CB favorites...

1) No DMX termination.

2) Not using a TRUE non-dimmed power source.

I'd like to add cables. Chauvet uses three pin, I believe?

[gafftaper]

Originally Posted by gafftapegreenia

I'd like to add cables. Chauvet uses three pin, I believe?

Oh yeah. I checked the manual and it is a 3 pin connector which means you are probably using standard microphone cable. However, microphone cables don't meet the standards required by the DMX protocol. It'll work ok for a very short run but any kind of long cable run will result in drops in data.

Also interesting, the manual for the Colorbank has a schematic of how to make a 3 pin dmx terminator.

So I'm guessing you don't have termination and you are using microphone cables. Both could be the problem. Move the console as close to the Colorbanks as possible, install the shortest mic cables possible in the run and make some terminators. No guarantees but that should help.

Also what type of console are you running. Someone around here will know if there is a refresh rate problem.

One other thought is to put a meter on the power to make sure you've got enough power in the building and that it doesn't drop out.

The only question is will Derek or ST be the first to have a meltdown on the insanity of 3 pin "dmx" terminators and microphone cable "dmx" lines.

[derekleffew]

branflake, I just read on another forum where CB member jmabray was having the same difficulty as you. His solution was to lower the DMX speed output. If your console has this feature, try lowering it one notch and see if that helps.

See also this thread: http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/a...d-webinar.html.

[jmabray]

Yep the DMX Speed solved one of my problems on a similar Chauvet fixture, but I was also having a "Freakout" issue at times as well. What it seems to be related to was other fixtures on the Same power strip as the ColorStrip fixtures. I had one long chain of DMX devices, LEDRain56's, Qspot 300's and the ColorStrips. where I was having the issue in the chain there was 2 Qspots, 2 Rains, and 2 colorstrips all plugged into the same power strip. We weren't overdriving the load on the strip, but once I pulled the two colorstrips off that circuit and put them by themselves on another circuit, my problems seemed to go away. I say seemed, only because I thought that I had this licked once before and the issue came back. The theatre (at a local high school) is shut down all next week for thanksgiving, so it will be after Thanksgiving before I can tell if we actually solved the problem for real though.....

Let me know if I can be of any further help. I don't know that I know the problem exactly, but I am willing to share in my expierences with this problem as well....

[derekleffew]

jmabray, certainly sounds as though something that should be connected to earth ground wasn't or something that wasn't supposed to be was. Short of putting an opto-spitter next to the fixtures, I don't know what else to suggest.

[LD4Life]

A couple of questions to get a better idea of your situation:
1. Are you sure that the fixtures are connected to a true non-dim circuit?
2. What is the total wattage of what you were trying to connect to a single power strip?
3. Is this powerstrip equiped with a surge protector?
4. What board is being used?