EDI MX Mark 10 Rack Misbehaving

[LightTamer]

Hey guys. First post here, so forgive me if i accidentally break any rules.

My school has an MX Mark 10 rack that controls the house lights, lights in the dressing rooms, lights over the stage, and then the spot lights that are over the house. Currently, the only lights that work is the back row of lights and the house lights. These are all on the last five dimmers in the rack, which has a gap of 3 dimmer spaces from everything else. There is also one dimmer at the top of the rack that is still controlling the lights properly.

We have two wall mounted controllers. One is on stage, and one is in the house. They both do the exact same thing. Then we have a similar controller that's used to configure the programs lighting levels (that's all i can seem to find that it does, if it does more, please explain it. Not too good at lighting, but i'm like a sponge with knowledge).

I've been through every menu in there, played with every program, and gotten nowhere. I've managed to fix the really long delay for the dim, but that wasn't the problem. The problem is roughly half of our lights don't work at ALL. According to the theatre director, they all stopped working at the same time. We put a meter on the lights, and they're good. The dimmers aren't showing any faults, and they all engage when we start preset a (ALL on. If it works, this should turn it on), but the lights don't come on. I'm not sure if they're limited somewhere, or what.

I've heard there's a remote that plugs into the system. As far as i know, we don't have one. If we do, i can get it though. I'm in VERY high standing with my school. recently fixed the sound system in the same room, the one in the gym, and the one in the band hall. I have access to any part of the system that i need to get at.

I've also heard that it can be connected to a computer. I have a laptop that should be able to do this, but i'm not sure what hardware i need. I would imagine a 56k dialup modem won't be any use. We're planning on running a DMX line to the house to a computer anyway, so we have a USB to DMX converter ordered. The wall mounted stuff is useless for what we need.

Anyway, i'm not worried about presets now. I just want the lights to ALL come on. I'll worry about the programs in another thread. Chances are i can buy something if it's not outrageously priced to interface with the system.

Thanks for any and all help. Sorry if i rambled... been a long day. I'll answer any question that anyone may have. This seems like a good forum, so i may stick around for a while

 

[dramatech]

Make sure that you have power on all three phases. If you have a blown cartridge fuse in your disconnect, approx. 1/3 of your lights won't come on. The control module in the rack is only powered by one phase, so it could be fully functional, but when if sends commands to the individual dimmer modules, if one phase is not powered, those lights will not come on.

Hey guys. First post here, so forgive me if i accidentally break any rules.

My school has an MX Mark 10 rack that controls the house lights, lights in the dressing rooms, lights over the stage, and then the spot lights that are over the house. Currently, the only lights that work is the back row of lights and the house lights. These are all on the last five dimmers in the rack, which has a gap of 3 dimmer spaces from everything else. There is also one dimmer at the top of the rack that is still controlling the lights properly.

We have two wall mounted controllers. One is on stage, and one is in the house. They both do the exact same thing. Then we have a similar controller that's used to configure the programs lighting levels (that's all i can seem to find that it does, if it does more, please explain it. Not too good at lighting, but i'm like a sponge with knowledge).

I've been through every menu in there, played with every program, and gotten nowhere. I've managed to fix the really long delay for the dim, but that wasn't the problem. The problem is roughly half of our lights don't work at ALL. According to the theatre director, they all stopped working at the same time. We put a meter on the lights, and they're good. The dimmers aren't showing any faults, and they all engage when we start preset a (ALL on. If it works, this should turn it on), but the lights don't come on. I'm not sure if they're limited somewhere, or what.

I've heard there's a remote that plugs into the system. As far as i know, we don't have one. If we do, i can get it though. I'm in VERY high standing with my school. recently fixed the sound system in the same room, the one in the gym, and the one in the band hall. I have access to any part of the system that i need to get at.

I've also heard that it can be connected to a computer. I have a laptop that should be able to do this, but i'm not sure what hardware i need. I would imagine a 56k dialup modem won't be any use. We're planning on running a DMX line to the house to a computer anyway, so we have a USB to DMX converter ordered. The wall mounted stuff is useless for what we need.

Anyway, i'm not worried about presets now. I just want the lights to ALL come on. I'll worry about the programs in another thread. Chances are i can buy something if it's not outrageously priced to interface with the system.

Thanks for any and all help. Sorry if i rambled... been a long day. I'll answer any question that anyone may have. This seems like a good forum, so i may stick around for a while

 

[Tex]

What kind of control console do you currently have? Can you look at the patch? If the rack has good power on all phases, it may be that the dimmers that "engage" but don't produce light are parked at 0.

 

[LightTamer]

We do have power on all phases. That was the first thing we checked for.

I'm not real sure what its called. It has a small LCD screen on it, and it has four buttons down each side, and an edit button on one side at the bottom and a menu button across from it on the other side. I did find a patch menu, but had no clue how to use it. If you could explain that, I could take a look at it after school today.

 

[LightTamer]

Got some pictures today during band as i wasn't doing anything. Sorry for the quality, took them on my phone. Couldn't make any sense of anything in the patch panel. There are several settings in here though. Does anyone know if i can change DMX assignments with this, or assign different lights to different "faders" on the teacher/student controller?

These three are of various screens in the controller. Only people with the right key can get into this panel.

Patch screen

Home screen

Settings screen


Rack with all dimmers at max.

Rack and Transformer

Flood-type lights at the back of the stage. The few not working here do need bulbs.

Strips that should be on, but aren't. No power to the bars at all. Tested some lights, they're good.


This is the controller that the teachers and students use for the system. No clue what the Rec button does. Tried it, and nothing happens. Doesn't record anything either.

Next shots are of the house. These are all on the dimmers. It's odd that all of these work, but most of the stage lights don't. The two you see are the only two that work. The rest just simply don't get power.

 

[LightTamer]

can someone at least explain the patch panel? Sorry for the rushing, we have a show we want to use the lights for next week.

 

[Tex]

can someone at least explain the patch panel? Sorry for the rushing, we have a show we want to use the lights for next week.

I used a system with the lcd panels in your pictures, but I also had a control console. It's been about 10 years, so I don't remember the specifics. I know that I could set a look using the console and then on the panel there was a "copy active" function that would save the look to a preset. This is from (a not so good) memory, but I believe you press a preset, then press the edit button. You should be able to use the arrow keys to go through each channel and set a level. If someone has set a password, you may be out of luck.
Your best bet is to contact Cooper Controls. They bought EDI and should have some old manuals laying around. I couldn't find one on the website. http://www.cooperindustries.com/
You could also try PMing Tracy Underhill, Tracyu. He installed my system in 1995. He should be able to either get you a manual or walk you through the process.

 

[LightTamer]

I used a system with the lcd panels in your pictures, but I also had a control console. It's been about 10 years, so I don't remember the specifics. I know that I could set a look using the console and then on the panel there was a "copy active" function that would save the look to a preset. This is from (a not so good) memory, but I believe you press a preset, then press the edit button. You should be able to use the arrow keys to go through each channel and set a level. If someone has set a password, you may be out of luck.
Your best bet is to contact Cooper Controls. They bought EDI and should have some old manuals laying around. I couldn't find one on the website. Cooper Industries
You could also try PMing Tracy Underhill, Tracyu. He installed my system in 1995. He should be able to either get you a manual or walk you through the process.

No password on it. I've been into the edit mode several times. I can set the lights to whatever brightness i want, but only the ones that were assigned to it. I can't do anything else. I can't seem to change what lights are actually assigned to the channel. I'll look again and make sure that i did everything right.

Thanks for the sources. At least it's a place to start. The manual i could find from Cooper Controls is where i found out about the controller-remote... no one in the school knows where it's at though. That's why i was hoping that maybe i could use my laptop to do the same thing.

 

[Tex]

No password on it. I've been into the edit mode several times. I can set the lights to whatever brightness i want, but only the ones that were assigned to it. I can't do anything else. I can't seem to change what lights are actually assigned to the channel. I'll look again and make sure that i did everything right.

Thanks for the sources. At least it's a place to start. The manual i could find from Cooper Controls is where i found out about the controller-remote... no one in the school knows where it's at though. That's why i was hoping that maybe i could use my laptop to do the same thing.

Another option is to plug in a DMX console at the rack, turn off your wall panels and see if the problem persists.

 

[LightTamer]

Another option is to plug in a DMX console at the rack, turn off your wall panels and see if the problem persists.

I could do that. We have a DMX board that we use for some extra lights theater bought. I believe it does use a digital dimmer, so I'll check into that. Would the board use the same DMX numbers as the wall panels?

Sorry for stupid questions. Never used any real lights before.

 

[DimmerDotCom]

SO it sound like you do not have a DMX based lighting console. That's what I'm getting from reading your posts. The pictures you posted are of the EDI SMart System.
It is a DMX based architectural system. The LCD panel gernerates the DMX for the dimmer rack and all other stations land to it. It cannot program the MX rack. For that you need an MX programmer which your system should have been provided with one (attaches using with a phone cord type cable to the rack itself). The remote is black in color and has round buttons and a simple lcd display.


If you need the Smart manual go to dimmer.com Home Page and go to the library page and download a copy. I just uploaded it for you.


EDIT: PS: I also just uploaded the daily operations guide for the smart system that is easier to use for everyday use.

 

[LightTamer]

Thanks for all the help guys. The manuals will certainly come in handy next year when we have funky lighting arrangements.

We found the issue. I got a Fresnel that we've NEVER used (never been hung or even had power on it) out, and plugged it into the light bar over the stage. Brought everything up, and it turned on. Even though the light that was previously connected didn't.

From what it looks like, the lights were on, and we lost power for a split second. Long enough to be noticeable, but not enough to cause the system to completely loose power. When it came back up, the inrush from the transformer must have killed about $1500 worth of light bulbs.

Oh well. You live and you learn. I'll check the bulbs first next time.

Thanks for all the help guys. Everything will certainly come in handy if we have issues with the programming later on.

 

[Dillweed]

Hi we have a similar issue our drama department doesn't know what they did to our board but some who all the lights on ch 1-48 got move to the second lighting row on our boards and we had to find every light that once work to have our spring band concert And to everyone's knowledge our stage light and everything never really fully functioned correctly? Can anyone help?

 

[lwinters630]

Hi we have a similar issue our drama department doesn't know what they did to our board but some who all the lights on ch 1-48 got move to the second lighting row on our boards and we had to find every light that once work to have our spring band concert And to everyone's knowledge our stage light and everything never really fully functioned correctly? Can anyone help?

What board do you have? What dimmer rack? How many?

 

[Dillweed]

Thank you for your help we successfully found out what the problem was!!