Lost control of lights

T

twalker1998

Member
For about a week now, I have had lights set for a show that is to open in four days. Everything has been working fine, until today- I decided to add in four LED lights and a hazer on the second DMX universe. The LEDs and hazer work just fine, but as soon as I first turned the LEDs on, a fresnel and ellipsoidal that are hung over stage also turned on and I can't get them to turn off. These lights are controlled by the dimmer rack, which is on the first DMX universe, so I'm not sure why this is happening. They just sit there and slowly fade back and forth from a very high intensity to a lower intensity. I've checked the patch and nothing seems to be overlapping. There are no cues or macros running and there is nothing parked. The only way I can get them to turn off is by cutting the power to the dimmer rack completely, and obviously this isn't a permanent fix. Does anybody know why this would be happening and what I could do to fix this?

Using an ETC Express 250 with an ETC SR48 dimmer rack.
 
Is the first universe of dimmers terminated?

Are you pulling power from the same circuits from those lights for the LEDs?

Same breaker leg that the dimmer is on that controls the conventionals?
 
This is what Bob is refering to. If you have an address within the same starting DMX that is overlapping between the two ports then things will get hairy. However you said nothing was overlapping, still worth a check. I would also terminated the dimmers and the LEDs might not be sharing the same circuit but what about the same power leg. I know its a stretch but it seems like you have tried all of the normal stuff.
 

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Amiers said:
This is what Bob is refering to. If you have an address within the same starting DMX that is overlapping between the two ports then things will get hairy. However you said nothing was overlapping, still worth a check. I would also terminated the dimmers and the LEDs might not be sharing the same circuit but what about the same power leg. I know its a stretch but it seems like you have tried all of the normal stuff.
Click to expand...

They are not on the same power leg. The dimmer rack has it's own power leg while the outlets that these LEDs are plugged into are coming from the school's main power supply- not the greatest idea, I know, but they're unimportant lights to the show and I don't have the parts to make or money to buy stage pin to wall outlet adapters.
 
twalker1998 said:
For about a week now, I have had lights set for a show that is to open in four days. Everything has been working fine, until today- I decided to add in four LED lights and a hazer on the second DMX universe. The LEDs and hazer work just fine, but as soon as I first turned the LEDs on, a fresnel and ellipsoidal that are hung over stage also turned on and I can't get them to turn off. These lights are controlled by the dimmer rack, which is on the first DMX universe, so I'm not sure why this is happening. They just sit there and slowly fade back and forth from a very high intensity to a lower intensity. I've checked the patch and nothing seems to be overlapping. There are no cues or macros running and there is nothing parked. The only way I can get them to turn off is by cutting the power to the dimmer rack completely, and obviously this isn't a permanent fix. Does anybody know why this would be happening and what I could do to fix this?

Using an ETC Express 250 with an ETC SR48 dimmer rack.
Click to expand...

I have seen this type of behavior before.
I think it is a defective power supply to your express board. Or the board itself. Try a different board.
 
Sometimes older Express boards do wonky stuff like this when you try to output to two DMX universes. I have no idea why this happens (it technically shouldn't). I once worked with an older Express 125 that just plain did strange things when you set the second DMX out as a second universe (addresses 513-1024).

Since we only had 192 dimmers connected, we paralleled the 2 outputs to output in universe 1 (this is an option in the setup menu). All of our "toys" just had to get patched between address 193 and 512. This fixed the problem for us for several years until we could upgrade to an Element.

If money and time are an issue I would try this first. In the long term there is something that needs attention in the board itself.
 
Good Morning twalker

a couple of things to keep in mind

the Express lifts the shield on the output. I have seen cause issues like yours.
the SR48 will hold last look for 180 sec ( 3 min ) after it looses data.
there is a terminator PCB in the rack that should have been set ON when the rack was installed.
 
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