adickerson
Member
Hello, Everyone. I'm new here! I had a question I thought maybe you all could help me with. I just got an ETC Idea 48 (which needed some fixing up to get in working order). One of the strange things is that it was retrofitted with a 3-pin DMX out (no, its not microplex. Just 3-pin DMX). So it gets up and running and we connect it to our 5-pin dimmers with an adapter and there's a problem. Many of the channels (but not all) bump to full as soon as its plugged in - seems like a simple problem with the adapter we're using, but so far that doesn't seem to be the case, and now I'm stuck. Here's what I've tested so far:
-Plugged the Idea board into 3-pin dimmers in a different theater and it works fine.
-Plugged a Leprecon board (with 5-pin out) into the dimmers, and it worked fine.
-tried 3 different 3-pin (M) to 5-pin (f) adapters (2 homemade, 1 store-bought) and had the same problem with all of them, more or less ruling out that its the adapter.
-Plugged a different 3-pin out board into the dimmers with the same adapters, it ALSO doesn't work properly.
-Checked the dimmers, realized there was no terminator, so I added a 3-pin terminator on a 5-pin to 3-pin adapter and the channels that were on at full are now just ghosting.
I was told that a 5-pin terminator shouldn't make a difference. Is that true? I was thinking to go get one, since plugging in the terminator seemed to be the only thing that made a difference, but my understanding is that it really shouldn't make any difference...
Anyone have any thoughts about what's going on here? My usual guru is out of town on vacation, so I'm trying to give him a rest and solve this on my own (or with your help as the case may be...).
-Plugged the Idea board into 3-pin dimmers in a different theater and it works fine.
-Plugged a Leprecon board (with 5-pin out) into the dimmers, and it worked fine.
-tried 3 different 3-pin (M) to 5-pin (f) adapters (2 homemade, 1 store-bought) and had the same problem with all of them, more or less ruling out that its the adapter.
-Plugged a different 3-pin out board into the dimmers with the same adapters, it ALSO doesn't work properly.
-Checked the dimmers, realized there was no terminator, so I added a 3-pin terminator on a 5-pin to 3-pin adapter and the channels that were on at full are now just ghosting.
I was told that a 5-pin terminator shouldn't make a difference. Is that true? I was thinking to go get one, since plugging in the terminator seemed to be the only thing that made a difference, but my understanding is that it really shouldn't make any difference...
Anyone have any thoughts about what's going on here? My usual guru is out of town on vacation, so I'm trying to give him a rest and solve this on my own (or with your help as the case may be...).