Aaron Clarke
Well-Known Member
So the theatre I volunteer at has 8 ChromaQ color scrollers (plus model with the digital display)
A show that is currently running that I was not part gave me a 911 call last night during their mid week pick up.
The report was that the scrollers were resetting their DMX address when they turned on power after everything worked the previous night. Trust me descriptions from the various inexperienced people involved were beyond vague. I couldn't even get confirmation if was happening on some or all let alone specific ones.
Here is the setup- there is a PSU on each electric that powers 4 scrollers. Each PSU is fed DMX from a splitter off stage. The data to the splitter comes from the 2nd DMX out on the Expression3 console.
I stopped by this afternoon and started with running the typical shut down process I was sure they were doing. Which is board off then flip the power switch for the DMX devices. After several cycles I was able to get two scrollers to reset to a different DMX address. Both were on the 1st electric. So dropped the electric and started to investigate:
First part was the two did not fully reset, they just defaulted back to the DMX address I had used them on during the previous show. Weird right?
What I found on the LX/System-
1) They had introduced a gobo rotator into the same series the scollers were in.
2) Found the DMX in on the PSU was not fully seated
3) There is and issue with the DMX signal from the booth as some random lights may come on when the board shuts off.
Conditions 1 & 2 only exist on the 1st electric and that was the only place I could replicate the issue.
So what I did-
1) I went ahead and pulled the rotator out of the series and ran a dedicated line form the PSU line 2.
2) Fully seated the DMX in connection on the PSU
3) Instructed to always power down DMX devices first then the turn off the board suspecting maybe a rouge signal at power down is causing the issue. I have noted that I need to investigate the signal issue during the next time the stage is dark and I know there have been several threads here on this topic.
I ran through several power ups and downs again, even not following my instruction for #3 and never had a problem. My #1 suspect was the loose connection at the PSU causing odd signal.
I hope I've solved it, if it should rear its head again any thoughts? I should note I just used them for 9 weeks prior to this show for three different shows, moving and re-addressing them every time and had no issue which leads me to believe it was something this show did, or I just got lucky.
A show that is currently running that I was not part gave me a 911 call last night during their mid week pick up.
The report was that the scrollers were resetting their DMX address when they turned on power after everything worked the previous night. Trust me descriptions from the various inexperienced people involved were beyond vague. I couldn't even get confirmation if was happening on some or all let alone specific ones.
Here is the setup- there is a PSU on each electric that powers 4 scrollers. Each PSU is fed DMX from a splitter off stage. The data to the splitter comes from the 2nd DMX out on the Expression3 console.
I stopped by this afternoon and started with running the typical shut down process I was sure they were doing. Which is board off then flip the power switch for the DMX devices. After several cycles I was able to get two scrollers to reset to a different DMX address. Both were on the 1st electric. So dropped the electric and started to investigate:
First part was the two did not fully reset, they just defaulted back to the DMX address I had used them on during the previous show. Weird right?
What I found on the LX/System-
1) They had introduced a gobo rotator into the same series the scollers were in.
2) Found the DMX in on the PSU was not fully seated
3) There is and issue with the DMX signal from the booth as some random lights may come on when the board shuts off.
Conditions 1 & 2 only exist on the 1st electric and that was the only place I could replicate the issue.
So what I did-
1) I went ahead and pulled the rotator out of the series and ran a dedicated line form the PSU line 2.
2) Fully seated the DMX in connection on the PSU
3) Instructed to always power down DMX devices first then the turn off the board suspecting maybe a rouge signal at power down is causing the issue. I have noted that I need to investigate the signal issue during the next time the stage is dark and I know there have been several threads here on this topic.
I ran through several power ups and downs again, even not following my instruction for #3 and never had a problem. My #1 suspect was the loose connection at the PSU causing odd signal.
I hope I've solved it, if it should rear its head again any thoughts? I should note I just used them for 9 weeks prior to this show for three different shows, moving and re-addressing them every time and had no issue which leads me to believe it was something this show did, or I just got lucky.
