Elation Fuze Z350 Wash bugs

L

Lighting Bird

New Member
We have several Fuze z350 wash fixtures at the venue I work at. When they are controlled by the house Avo Titan Mobile, they work flawlessly. However, when a touring act rolls through with a GrandMA console, and they strobe the fixtures vigorously, the intensity may randomly decide to stop working. In rare instances, the fixture will get stuck on, and in place. Only a hard reset from the breakers fixes this problem. Tours have told me they have encountered this problem with these fixtures before, but nobody, not even MA reps running MA3 software looking for bugs like this have been able to explain what exactly is going on.

Has anyone ever heard of this? Why does it only happen to MAs?
 
Lighting Bird said:
I really hope so. This issue has been plaguing me for a long time, and now the bosses want answers I do not have. I wrote the same post on the Elation forum, but there are no signs of life over there yet. Fingers crossed for an answer. 🤞
Click to expand...
have you contacted Elation Support directly?
phone: (323) 213-4593
email: [email protected]
 
My initial suggestion would be to turn down the DMX speed. Older Elation fixtures have had issues taking the max speed send by newer consoles. If symptoms persist, do contact support as dvsDave mentioned.
 
Make sure they disable RDM. I've seen a bunch of lights go nuts on an MA with RDM turned on before, and then immediately chill when RDM is turned off. In one venue in particular, the house LD was trying to blame the MA that we rented a client for causing the issue with a bunch of older moving lights in the rig, but turning off RDM fixed it right away.
 
rsmentele said:
My initial suggestion would be to turn down the DMX speed. Older Elation fixtures have had issues taking the max speed send by newer consoles. If symptoms persist, do contact support as dvsDave mentioned.
Click to expand...
Out of curiosity--hasn't the "maximum" speed of 44 updates per second been standard for decades now? Are consoles sending higher refresh rates by default recently?
 
danTt said:
Out of curiosity--hasn't the "maximum" speed of 44 updates per second been standard for decades now? Are consoles sending higher refresh rates by default recently?
Click to expand...
You would think, but no. There are plenty of devices that make use of DMX chips that are not fully compliant with the standard out in the wild manufactured or designed less than 5-10 years ago. It's less bad than it used to be, but there are still products out there. That said, it isn't necessarily confined to the target refresh rate being the issue- sometimes they have issues sussing out what's going on if they aren't actually compliant with reading the internal timing parameters of DMX which can vary wildly between output devices. Just look at all the timings for different devices from ETC o_O . The 4-port NET3 gateways even have different timings between ports1/2 and 3/4 in ACN mode. Normally shouldn't be an issue as these all arrive within the ranges allowed by the standard, but sometimes the receiver is programmed/designed by engineers that don't have practical experience to respond to a narrower "standard timing" they read as being used by every DMX output device.

Without knowing the data distribution system DMX timing and RDM compatibility would generally be the two most likely culprits. @Lighting Bird you say a hard power reset fixes "this" problem; is that referring to the fully stuck fixture or the host of problems? Either way, in general I start by making sure RDM is off, consoles, splitters, and any gateways, whenever I'm not actively using it. If that doesn't resolve the issue with then I'd try to reduce the DMX transmit speed if you're outputting directly from the console's DMX ports.
 
jglodeklights said:
You would think, but no. There are plenty of devices that make use of DMX chips that are not fully compliant with the standard out in the wild manufactured or designed less than 5-10 years ago. It's less bad than it used to be, but there are still products out there. That said, it isn't necessarily confined to the target refresh rate being the issue- sometimes they have issues sussing out what's going on if they aren't actually compliant with reading the internal timing parameters of DMX which can vary wildly between output devices. Just look at all the timings for different devices from ETC o_O. The 4-port NET3 gateways even have different timings between ports1/2 and 3/4 in ACN mode. Normally shouldn't be an issue as these all arrive within the ranges allowed by the standard, but sometimes the receiver is programmed/designed by engineers that don't have practical experience to respond to a narrower "standard timing" they read as being used by every DMX output device.

Without knowing the data distribution system DMX timing and RDM compatibility would generally be the two most likely culprits. @Lighting Bird you say a hard power reset fixes "this" problem; is that referring to the fully stuck fixture or the host of problems? Either way, in general I start by making sure RDM is off, consoles, splitters, and any gateways, whenever I'm not actively using it. If that doesn't resolve the issue with then I'd try to reduce the DMX transmit speed if you're outputting directly from the console's DMX ports.
Click to expand...
I'm aware that there's plenty of timing ranges, but I was questioning the statement that devices "had issues taking the max speed send by newer consoles". This made it sound like it was a change on the console side that presented the issue, and not a result of issues/cost cutting on the device side.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

A
Artnet | Isadora
Replies
2
Views
2K
Amishplumber
A
L
  • Locked
Elation FUZE WASH Z350
Replies
2
Views
1K
dvsDave
dvsDave
D
Elektralite Paintcan Issues
Replies
2
Views
2K
Thetechmanmac
Thetechmanmac
S
Lamp Fixture Problems
Replies
0
Views
2K
ship
S
S
Wear your safety glasses, ya never know and it really stings
Replies
7
Views
3K
mnfreelancer
M

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)
Back