Apollo Smart Color PRO jerking

[patrickh]

Hello,

I am currently working on a rig with about 40 Apollo Smart Color PRO's being controlled by an ion. The scrollers are jerking when not in the open frame. All of them are doing it with some doing it worse (to the extent of jerking all the way into the previous frame). I have noticed that the jerking gets worse when you are approaching the end of the scroll farthest away from home. We calibrated all of the scrollers on the ion and I think this may be the problem. How do you clear calibration from the scroller? Any other ideas as to the cause? All DMX runs do not exceed 50 feet from the node or opto splitters. We are using Apollo power supplies. All runs are terminated. Help me out CB!

Thanks in advance!
Patrick

 

[Rob]

Patrick,

Your description is consistent with signal reflection or a cabling issue. First, double-check that your DMX daisy-chain is properly terminated at the end, and that there are no terminators elsewhere. Double-check the terminators themselves. While you're checking that, make sure that no one has slipped a microphone cable into the daisy chain and that each run through the scrollers is a true daisy chain, with no 'tees' or 'wyes' that don't run through an opto-splitter. Make sure your cables are good, especially if you've soldered the XLRs yourself. You might have a broken or missing signal common (pin 1).

The second, and somewhat less likely, possibility is that the Apollo gear doesn't like the DMX refresh rate. You mention running DMX from a node to the scrollers. In that case, you need to adjust the DMX output speed at the node. Addjusting it at the console will not make any difference. I would start by setting the refresh to the slowest frame rate available. If that doesn't help, try the other available rates.

And if neither of those approaches help, then you'll need a DMXter or Swisson tester to examine exactly what's going on at the packet level, to figure out what other mitigation you can try.

I hope this helps.

Robert.

Robert Armstrong
Manager - Technical Sales and Product Support
Pathway Connectivity

 

[patrickh]

We will check that out when we hit a break today. I'm thinking it may be the node since we just had a new renovation in the space so the nodes are all brand new. We have checked cables and since it is happening on all scrollers even though they are powered by different PSU's and those PSU's are powered through separate power systems (one is a thru-power from the dimmer rack and the other is a wall outlet from regular power. All cables are manufactured not custom made and we don't have any XLR cables. The audio department didn't load in till we finished. We have 4 different terminators and they all react the same so it seems to be more up the line. Thank you for your detailed response

 

[patrickh]

SOLUTION:

After a quick call to ETC tech support, we determined that the issue was RDM. Upon disabling RDM, the scrollers began to respond as they always had! I'm very glad we weren't using RDM for the rig. Not sure what we would do if RDM where a necessary part of the rig.

 

[sk8rsdad]

Lots of gear doesn't play nice with RDM. Typically you would turn on RDM for configuration and then disable it when done.

 

[icewolf08]

You can also disable RDM on a port-by-port basis for each gateway. So if you have some devices that use RDM and some that don't, you can separate them on different DMX runs and not have to turn off RDM globally.

 

[patrickh]

That's we discussed in our production meeting. We will do separate runs in the future but I'm not re-cabling a rig for 14 performances. I went and turned it off by ports on the node

 

[GreyWyvern]

Interesting. We've never heard of RDM affecting scrollers before. (We have had issues with the Right Arm, but that has been taken care of with a software upgrade to V 1.8) Glad things are working now.
For future reference, while we don't advertise 24/7 support, you can always call after hours and on weekends. The recording will give you the emergency number for you to call. I think it is Joel's. If he can't take care of it, he contacts someone, usually me, to take care of it.

 

[patrickh]

Thank you for the information!

 

[Erik456]

Somewhat related, I also just had an RDM related issue. I had 20 Seachangers FOH. Some started misbehaving by randomly scrolling thru colors while no values were being changed thru the console. Disabled RDM in the gateway and bam...problem solved!

 

[ScottT]

Somewhat related, I also just had an RDM related issue. I had 20 Seachangers FOH. Some started misbehaving by randomly scrolling thru colors while no values were being changed thru the console. Disabled RDM in the gateway and bam...problem solved!

Don't get me started on this issue. I worked with ETC and Ocean Optics on this for months at my last job and never got anything resolved. It's an issue with the Sea Changer's DMX/RDM implementation. I sent a fixture to the test department in Madison, issue was able to be duplicated, and confirmed it's a problem with Ocean Optics' implementation. I have DMX logs and everything (somewhere).

These were original (6 channel) units that had been upgraded to 4 channel ones. According to Ocean Optics there's nothing wrong with their implementation (they sent me a new control board to install - this one had the same issue) and then tried to sell me another 40.

Harumpf!

I'm not the only one who has had this issue. See here. The solution is to turn RDM off (in my case it was easier just to change the node to Net2 mode) or send all the fixtures back (and pay for shipping/labor) for another upgrade that should have happened when they got upgraded to 4 channel.


Oops. Looks like I did get started on the issue. Apologies.