Colortran DMX issues?

[SHARYNF]

We did ask questions before hand, the facilities director had no problem with it, and one of the first things the Colortran Rep did when he got here was power cycling the viewpoint controller/module box..but thats not the issue at hand here.

I think you totally missed the point. When you cycled the power you had NO IDEA WHAT THE BOX WAS??? The Fact the rep did that was based on knowing what the unit was.

You could have been connected to a starting/stiking system that needs a delay, you could have a system that needs to have a power on sequence.

It is like a computer, simply hitting the power switch might not be the best thing for shut down restart.

It is one thing when you know what the unit you are dealing with to decide what to do.

Since I am assuming the system worked in the past, did anyone else touch or change anything? How did the settings get changed? assuming this might be the problem? what was the rep's suggestion? What has failed? Has the power reset caused the system to loose its settings?

Sharyn

 

[LeadHead]

We were on the phone with leviton for probably a solid 4-5 hours straight today.

We wired the DMX cable from the Innovator panel right into the racks, and the system worked. A lot more continuity checking later. We found one bad diode on a wire on the backstage viewpoint panel wiring. This wire was on the take control circuit for the panic buttons, and as far as the Leviton tech could tell over the phone, the Viewpoint module is bad, and we'll be sending that out tomorrow for repair.

 

[LeadHead]

If anyone is interested we finally got everything working. Problem was a combination of a fried diode in a back stage viewpoint "box", and the architectural control module had somehow been damaged and lost its programming. Probably because its not mounted properly and just sits there on the floor. Somebody probably accidentally gave it a good kick one day.

Finally go the ACM programmed, and then everything started working as it should.

Got to learn all about soft patching an Innovator 24/48, not terribly fun. Still haven't figured out the whole Cues thing, and submasters are a pain to program into it as well. Oh well.

 

[DuckJordan]

to add on to that the colortran architectural things are very touch we have two sets of memory chips because they loose there programing frequently.

 

[LeadHead]

We working on trying to get a memory card for our system. Apparently we never got one which is partially why it took so long getting the system back up and running. We had to hook a PC upto the control and reprogram every single thing in manually.

 

[hebessica]

Finally go the ACM programmed, and then everything started working as it should.

Got to learn all about soft patching an Innovator 24/48, not terribly fun. Still haven't figured out the whole Cues thing, and submasters are a pain to program into it as well. Oh well.

Where did you get your software? We're having the same issue and I can't locate the software. So far Leviton's techs have been a mixed bag.

This thread on the other hand, has been AWESOME!

 

[Tex]

Got to learn all about soft patching an Innovator 24/48, not terribly fun. Still haven't figured out the whole Cues thing, and submasters are a pain to program into it as well. Oh well.

Patch - Channel# @ Dimmer# or vice-versa Enter
Cues - Record Cue # Time # Enter
Submasters - Record Sub # Enter

This is a pain? Seems pretty standard to me...

 

[LeadHead]

Where did you get your software? We're having the same issue and I can't locate the software. So far Leviton's techs have been a mixed bag.

This thread on the other hand, has been AWESOME!

Our Facilities Director fired off an E-Mail to someone within Leviton, who then E-Mailed us the software. Tell them you need the software to program the architectural control module.

Patch - Channel# @ Dimmer# or vice-versa Enter
Cues - Record Cue # Time # Enter
Submasters - Record Sub # Enter

This is a pain? Seems pretty standard to me...

Patching is easy enough, its the fact that who ever installed the system at this school never bothered to properly label the dimmer racks themselves, or something was changed at last minute. None of the dimmer numbers match up properly with the light/socket numbers on stag. We had to manually set each dimmer on one at a time to see which lights went where, write it all down on a chart, and then from there figure out how we wanted to organize our 120 or so dimmers into 48 channels.

Can't answer you on cues, but Recording Submasters is a bit more difficult then that, at least on the software version we're running. You have to soft-select the channels you want, soft-set them at 100% (or whatever your desired is), then assign it to a sub master, and if you don't hit enter twice as a specific point in the process, the submaster will be stuck at 100% and you'll have to manually set everything back down to 0.

Perhaps a lot of it is because I really don't know the board (or lighting in general that is), but the software just doesn't really seem all that intuitive.

 

[Madzoga]

If anyone needs the info;
1) If you see the LCD station having the words "Station 10", or another number, it means that viewpoint has lost it's programming. If this happens, one of 2 things happen. the first being that all the lights will be held at 70%, or all lights will be off.
2) If you have the memory card, try to "read the Card". It will look like nothing happened, but if you are standing near the rack, you will hear the pitch of rack change as the system goes to the first preset.
3) If you do not have the memory card, then you will need the software to reload it. Just email Leviton or me for it. Note: I have the software, but might not have the config that u need for your system.

In terms of DMX console not playing nice with ENR/Topaz/D-192 racks, it is site specific. But the general rule is all of the racks use both DMX and CMX. However, they will default to CMX. The reason for the blinks is that CMX has slower refresh rate, so it messes with incoming signal.
You can get around this by turning your DMX board on first, then resetting the rack. This forces the rack into DMX. However, it is easier to just purchase a protocol converter for this. The converter will also deal with termination issues that sometimes.

 

[LXPlot]

Patching is easy enough, its the fact that who ever installed the system at this school never bothered to properly label the dimmer racks themselves, or something was changed at last minute. None of the dimmer numbers match up properly with the light/socket numbers on stag. We had to manually set each dimmer on one at a time to see which lights went where, write it all down on a chart, and then from there figure out how we wanted to organize our 120 or so dimmers into 48 channels.

Perhaps a lot of it is because I really don't know the board (or lighting in general that is), but the software just doesn't really seem all that intuitive.

*Theatres often have more dimmers added in upgrades, so numbers get thrown off. We had that problem, but we fixed it. Now we have a 1-1 patch on all of our dimmers (Dimmer 1 to channel 1, etc.) You should build some kind of a plot of the theatre with dimmer numbers to locations. This'll make your life a ton easier in the future, and even better for those people who'll come after you.

And I really don't see anything particularly unintuitive with the software, it's all command line like normal PCs. Although a CMX default is rather irritating.

 

[cwbart53]

Here I am late to the game. What you are describing is a Colortran Dimmer system (i96 and 24 dimmer racks) with a Viewpoint Control Bus. I assume that the 96 rack is for the stage lights and the 24 rack is for the house lights. That is how they are generally setup. If the Viewpoint LCD display is showing a "10" in the window it most often means that the programming was lost. There is a slot that a card goes into that can restore the program, provided you still have it or can find it. The switch positions of 1 and 5 are correct. The Viewpoint Control Module can be reprogrammed using a laptop. How long ago was the battery in the Viewpoint Control Module replaced? If it has been awhile and you've suffered power outages then this is the most likely reason that the Viewpoint has lost its program. Until a program is rewritten and installed the Viewpoint system will not control any lights. The DMX input to the Viewpoint can be bypassed to allow the console to control the lights.

 

[SteveB]

Here I am late to the game. What you are describing is a Colortran Dimmer system (i96 and 24 dimmer racks) with a Viewpoint Control Bus. I assume that the 96 rack is for the stage lights and the 24 rack is for the house lights. That is how they are generally setup. If the Viewpoint LCD display is showing a "10" in the window it most often means that the programming was lost. There is a slot that a card goes into that can restore the program, provided you still have it or can find it. The switch positions of 1 and 5 are correct. The Viewpoint Control Module can be reprogrammed using a laptop. How long ago was the battery in the Viewpoint Control Module replaced? If it has been awhile and you've suffered power outages then this is the most likely reason that the Viewpoint has lost its program. Until a program is rewritten and installed the Viewpoint system will not control any lights. The DMX input to the Viewpoint can be bypassed to allow the console to control the lights.

Post is from 7 years ago.

 

[cwbart53]

Post is from 7 years ago.

Indeed it is. A little supplemental information may help someone else in the future if they look through these posts.