DMX can bite me

i swear the recommendations and it in it self are so annoying, i got an error message on a CXI color mixer last night that the manual didn't even list...grr. anyone have an "endearing" DMX stories that i can commiserate with/laugh at. i need stories right now...

 

Are those HES color pro CXi? I had an issue with the FX version once. Tried everything. Finally ended up deleting all the cues I had for them (driving a fiber optic curtain) and starting over. 2 hours of troubleshooting. To this day I don't know why they wouldn't respond to the old cues. But the new cue list (with the same addresses) worked fine. And I never had an issue with them before or since.

 

Endearing? not at the time but funny now -Some years ago I was producing a large scale outdoor "picnic style" Shakespeare show in the grounds of a large manor house here.
As you may have discovered with these sorts of venues, they are reluctant to have you over long seasons and usually book other more profitable 'in their eyes' stuff in around you that you have to deal with.
Anyway, so i'm at home and I get a phone call at 7.30am on one of the Sunday's we have a show on from the guy we hired our gear from -par cans long DMX runs, racks, trees etc. He says "I think you need to get up here - we've got a problem"
So I take off asap and arrive at the venue about 20 mins later to find the hire guy sitting between two of the twelve Norfolk Pine trees we had slung our 100 metre (338 feet) DMX run through - At about 4 meters (13 feet) in the air.
He was holding one end and the other was streched out to buggery and flopping around against the tree trunk.
Huh? I hear you ask - seems the function load out on the Saturday night saw some idiot try to turn a truck around between the two trees in question - strech the DMX to the point of no retun and finally snap it!
And here's the really scarey bit - the driver wasn't going to say ANYTHING! He only did in the end because he is employed sometimes by the hire guy!! (small city is ours)
So - we made do with a lengh of suitably rewired audio lead until we could get a new length of DMX on the following Monday.
Oh, and testing showed that the streched lead was completely screwed!. Cutting off 1 metre (3 foot) lenghts and testing yeilded 100 or so short lenghts of CLOTHESLINE!!! (no signal ever again)
Like I said - funny story now - but then with 500+ booked in for the Sunday Show - Svinkter puckering material I can tell ya!

 

well, my error message last night was one of those "what the...oh crap, what does that mean, why is it saying *alert*? hmm, maybe if i just unplug the DMX, and now put it back...YES!" situations. that wasn't the only fun though, just the one that stuck out best in my mind. i personally love our 100 foot, unterminated line, that comes in second in DMX-sucks-land (i really want RDM/ACN). i have to go into tomorrow and work on some more crap that is wonkying on us, so i may get more stories for my personal collection.

my all time favorite operator error happened last year, so my friend Zach, who was a senior at the time was handling the DMX, and we had 2 floor mounted S4 Revs upstage on either side. well he had them partially working at one point, and was doing some board jockeying to get them working fully. while he was in the booth the Revs had to be moved for some reason or another, and someone un plugged the power on it...well Zach goes to check it out after he finished messing about with the server, and he freaks becasue now it won't turn on... some one comes up to him and says, "well buddy, it might help to have the power plugged in.". he found the freshie that failed to re-plug the power and gave him a thorough verbal beating on break.

 

I agree with Derek. The joy of being able to daisy chain a single data cable to run everything is unbelieveable. Every so-called DMX error I have come across has either been operator error (mis set addressess etc) or a cable fault. I have very few problems even if I run mic cable if I terminate properly. Sometimes a device misbehaves but that is not usually a DMX problem it's usually the device. Compared to what we used to have. Heaven.

 

<I for one would rather set a DMX address on a device than an IP address, and I can't imagine home running each moving light back to a hub/switch as opposed to daisy chaining. DMX-512A will be with us for at least the next 10-15 years (after all, another poster is planning on using a 45 year-old Ariel Davis board) so it's possible some of us will still be using DMX in 2031. >

My bet is that many hundred other lighting techs are in silent agreement with this line of thought. While not perfect, DMX does exactly what it's intended to do- as long as it's fed and watered properly.

 

dmx is out dated but serves it purpose, once configured

 

Eboy87!

I found your jar of peanut butter. Kelite took it to feed the DMX in the Apollo R&D labs.

 

i would like to point out that i said i want RDM as well. that's wireless, no more cable is a nice idea, neater backstage areas are really a great concept. sure there will still be interference, different causes but still it won't be perfect.

 

RDM is not wireless, RDM stands for Remote Device Management. If your board and your fixtures are RDM capable, and you're using real 5-pin DMX cable, then you can remotely address your fixtures from the console or a seperate RDM programmer. Also, RDM if a DMX "add-on", and ACN is a completely new protocol. You really can't use both unless you run two protocols and have money pouring out your ears.

 

That's where it went!! Must not have been too hungry, the jar magically reappeared last night when I got home from the Halloween party.

 

Ha,

Reminds me of when our coller scrollers decided to 'Calibrate' in the middle of act II of our musical.

Good Times.

 

The other fun thing to do to squeakies is to tell them you already did run it, when you didn't. Then when something goes wrong, they complain it's the dmx. Let them ***** for several minutes before you tell them you never ran it thru their snake.