Hi there...
Just got through with a rather interesting problem in my theatre (I didn't have anything to do with it--apparently it happened whilst I was down with a sprained ankle and I've been hearing all about it and doing damage control)
We had a bad storm around these parts a few weeks ago, and our power went out and then came back a few minutes later. Our system (Express 24/48, 7 Leprecon 6-dimmer pipe-mount packs) took a hit when the power reestablished. Apparently, a faulty dimmer pack managed to send some sort of feedback through the DMX cable, took out two other dimmer packs and one whole universe on our (close to brand new) board.
$150 later, our board's back to 100% again. The three wonky dimmer packs are on their way to Michigan (!? -- not my doing, someone else who's been taking care of things in my absence) to be repaired.
What I'm wondering is, is there some sort of opto-isolator for DMX? My Google-fu is weak, as I haven't found anything like that out there (yet). I'd like some sort of component to be placed inline between the board and the first dimmer pack on the chain. I'd heard (somewhere?) that there exists optical isolators that work in such a way as there is no direct electrical connection between the board and the dimmers, in essence the equivalent of an isolation transformer in an audio circuit or a breaker in a power circuit. Resettable (preferred) or not, I'd like something relatively inexpensive that can isolate the system and prevent things like this in the future. It's a whole lot easier to patch around a broken cheap not-totally-necessary component than it is to drag our precious new system down out of the booth and hope and pray it's something relatively inexpensive to be fixed in short order.
Failing the existence of such an optical isolator, perhaps a cheap DMX splitter /repeater of some sort? Anyone else have anything like this in their systems? I'd love to know or get some feedback on the notion.
Thanks.
sean
Just got through with a rather interesting problem in my theatre (I didn't have anything to do with it--apparently it happened whilst I was down with a sprained ankle and I've been hearing all about it and doing damage control)
We had a bad storm around these parts a few weeks ago, and our power went out and then came back a few minutes later. Our system (Express 24/48, 7 Leprecon 6-dimmer pipe-mount packs) took a hit when the power reestablished. Apparently, a faulty dimmer pack managed to send some sort of feedback through the DMX cable, took out two other dimmer packs and one whole universe on our (close to brand new) board.
$150 later, our board's back to 100% again. The three wonky dimmer packs are on their way to Michigan (!? -- not my doing, someone else who's been taking care of things in my absence) to be repaired.
What I'm wondering is, is there some sort of opto-isolator for DMX? My Google-fu is weak, as I haven't found anything like that out there (yet). I'd like some sort of component to be placed inline between the board and the first dimmer pack on the chain. I'd heard (somewhere?) that there exists optical isolators that work in such a way as there is no direct electrical connection between the board and the dimmers, in essence the equivalent of an isolation transformer in an audio circuit or a breaker in a power circuit. Resettable (preferred) or not, I'd like something relatively inexpensive that can isolate the system and prevent things like this in the future. It's a whole lot easier to patch around a broken cheap not-totally-necessary component than it is to drag our precious new system down out of the booth and hope and pray it's something relatively inexpensive to be fixed in short order.
Failing the existence of such an optical isolator, perhaps a cheap DMX splitter /repeater of some sort? Anyone else have anything like this in their systems? I'd love to know or get some feedback on the notion.
Thanks.
sean