DMX Power Switcher

Robert F Jarvis

Well-Known Member
Hope some one has a better memory then me here! Our LED Tape 12volt dongles were plugged into a floating dimmer pack to be able to cut power after shut down. But after DMX control was lost the tapes would start flashing. And Control Booth forum noted that these packs have a current leakage issue. I think some one told me about a commercial DMX controlled mains power relay box. I have one those 4 channel open pcb and relays I could build into a box I suppose but a commercial one might save time and be safer. What do some of you do when you remove the DMX signal from LED Tape and other LED equipment? I could around the place and pull a lot of plugs from the wall but!
 
This topic had come up before so you may want to search a bit. But this is the one I've used. Amazon has lots of others with 3 relays, 4 relays, etc. Although I don't recommend running a "wall-wart" 12v supply from a dimmer, you could also try adding a hidden conventional 60W bulb on the same circuit as the supply. There used to be these little dummy load adapters about the size of a 3 pin to 2 pin ground buster, but they went off the market. Ebay may still have some.
 
... I think some one told me about a commercial DMX controlled mains power relay box. ...
This probably costs more than your entire system, but it does fit the criteria, and will last forever.*

1602212231747.png
1602212231747.png

DMX1REL20A: 1 Ch. line voltage

*Between 125,000 and 250,000 operations, depending on switched load.
 
Goto good will and grab up any kind of laptop, Xbox, IEC power brick. The electronics in them will be enough to solve your leakage. The cost of commercial products will most likely be out of your budget.
 
This probably costs more than your entire system, but it does fit the criteria, and will last forever.*

View attachment 20845View attachment 20845
DMX1REL20A: 1 Ch. line voltage

*Between 125,000 and 250,000 operations, depending on switched load.
These are certainly ready to go. And though only one outlet I think the amperage should cover 4 or most 5 MLs on a single bar. Thnkas
Goto good will and grab up any kind of laptop, Xbox, IEC power brick. The electronics in them will be enough to solve your leakage. The cost of commercial products will most likely be out of your budget.
Interesting! Do you think one of these power bricks will be able to handle 4 or 5 MLs on a single bar?
 
Northlight DMX has recently added a completely assembled DMX relay box.... plug & play.
The relays are dry contact so can switch the 12vdc or 120vac.
$140 and a 10% discount right now.
These look like the relay boards I have from Amazon. I would need to enclose them in a box with outlet sockets. The one they do have boxed only has terminal block outputs so we would need to attach sockets if we were to use these for some MLs as well.
 
This topic had come up before so you may want to search a bit. But this is the one I've used. Amazon has lots of others with 3 relays, 4 relays, etc. Although I don't recommend running a "wall-wart" 12v supply from a dimmer, you could also try adding a hidden conventional 60W bulb on the same circuit as the supply. There used to be these little dummy load adapters about the size of a 3 pin to 2 pin ground buster, but they went off the market. Ebay may still have some.
Now that is interesting. Apart from the LED tape I use several of these dimmer packs in so called switch mode to feed several MLs. Sounds like my early hma radio days when we would use light bulbs as dummy loads for testing transmitters.
 
These are certainly ready to go. And though only one outlet I think the amperage should cover 4 or most 5 MLs on a single bar. Thnkas

Interesting! Do you think one of these power bricks will be able to handle 4 or 5 MLs on a single bar?
I believe @Amiers was suggesting the Lap top power brick would power the box's control circuitry.
The box's relays would interrupt you're normal power. I easily could have misread @Amiers.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
Now that is interesting. Apart from the LED tape I use several of these dimmer packs in so called switch mode to feed several MLs. Sounds like my early hma radio days when we would use light bulbs as dummy loads for testing transmitters.

There are plenty of stories of ML being damaged by being fed by a dimmer that's on full and isn't really a switch. Some manufacturers will design for it to not harm the fixture (e.g. ETC) but others won't, so make sure that you power your ML through real relays/contactors, not dimmers at full pretending to be switches.
 
These are certainly ready to go. And though only one outlet I think the amperage should cover 4 or most 5 MLs on a single bar. Thnkas

Interesting! Do you think one of these power bricks will be able to handle 4 or 5 MLs on a single bar?
If the shoebox dimmer is there as well as power why are you using the dimmer? If it to turn them off at night, who cares til you can find a proper power solution. Remove the dimmer before you burn up whatever mover you have please.

TLDR: I don’t know cause I would never put an expensive mover on a 100$ dimmer.
 
I realize, looking back I got two threads crossed (does that make a knot!). On the one hand I was turning off some 12volt LED power dongles that were stuck in (what we call) a flying dimmer box. One that supposedly was in 'switch' mode. After turning the box off we would keep seeing these flashes. The LED tape was driven straight from the power brick because they only wanted red. It was explained as leakage current from the box and suggested a dummy load would help. So now we run whatever LED tape from one of those DMX LED Dimmer PCBs you can get from Amazon. And we plug them into a 12v dongle left plugged in to the wall for the duration of the show. Works well.

On the other hand we do plug our MLs and other LED into the dimmer boxes. Some of them when deprived of DMX start doing their own thing! Hence the need to shut them off. We do get a bit of flashing for a minute or so after shutdown so I am looking at these real 'relays' rather than the faux dimmers. Phew - hope I sorted that out. Thanks for your input.
 
We're currently researching power switching for our theatre. We're looking at replacing a majority of the halogen profiles and fresnels with colorsource fixtures, a mixture of profile lens tubes and fresnel adapters, and we already have a selection of LED fixtures and tape dimmers that are currently under control of the SM's desk aux power switches (relay controlled outlets on the stage). So we need to alter our power distribution.

Currently we have a 96 way dimmer rack (Strand SLD96) feeding a patch panel, feeding the bars and stage boxes, plus a few 6 way dimmer racks (Act6 Digital) for houselights, that sort of thing. it's a big undertaking, but simply plugging the LEDs into the dimmers clearly won't cut it; the rack has no true through power. Currently we're looking at Eaton RigSwitch, Zero88 chilli racks, ETC sensor racks, LSC GenVI, and a few other ad hoc designs for simply switching several ways of power manually. It's certainly a big job to get it straight in you head what can be dimmed and what needs proper, relay switched power, and how to make sure the necessary control circuits are correctly routed.

Just to add spice into the mix, the houselights are scheduled to be replaced with ETC Arc system LED houselights.
 
I've already been in touch with Whitelight - they're one of your distributors, aren't they? We also thought about betapack IV as a possibility.
 
I've already been in touch with Whitelight - they're one of your distributors, aren't they? We also thought about betapack IV as a possibility.

Great, yes Whitelight are one of our distributors.

Although the top row of sockets on Betapack 4 are non-dim circuits, they are not supplied by relays - these sockets are fed directly from the channel's MCB. If you have a patch panel however, then this allows you to simply plug the circuit into non-dim or dim sockets, depending on the load for that particular production.

Edward
 
Ah, thanks for the clarification, Edward. From my reading of the betapack IV manual I had formed the (wrong) impression that the top set could be used to set an on/off point for the non dimmed circuits.
 
No problem - yes there are no relays on Betapack 4.

The dimmed sockets can be set to have a switched dimmer law, but when switched on this supply is still going via the Triacs, and so is not advisable for connecting loads that aren't entirely resistive.

Apologies to the OP for the thread hijack!

Edward
 

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