Automated Fixtures Elation Dartz 360 Losing sACN Connection

[Scott Lumley]

According to the manual this fixture has a "Dormancy Mode" which I guess means it goes into standby after a set number of minutes. The default is 15 minutes. It can allegedly be disable from the main menu. There's no mention of what triggers the timeout. Perhaps it's from the last receipt of an IGMP subscription message, which your router or switch should be sending periodically. The manual also emphasizes the need for IGMP.

View attachment 18221

As others have suggested, switching over to DMX might provide more reliable control.

This is one of the first things I turned off, but didn't seem to change anything.


At risk of making the lights mad at me... again... I think it is finally solved. I can't say exactly what the issue was, but after a bunch of factory resets again, and modifying the same settings over and over, it seems to be working. I even left the room for a while and came back, and they still held the connection. NOBODY TOUCH THESE LIGHTS OR THEIR CABLES!!!

For anybody curious, the only settings I have changed are the following:

• Flip display screen
• Placed in universe 3 (all by themselves)
• IP addressed each one individually
• Changed ArtNet to sACN protocol
• Turned off hibernate

Now, I have done all of this before, and they didn't work, but for whatever reason now, the universe is on my side today. I even managed to daisy chain them all back together and move them back over to the switch to our main lighting computer.

Thank you everyone for working to help me figure this out!

 

[ETCFIELDENG]

Glad to hear things are working. There is one last thing I'd like to throw out there. We've had some end user issues resolved recently when we've discovered that RDM was enabled at consoles and gateways when it was not needed. You might want to check Nomad.

 

[Scott Lumley]

Glad to hear things are working. There is one last thing I'd like to throw out there. We've had some end user issues resolved recently when we've discovered that RDM was enabled at consoles and gateways when it was not needed. You might want to check Nomad.

I don't use RDM in our main space because our dimmers don't play nice with it, so I leave it turned off. I don't think this was a problem with ETC, but rather a problem with the Elation fixtures I have. I guess anything is possible though, and networking can be messy and confusing sometimes, so maybe it was my fault, and I just kept repeating the same mistake over and over for a few days until finally I didn't anymore, I don't know.


Just to add, in case anyone else experiences similar issues I did, I noticed turning on the fixtures in a certain order also mattered. It wasn't my whole problem, since I was having issues with even just one light and a computer, but still part of the problem. I have the four lights, I'll call them A, B, C, and D. They are daisy chained in that order. A and B are on the same circuit (non-dim) as each other, I'll call this Circuit 1. C and D are on the same circuit (non-dim) as each other, I'll call this Circuit 2. When I power both circuits up together, C and D won't establish a connection. I have to turn Circuit 2 back off, then back on. I find this odd, since B can establish a connection at the same time as A. Maybe only two fixtures are able to establish a connection at a time???

 

[RonHebbard]

I don't use RDM in our main space because our dimmers don't play nice with it, so I leave it turned off. I don't think this was a problem with ETC, but rather a problem with the Elation fixtures I have. I guess anything is possible though, and networking can be messy and confusing sometimes, so maybe it was my fault, and I just kept repeating the same mistake over and over for a few days until finally I didn't anymore, I don't know.


Just to add, in case anyone else experiences similar issues I did, I noticed turning on the fixtures in a certain order also mattered. It wasn't my whole problem, since I was having issues with even just one light and a computer, but still part of the problem. I have the four lights, I'll call them A, B, C, and D. They are daisy chained in that order. A and B are on the same circuit (non-dim) as each other, I'll call this Circuit 1. C and D are on the same circuit (non-dim) as each other, I'll call this Circuit 2. When I power both circuits up together, C and D won't establish a connection. I have to turn Circuit 2 back off, then back on. I find this odd, since B can establish a connection at the same time as A. Maybe only two fixtures are able to establish a connection at a time???

@Scott Lumley & @ETCFIELDENG Idle query from an old geezer: Are your circuits 1 and 2 powered from the same phase of a 3 phase panel (or possibly 2 different legs of a single phase 120 / 240 volt panel ) ? In either case, are both circuits sourced from a source with relatively the same instantaneous polarity / phase angle??
I'll crawl back in my cave now.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[Scott Lumley]

@Scott Lumley & @ETCFIELDENG Idle query from an old geezer: Are your circuits 1 and 2 powered from the same phase of a 3 phase panel (or possibly 2 different legs of a single phase 120 / 240 volt panel ) ? In either case, are both circuits sourced from a source with relatively the same instantaneous polarity / phase angle??
I'll crawl back in my cave now.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

I'm not certain without figuring out which address each circuit is on and then looking at the dimmer rack, but if I had to guess, I'd say they are on the same phase. Our non-dims are wired to our dimmer racks, and have a dimmer module, but bypass the dimmer, so as to not change the sine wave.

 

[RonHebbard]

I'm not certain without figuring out which address each circuit is on and then looking at the dimmer rack, but if I had to guess, I'd say they are on the same phase. Our non-dims are wired to our dimmer racks, and have a dimmer module, but bypass the dimmer, so as to not change the sine wave.

@Scott Lumley Understood regarding bypassing the dimmer and not altering the sine wave. Often in a three phase rack non-dims will be arrayed across the three phases. It would be comparatively rare to find a three phase rack with all non-dims sourced from only one of the three phases.
Likewise, in a single phase 120 / 240 volt rack, it would be unusual to find all non-dims sourced from only one leg.
In a three phase rack, possibly the differences in timing due to the differing phase angles are a contributing factor?
In a single phase rack, although you don't have three phases to deal with, you usually have a 180 degree difference in instantaneous polarity to consider.
@JD @Ancient Engineer @FMEng Any thoughts???
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[Scott Lumley]

@Scott Lumley Understood regarding bypassing the dimmer and not altering the sine wave. Often in a three phase rack non-dims will be arrayed across the three phases. It would be comparatively rare to find a three phase rack with all non-dims sourced from only one of the three phases.
Likewise, in a single phase 120 / 240 volt rack, it would be unusual to find all non-dims sourced from only one leg.
In a three phase rack, possibly the differences in timing due to the differing phase angles are a contributing factor?
In a single phase rack, although you don't have three phases to deal with, you usually have a 180 degree difference in instantaneous polarity to consider.
@JD @Ancient Engineer @FMEng Any thoughts???
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

Yes, sorry, my brain was still not completely awake I guess when I typed that response. Each of our dimmer racks splits dimmers up on three phases. What in my head I was thinking was that ND1 and ND2 (circuit 1 and 2) was probably paired on the same dimmer module, as almost all our dimmer modules are dual dimmers. I guessed this based on the fact that they were 1 and 2, and probably got paired in order.

I was wrong on my guess though. ND1 is actually addressed as 162, and ND2 is addressed as 163. Odd number always starts a new dimmer module (for the most part, at least here). So they got split, and ND1 is on phase A, while ND2 is on phase C, so not the same phase or the same module.