Control/Dimming Element and Unison

[Grog12]

So I'm going into a new space next week that I haven't worked in before. Everyone I've talked to is saying that when repatching their Element it messes up their Unison system.

This of course doesn't jive right with my head unless there has been some sort of integration between Unison and Eos/Element software that I'm unaware of.

I haven't gotten into the space yet so I'm not sure of how their DMX runs are set up (nodes/hardwires/some sort of Artnet EDMX hybrid) but I thought I'd ask if anyone has encountered this before and might be able to give me a heads up on what to expect.

 

[SteveB]

Possibly the Unison system is set up to release control to certain DMX addresses when it sees a DMX signal from a different console. Thus if you have Emphasis powered up and sending DMX, Unison no longer has control over whatever it's supposed to.

Easy solution is to determine those addresses and patch them to channels in Emphasis and run them on, shielded sub, parked, whatever.

 

[Grog12]

If they left their Element powered all the time I could see that. But this is apparently not the case.

 

[SteveB]

If they left their Element powered all the time I could see that. But this is apparently not the case.

If Element is powered up, it's going to send valid DMX into Unison, with any channels and/or addresses not active being a value of zero. If a DMX input exists in Unison and is configured to act upon defined DMX addresses, AND it's configured to release to any DMX value from an input port, then stuff shuts off because Emphasis isn't telling it to be on and is overriding Unison.

When you power down Emphasis, those zero DMX values go away and Unison levels take control.

All is dependent on how the Unison system was setup.

 

[JohnD]

Perhaps a call to ETC support to see if they have the original documents handy so that when you get into the space you can have them walk you thru the system.

 

[Grog12]

If Element is powered up, it's going to send valid DMX into Unison, with any channels and/or addresses not active being a value of zero. If a DMX input exists in Unison and is configured to act upon defined DMX addresses, AND it's configured to release to any DMX value from an input port, then stuff shuts off because Emphasis isn't telling it to be on and is overriding Unison.

When you power down Emphasis, those zero DMX values go away and Unison levels take control.

All is dependent on how the Unison system was setup.

Yep. See that's how it should work. According to multiple sources Element is in its one to one patch. Board is powered off, Unison works correctly. Element is patched for a show, and then powered off. Unison stops working.

 

[SteveB]

Well odd one.

Do a reset on the Unison ER-4, maybe it isn't re-establishing control over addresses when Emphasis goes away.

Maybe combined with a hold-last-look status on the dimmers, so when Emphasis is off, and no valid Unison DMX, rack keeps a zero value.

You really need to know how the Unison system was setup. If old legacy and not Net2, it could only "see" DMX from one universe and then had to have zones ( if memory serves, it's been a while) created, each a DMX address and that would then allow Unison to send DMX to those addresses. If they routed a DMX line thru the ER-4, Unison could read and then snapshot an incoming data stream. There were also priorities that could be set to allow Unison to relinquish control of addresses to a 2nd console.

All this got somewhat more complicated if Net2 as you could set overall system priorities if nodes were involved.

So get the system spec's or call ETC.

 

[Grog12]

As expected it was a misinformed former "TD" who instituted the rule and knew little to nothing about DMX much less Unisen.