Control/Dimming ETC Ion-Lamp Control with VL3515

[Samantha Goessner]

Has anyone else had issues with the Ion having inconsistent lamp control with the VL3515?

These are the issues we are having specifically and only with the VL3515:
-Will not take the lamp control command as a group
-Intermittently needs to have the gate closed to lamp on
-Intermittent taking lamp off control

Any ideas how to make them take this command consistently? As a note we do wait the recommended time between booting up and lamping on.

 

[chawalang]

Do you have the OS on the console updated to the most recent version??

What about the version of the personality? Have there been recent updates for that?

Are there any macros linked in the cue stack??? Possibly a macro written with a weird command in it.

 

[Samantha Goessner]

We have been waiting for the bugs in 2.1 to be worked out and now till the end of this season. The profile should be up to date, we will look double check that information. Thank you for your help! The macros are not connected to the cue stacks at all, they simply tell all of our fixtures to lamp on. The other fixtures lamp on as they should, its just the 3515s...... We were curious if it was only us having this issue, according to the internet it is just us so far.

 

[sk8rsdad]

The manual for the VL3515 says that the lamp strike and lamp off commands are set by sending a specific value on the control channel (28) for 3 seconds followed by a zero. It's possible the timing in the personality is a little too close to 3 seconds or the 0 is too brief to be noticed. You can try copying the profile and padding the time in the lamp command settings in the copy. If you are sending multiple commands in succession to these fixtures it might help to add a 1 second wait between commands.

 

[rochem]

I haven't heard specifically about this issue, but I also haven't used a VL3515 on an Ion yet. I'd give ETC a call and see if they've had any reports about the issue. Problems like this are not uncommon in newer fixtures, since Carallon is assembling the fixture data and sending it to ETC, and it's unlikely that ETC ever actually tested the VL3515 profile themselves before releasing the software.

If sk8rsdad's suggestions don't work, you might just need to set your VL3515s to lamp on on power up, if that would work for your gig. Best of luck.