Hey there...another LED issue

[blurubberlizard]

Hey all,

I'm working with a local high school on their fall production and they just got a whole new lighting system...complete with LED strip lights for the cyc. I'm having addressing/dimmer problems with them. The space has 53 physical dimmers. I should be able to address the LED at higher channels, correct? I started my LEDs at ch. 51 and when I addressed the next one at 57 it wouldn't come up. I then tried starting at channel 1...they would all come up but I can separate them from other lights plugged into the physical dimmer...what am I doing wrong? I know its probably something really stupid that I overlooked.

The led fixtures are the Colorado 72 tour striplights and I'm running off of an Expression 125.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[waynehoskins]

Softpatch? "Number of dimmers" parameter?

 

[blurubberlizard]

I adjusted the number of dimmers and tried soft patching. When I soft patch both the LED and the lights that are plugged into the physical dimmer get patched into the new channel.

 

[ElectroCarp]

I think your problem is that youre only addressing them 7 apart when the strip lights need 11 (if I am remembering correctly). So try addressing the first one at 51, then 62, 73 etc. or however you want to do it.

 

[mstaylor]

I have never used a 125 Express, only 48/96, is there a channel limit? If so there are two universes but a limited number of board channels. Also there is a number of channel amounts for those strips ranging from 3 to 15 depending on how it is set up.

 

[waynehoskins]

Express/125 has 125 channels, memory only.

Generally I would put them on the second output port of the console, feed it from the second universe, and start addressing at 2-1 (which to the console you'd express as 513). If keeping them on the same universe as the conventionals, I might start addressing them at 101.

 

[mstaylor]

Thanks Wayne, I wasn't sure if it was limited or not.
To the OP:
You don't want them patched to a physical dimmer, you want a virtual dimmer. Now if when they did the remodel, if they wire them to ND units then all is good.

 

[WooferHound]

If you have 53 physical dimmers, then your next free address is 54.

You could address them ALL to 54 and run them all simultaneously off of just one set of board channels.

 

[mstaylor]

I was thinking the same thing, if they are all going to be on and the same color all the way accross the row, just address them the same DMX address. That is what ETC did on a recent installation. He pointed out how they could be broken up but said he did it that to simplify matters.