Control/Dimming I need help asap!

[rhsdrama]

Our school has a Bijou Ver 2.11 lighting board. The lights blink as if an effect is engaged; however, all of them have been deleted, as well as cues and macros. At no time is any of this blinking seen on the monitor. I turned off everything--Grand Master, turned on Blackout, and turned off power at back, but one light would come on. I did this several times and each time a different light would come on. Finally all lights went off. I have cleaned the Dimmer Rack filters. We found, by accident, the power pack had melted to the table and that has been replaced but the flashing continued. The flashing begins after the board has been on about 15 minutes. The board has been looked at and nothing was found to be wrong. We think there is a problem with a dimmer or dimmers; however, none are flipped and all the green lights are on. I have an Electronics Diversified MX remote/tester. It hooks into the Dimmer Rack via a telephone jack hook-up. (Honestly, I don't know what it is. I was handed it when the system was put in.) The User's Manual is missing (several changes in administration). I don't know how to use this to check anything and I think if I did, I could find the problem. The electrician doesn't know how to use it either. I can't find a manual on-line. The box has Backup, Patch A, Patch B, Setup, Level up and Level down, S2, Dimmer up and Dimmer down, Clear, In2, In1, S1, Unity and a numeric pad.
I am at my wits' end and the electrician and I have been working on this since school started--five weeks ago. We have a rental this weekend and several coming up. The electrician took his knife and flipped something to make all lights come on Full; this can't be good.
Any help, guidance, anything would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

 

[DrPinto]

Is your DMX line terminated?

 

[rhsdrama]

OK, I may have already replied to this. We have a new e-mail program that is driving us crazy. Anyway, if DMX is the board (I asked the electrician this question yesterday),t he electrician still has it. He says there is nothing wrong with the board; therefore, it must be the dimmers. He asked that several be pulled to test with the board. My question was, what if the dimmer/dimmers that are pulled are all right.
Thaks!

 

[millamber]

Your electrician needs a DMX Tester to plug into the back of the board to see if the levels are behaving erratically from the console. If the levels are solid, then you can start looking at the dimmers.

Just curious, how many lights are on when the flashing happens? Is it every light blinking off then on together, or is it one at a time? Is it a quick flicker or a complete lights down/lights up thing?

If it is the entire rack blinking off then on, you might have an overheating issue; the flashing is generally a warning sign. Have your electrician check the temp of the MX rack and possibly replace the thermal sensor if it is bad.

 

[rhsdrama]

All of the lights are on when the flashing begins and it is random blinking. It is a quick flicker--a light at the back of the stage, a light on the tree, one of the fresnels at the front, but it seems to be in a sequence.

Yes, when the blinking starts the lights on the dimmer rack blink.

I am off to the principal to get in touch with the electrician now!
Thanks a million!!

 

[Skjermoney]

What type of dimmer rack do you have? I just had a similar problem with one of my CD80SV racks. The control module was in the process of dying and everything was going a bit nuts. The day after this happened the rack went into panic mode and we were unable to turn off our house lights. I took some video, is this anything like what you are experiencing?

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[Footer]

I assume your electrician is your school's electrician, the same guy who change the light bulbs in the gym. Odds are he does not really have the training to totally figure out your problem.

Your issue is text book DMX problems. Either your transmitting chip in your console, your receiving chip in your dimmers, or your DMX cable to your dimmers is bad. Because the issue shows up after the gear has been on for awhile I'm going to say your cable is fine.

Could you explain a bit more what you mean by "power pack melted to the table"? To me, that throws up a red flag that you have a problem with your console. Just because you replaced the power pack does not mean that everything in the console is fine. When you had the console "checked out", what did that acutally entail? A bad DMX trasmitter chip in your console will send out little blips that register to the dimmers. It will not show anything on the screen.

I would try a few things. First, if you can borrow another lighting console from a university/community theatre/another school/rental house and see if that takes care of the issue. If it does not, the problem is in your dimmers. If it does, it is a rather simple thing on most consoles to replace the DMX transmitter chip. 2nd, take your console into the dimmer room and if your dimmers have a DMX in on the front plug the console straight into the dimmers. That should light up the "DMX 2" light instead of the "DMX 1" light. See if that changes anything. I'm putting my money on the console though.

Finally, that swtich that turned all the lights on is the panic switch. It is meant as both a test button and a "I have to get lights on now and my console just crashed" button.

Here is the manual for your dimmers: http://www.nes-lighting.com/wi_files/pds_files/323.pdf

 

[gafftaper]

You must get a qualified theater dimmer repair person in there to fix it. NOT the district electrician. I've dealt with this in schools before and it's a real hassle. The district only wants to send out their house electrician who is a great if you need a light switch replaced or there's trouble at the building's main breaker panel. But the district electrician has never heard of DMX and knows nothing about how to repair a dimmer rack. Would they ask your district electrician to fix a problem with the buliding's computer server? Of course not. Asking your disctrict electrician to repair your dimmer rack is no different than that. You've wasted 5 weeks and a lot of money with the district electrician and are still right where you started. Nothing is going to change until you get a qualified repair person in there. A qualified repair person will have the correct tools and will most likely be able to diagnose your problem in less than an hour and have it fixed in less than a day. We can play guess the problem here and you can try to borrow equipment from someone else to test it. But if it is the rack or the console then you will probably still need a qualified repair shop to fix it.

Call your local theater shop and find out when they can send someone out and what the field repair hourly rate is. Around here a service call will cost you a little over $100 an hour for the diagnosis then they'll quote you a price to repair it. Hopefully you aren't in too remote of a town. Unless you can get a repair guy into your building today I would notify your upcoming building rental that it's not going to happen.

If that can't happen then here's what you do...
1) Take your console to another theater and see if it causes the same problem there. If there's a problem it's the console.

Now Borrow/Rent a DMX cable long enough to reach the rack from the console and another console.
2) Temporarily replace the DMX line from your console to the dimmer rack with the borrowed/rented cable. If the problem goes away it's the DMX cable.
3) Replace your console with the borrowed console. Still have a problem it's the rack.

Because it takes 15 minutes before it starts my guess is it's the rack or console, something is warming up and then failing.

 

[rhsdrama]

Yes, this is it! House lights did not flicker because that is on a different rack. Electrician is now switching dimmers to see if problem happens to house.
Thanks!!!
P. S. I have shown him this video.

 

[rhsdrama]

Thanks to all of you for your help. The electrician and the principal have seen everything and, again, thanks to you and your help, we have determined it is the control module. I was told if the module was bad, it could be detected when the dimmer rack was opened. Nothing was out of the ordinary when I opened it. Guess it had not gotten to that point yet. Anyway, problem has been located (we hope) and they are working on it.
Thanks for all your help!

 

[JD]

Ahh... if he is switching the modules, that doesn't really tell you much as the controller is not in the modules. The modules usually only contain the power handling parts, such as the SSR, chokes, breaker, and (part of the SSR) opto isolator. If the controller in the rack is bad, that rack will still misbehave.

 

[gafftaper]

Ahh... if he is switching the modules, that doesn't really tell you much as the controller is not in the modules. The modules usually only contain the power handling parts, such as the SSR, chokes, breaker, and (part of the SSR) opto isolator. If the controller in the rack is bad, that rack will still misbehave.

Without a proper diagnostic tool, you would have to completely rewire the rack or remove and swap the controler with another controller in order to know for sure that it is the controller. Neither of which is easy or advised.

 

[WooferHound]

I have seen this fast flashing happen when 2 DMX consoles were connected to the same dimmer rack through the same DMX line.