LEDs making each other angry

lizg

Member
Hi, I am working on a small storefront theater show and have 9 shitty LED pars in a dmx chain. I have two questions:
How do I figure out exactly which profile works for them? (I'm programming on an ETC Element and have found one that seems close but not exactly right)
When I bring one up at a time they mostly work, but if I keep one on and bring up a second, then the first goes out by itself. This is happening all the way down the chain with the next light making the one before it turn on for some reason.
I have tried adding a terminator to the end of the chain, to no effect.

Thanks!
 
If you have no documentation, and no support from the manufacturer, you'll have to do it the hard way. Start with a clean 1 to 1 patch on your console (or use a test console if you have one). Address one fixture to 1, and have it be the only one connected to the board. Bring up single channels one by one until you can figure out what each one controls.

At a guess, most fixtures start with a master intensity, then RGB, then strobe, then some macro or color effects channels. Often they will have RGB first and then the master intensity. Some fixtures the strobe channel needs to be at 0, some at 255, for light to come out. It can be an adventure to figure out a profile blind.

It does sound like you have a strobe channel or a macro channel that you don't know about overlapping with the next fixture. @DrewE is exactly correct. If the first fixture works how you expect until the next one comes up, give yourself 4 or 5 addresses of space between the fixtures, and they'll probably continue to work.
 
One thing I've seen with the cheapo LEDs is that some have a mode where they dump DMX down the line to do a master/slave mode without having a controller. I observed this with a shoebox at the end of such a chain once where the controller was off, but the shoebox was still indicating it was receiving DMX. Could be one or more of those lights are stuck in standalone mode.
 

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