Not Seen This Before, Have You?

The theater where I just closed a show had a cable I’ve not seen before. A well respected community theater company near Philadelphia has a Leviton 7xxx system. The cables running to the dimmer packs looked like mike cables, but one end had a second XLR connector coming out, a Y connection. The cannon plug on the end with only one XLR had five pins. The documentation specifies five and three pin connections. Standard coax ran between the connectors. The spice had a lot of electrical tape. I couldn’t get close enough to inspect thoroughly. Things seem to work OK but they want to add a sixth dimmer pack. They’ll need to connect the new pack to the dimmer. Does Leviton make this coax Y cable? Some one else? Or was it home made?
 
Welcome to CB! I am moving this thread to the Lighting and Electrics forum so it is posted in the right place.

When you get a moment, drop back by the New Member Board to introduce yourself.

~Dave
 
Sounds like a homemade 3-5 pin y using one cable for 2 home runs.
 
The Leviton 3 pin should be MUX, similar to the NSI (who was bought out by Leviton) MUX. Do not plug MUX into DMX, you'll kill your DMX chipset. The MUS xhould be daisy cahined Boad to pack to pack to pack , but doesnt need a terminator like a DMX system would. The NSI MC7XXXX series boards often had analog/mux/dmx all on the same board.

Model numbers and photos would help in trouble shoot.
 
The Leviton 3 pin should be MUX, similar to the NSI (who was bought out by Leviton) MUX. Do not plug MUX into DMX, you'll kill your DMX chipset. The MUS xhould be daisy cahined Boad to pack to pack to pack , but doesnt need a terminator like a DMX system would. The NSI MC7XXXX series boards often had analog/mux/dmx all on the same board.

Model numbers and photos would help in trouble shoot.
@jonliles and @Amiers Didn't the dimmer packs send power up to the consoles while the consoles sent control data back down the same XLR-3 cable(s)?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
I grew up ETC with dmx not MUX so this one is outta my wheelhouse.
@Amiers I aged with analogue and AMX192 but I haven't grown up yet and see little point to doing so now.
I met MUX when a friend was serving as the combo', Pres. / Board Chair and T.D. of a local Fringe Festival; for a number of consecutive years I aided in sorting out a variety of power, lighting and sound problems / systems: One year the local Fringe Festival topped out at five simultaneous venues performing up to four performances per day per venue for a consecutive ten day period. At that point, Brian was purchasing dimmers and consoles from E-Bay and that's when my knowledge went from 27 contact Cinch Jones connectors connecting 24 channel consoles, down to XLR-4's, up to XLR-5's and back down to XLR-3's.
Imagine my surprise the first time I pulled the power input cable from a 24 channel console and it refused to power down.
And that's when I learned the REST OF THE STORY. (Thank you Paul Harvey; Good day! )
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
it's actually +15vdc on Pin 2. Probably more than enough to fry the DMX chip.
Sadly, I learned this from experience. Luckily, it was an easy chip to replace.
 
The common thing - even if not labeled, is to try to ship such a thing back to it's owner. This by way of contacting them and requesting shipping info, or if they don't want it back... normally i would save it in a place I can find it - once figured out what it was. If not really viable to save and find it again, it would be assimilated into parts. Primary thing in good will - you ship to me, we ship to you concept... Get the parts someone else owns back to them and they will for you. In my case, I really don't want other people's gear as it takes time away from fixing our own gear in if necessary and safe/useful... making ours.
 

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