Ovation Reve e3 and ETC Ion

[mckeetech]

I've got several auditoriums that I manage that have purchased Ovation Reve e3 fixtures recently. In most, they've been fantastic, but in the first space we installed them, we've been chasing issues.

They were a very early batch. Had dimmer curve issues, which was fixed with a firmware update. Now we're having an issue where when fading out (GM down, sneak, cue changes, etc.), either the amber or mint channel will flash on full at the tail end of the fade. Most often the mint channel. They're running in 18ch mode, latest version of EOS, afaik latest fixture firmware.

Anyone else experienced this? Any ideas of what to check? Been back and forth with both Chauvet and ETC tech support with no real progress in identifying the cause.

 

[jglodeklights]

You’d need to first identify whether this is an output issue from the ION and data distribution or whether it’s a fixture level issue. Ideally you’d have some sort of DMX recorder. You’d want to capture the DMX levels going to the fixtures as the fade occurs to see if there is a blip on any of the DMX channels. Failing having or sourcing a recorder, the easiest way about this is to move things around. Borrow a fixture that works in another space and see if it exhibits the issue.

If a fixture from another space works fine you may have a bad batch of fixtures or possibly firmware if they have two different versions. You’d want to confirm by taking a fixture from the space with issues and trying it where you don’t have any. If it still blips you’ve confirmed something is going on with the fixture. If the borrowed fixture blips you know you have troubleshooting to do with your ION and data distribution. In which case you’d want to eliminate or confirm the ION is causing the issue. Hooking the ION directly up to fixtures bypassing your data distribution and testing behavior. No blip with house or borrowed fixture? Likely Data distribution issue. Still blips? Something is up with your ION (or patching and programming). You don’t mention how data is distributed so it’s impossible to give any details about troubleshooting it.

It’s worth pointing out you do need to make sure you truly have them patched and setup identically from space to space and aren’t making any weird value moves with the problem space.

 

[Crisp image]

I have 3 venues that use these fixtures. 2 of them use 14Ch2 mode and have not had any issues. the 3rd uses 18Ch mode and had some issues with the colour picker. I think that was fixed in a fixture profile update. I perfer the 14Ch2 mode as it gives me everything I want in high resolution and I save 4 addresses per fixture to use somewhere else.
Regards
Geoff