Scroller and Seachanger troubleshooting

ckuhns

Member
I have 8 Apollo MXR's in the air right now, which used to turn on and scroll through colors as they normally should when they warm up. However, two days ago, they decided they will only turn red or nothing at all (except when I "home" them). Anybody have any idea what would cause this random behavior? I thought it might be an addressing problem, but when I look at them they appear to be fine, and the patch on my board is correct as well.

I'm having an interesting problem with two of my sea changers as well. All of my other seachangers behave normally, with the exception of two that I have hung on a ladder. Two nights ago they started reeling through colors, pausing on each color for a short period, and then moving on to the next color. Then, last night, the top one was white, and the bottom one was a sea-green color. Regardless, i can't seem to control either of these two units. Anybody else have similar problems? Thanks
 
If you are having all of both of these issues at the same time it makes me think that a data cable has gone bad, or something to that effect. Are the seachangers and scrollers on the same line of DMX?
 
I have 8 Apollo MXR's in the air right now, which used to turn on and scroll through colors as they normally should when they warm up. However, two days ago, they decided they will only turn red or nothing at all (except when I "home" them). Anybody have any idea what would cause this random behavior? I thought it might be an addressing problem, but when I look at them they appear to be fine, and the patch on my board is correct as well.

I'm having an interesting problem with two of my sea changers as well. All of my other seachangers behave normally, with the exception of two that I have hung on a ladder. Two nights ago they started reeling through colors, pausing on each color for a short period, and then moving on to the next color. Then, last night, the top one was white, and the bottom one was a sea-green color. Regardless, i can't seem to control either of these two units. Anybody else have similar problems? Thanks
I'd start looking at(& replacing) the data line(s)...
Pie4Weebl beat me there...

I do not have experience with those units, good luck, let us know...
 
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The MXR's have their own data run because they run off of 4 pin cable, and require their own power supply, so those in particular need to be run separate from all my other units.

Just food for thought: this theater is run off wireless DMX boxes, and currently I have 6 running. Do you think there is a possiblity I have too many signals running through the air that are interfering with each other?

Thanks for the advice too, I agree that there might be a problem with my data run. I'll swap out the cables for now and see if that takes me anywhere.
 
The MXR's have their own data run because they run off of 4 pin cable, and require their own power supply, so those in particular need to be run separate from all my other units.

Just food for thought: this theater is run off wireless DMX boxes, and currently I have 6 running. Do you think there is a possiblity I have too many signals running through the air that are interfering with each other?

Thanks for the advice too, I agree that there might be a problem with my data run. I'll swap out the cables for now and see if that takes me anywhere.

Yes, scrollers need 4 pin cables, but the power supply needs 5 pin DMX data cable. If all 8 are doing the SAME thing, I'd certainly suspect the settings on the power supply or the DMX cable.
 
I would try running a hard line to the troublesome units, at least temporarily, to eliminate a huge failure point.
 
Just food for thought: this theater is run off wireless DMX boxes, and currently I have 6 running. Do you think there is a possiblity I have too many signals running through the air that are interfering with each other?

Thanks for the advice too, I agree that there might be a problem with my data run. I'll swap out the cables for now and see if that takes me anywhere.

I feel it is very unlikely that there are " too many signals running through the air that are interfering with each other", in regards to YOUR signals, but, if the problem units are indeed wireless, then that too qualifies as part of the data run, and therefore I would certainly check to see it is operating at peak performance. It could be another (set of) devices new to the space. Especially if your wireless is in the 900MHz or 2.4GHz range. Maybe your antenna's got moved a bit, or something changed in your space to interfere with the wireless data signal.
FYI, this may NOT be the case but, remember to raise the wireless units above the floor level, as much as possible. Water is a big blocker of wireless signal, people are mostly filled with.. water.
Hope this helps.
btw, I'm certainly no expert on Wireless DMX. I just know enough to 'get in trouble" lol.
 
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I feel it is very unlikely that there are " too many signals running through the air that are interfering with each other", in regards to YOUR signals, but, if the problem units are indeed wireless, then that too qualifies as part of the data run, and therefore I would certainly check to see it is operating at peak performance. It could be another (set of) devices new to the space. Especially if your wireless is in the 900MHz or 2.4GHz range. Maybe your antenna's got moved a bit, or something changed in your space to interfere with the wireless data signal.
FYI, this may NOT be the case but, remember to raise the wireless units above the floor level, as much as possible. Water is a big blocker of wireless signal, people are mostly filled with.. water.
Hope this helps.

This is my first time working with wireless DMX so I just thought it would be a scenario for me to throw out there. However, the boxes are 20 to 25 feet off the ground.
 
:cry: it's a little hard to believe, but, so I'm told, this is actually not an option in this space. That was one of my first thoughts.

That sounds like a challenge...

Then take be of the troubled ones and move it to the booth and go wired that way. Just put it back when your done.
 
:cry: it's a little hard to believe, but, so I'm told, this is actually not an option in this space. That was one of my first thoughts.

That's why I love my Swisson XMT-120, takes the board to the light.

However even one of these simple little sniffers can help troubleshooting in a big way. Make a DMX tester.
 
Troubleshooting 101 suggests asking what changed 2 days ago. Some of this behaviour sounds like what I see if one of my Pucks is inadvertently in Master mode and not receiving DMX. It starts spewing errant messages on the wire that other units interpret as command signals. Not saying that's what is happening here but it starts with knowing what might have changed.
 
Yes absolutely, sk8rsdad. When a system is in place (not portable and changing venues) and works fine, only to suddenly misbehave- something in the wiring/patching may be an issue.

Please let us know the results if you are able to swap out a Seachanger or scroller and test it.

Thanks!
 
We were kicked offstage for rehearsals for the day, but thanks everyone this is all good information :) I'm going to see how things work out tomorrow.
 
Cool- please keep us in the loop! (Pun intended :grin: )
 
Hmmmm... So I had suspicion that I was encountering problems with my wireless dmx box for the seachangers, and had my students daisy these two units to other instruments that were working properly; my suspicions were correct and the seachangers are fine now.

My scrollers are still acting the same after swapping out cables. A previous designer from a show a few months ago blew out two of my electrics, so now I'm wondering if my power supply to the MXR's is simply affected by that :/
 
which used to turn on and scroll through colors as they normally should when they warm up. However, two days ago, they decided they will only turn red or nothing at all (except when I "home" them).

So... when you say the two electrics were blown out two months ago, did this affect the performance of these just recently? Sorry, just trying to streamline the troubleshooting process here...

Also- are the scroller PSUs receiving their DMX data from the same wireless transmitter/receiver?


Thanks for the update!
 
I have one SeaChanger, it used to have the same problem. I deleted and restored the profile controling it from the board, and then re-did the soft patch controling those channels and it worked fine. My sea changer would lock on yellow when the power was applied and DMX was all connected.

Otherwise, the DMX going to the unit is probably bad

As for the scrollers, if the voltage is off in the power source, that could cause problems with the scrolling motors.
 
As for the scrollers, if the voltage is off in the power source, that could cause problems with the scrolling motors.

Is there any chance that the scroller power supply, the seachangers or the wireless receivers are being powered by dimmed circuits from you dimmer rack?
If that is the case, the first thing that you need to do is to power all of those devices from straight non-dimmer power. Dimmed power is not a true sinewave and can cause serious problems with devices that use AC to DC power supplies. This is true even when the dimmed power is at full.

There are many threads on CB that address that problem.

Tom Johnson
Florida's Most Honored Community Theatre
 
At long last my color changing units have become functional.

The solution to my seachangers stands as I stated before: I had to simply daisy chain those puppies to instruments that were working properly, and they responded properly; so it was in fact my wireless dmx box that was giving me problems there.

My Apollo MXRs, however, apparently needed to be controlled from a different approach on my light board. For any ION users out there who encounter this mind frazzling problem out there.... Never use the option on the board "color picker" when using a scrollers. Even if it appears to work at first, it is not effective. I'm not entirely sure why it worked to begin with and then suddenly stopped, but researching on the Internet it appears other people have run into similar issues on the ION.

I'm new to the ION... But it still feels like a stupid mistake on my part, that was fixed because someone happened to glance at the soft keys when we were checking our patch (for the eighth time).

Thanks for everyones advice. This has definitely been a large learning experience for me.
 

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