Control/Dimming Sensor Dimming Problem

[MikeyHP]

Alright..... before I say what is wrong I will tell you what Ive done to try and fix it. I have reset the CEM, reset the express completely, swapped the dimmers, swapped the s4's and replaced lamps. (This is a non + Sensor rack, well two racks.)

Ok... channels 9 through 21 on the catwalk wont go past what looks to be 10%. All the others channels work fine. Also, there is no patch board (all soft patch) and the system is the original install from 2004.

 

[MNicolai]

Express console, right?

Go to your patch screen and verify two things; make sure that you have no proportions set for your channels, and there are no undesired profiles. On the patch screen below each channel number if there is a second number, it's the ratio that the channel will turn up highest to. If you set it to 50, then at 100%, it's really at 50%. Also in your profiles, if you have a profile selected that's awry, then I'd say reassign to a different profile. I'll bet you have a proportion set though, which is easier to do than you may think. When patching channels and dimmers, if you're not watching the screen as you type, you can easily get the keystrokes in the wrong order and end up with the proportions set. What you'll need to do is select the channels in your patch screen and release though proportioned values.

 

[MNicolai]

Actually, as another troubleshooting method, try going to your dimmer racks and turning those circuits' corresponding dimmers up to a level of 255 via the CEM. If you can get the fixtures to turn on to their appropriate levels by doing that, then you can determine that the problem is in the programming, probably at your Express.

I highly doubt anything is broken though. My experience with ETC controllers is that rarely are things honestly broken. More often than not a controller is acting exactly as it's being told to act, the programming telling it how to act is where the error lies. You said that you reset the Express? How did you do that? If you haven't already, try pressing and holding [7] [8] [9] together while the console boots, and then it will reset completely to factory default. With that comes the warning, it will reset to factory defaults, and you will lose any/all settings. Another thing you could try is if you have any saved show files from before the problem arose, you could try loading them and seeing if the everything behaves as it should under those known-to-work settings.

 

[icewolf08]

While I agree that it is most likely a profile or scaling issue, there is something else to check. If you have AF dimmers (they would say D20AF or D50AF on the front of the module) it is possible that someone set the Boost level for them on the CEM. As I haven't used Legacy CEM in a while I don't remember the keystrokes to change it, but it is worth looking into. The boost setting is like setting a scaling factor in the console except that you can do it right at the dimmer.