Why are my LED cyc lights occasionally blinking off and on?

[Amiers]

@Amiers Nice graphic but please educate this geezer again. When you typed "while the router apadts", I'm not comprehending your acronym "apadts". (This blind guy thought he was reading 'updates' until he squinted a few more times.)
TIA & Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.

It was 2am I'm surprised that was my only spelling error. But yes like Jay said meant adapt.

 

[microstar]

You missed it.

View attachment 15030

Yep, sure did. I went back and looked and there it was. Thanks for the clarification. Per JJBerman, too bad they didn't implement it across all lines of fixtures.

 

[Harrison Hohnholt]

Hello Klane2 if you still haven't found a solution you can give us a call at 201-549-1160. The ColorSource Relay is using SHoWDMX by City Theatrical. We can go through some wireless troubleshooting and see if that is where your problem is.

 

[Chris Pflieger]

Is it a frequency allocation problem? We use Chauvet D-Fi and it list the frequencies for each "channel"* so we can ensure our WiFi points are on other channels.


* Note the D-Fi channels are narrower than WiFi channels, thus they don't match.

 

[Harrison Hohnholt]

Is it a frequency allocation problem? We use Chauvet D-Fi and it list the frequencies for each "channel"* so we can ensure our WiFi points are on other channels.


* Note the D-Fi channels are narrower than WiFi channels, thus they don't match.

It could be but I have found most times if there are reception problems it is not due to external devices. It requires a lot of power very near the transmitter and receiver to start causing problems from outside devices. Now there is a SHoW ID setting that can be affected by other devices transmitting more than others but that is easily fixable if that is the problem.

One issue I see a lot is transmitting at too high a power. When you are outside high power is fine since there is less for the signal to bounce off of, but when you are inside higher power can cause a lot of problems. If you think of radio like ripples in a small pond lower power would be compared to a small rock thats ripples fade to nothing before it hits the edges. A large rock that would cause ripples bounce back from the sides onto themselves would be like a high power radio in a building. This phenomenon shows up a lot in arena settings, the curved ceiling is usually the cause.

 

[klane2]

Not to further derail this topic but if you think about it they are always terminated UNTIL a output cable is connected. That connection then disables the termination.

Am i just further nerding this out, lol?

Although back to the original post, I do have a couple of questions.

First, I assume this is a single wireless transmitter and receiver pair? What wireless system are you currently using?

If it is a single receiver, all all of the fixtures blinking at the same time or is it just one at a time? Can you tell if the fixture is powering off when it happens or is it just a loss of data to the fixture?

Yes, it is a single wireless transmitter and receiver pair of ColorSource Relay. I'm not sure what you mean by "what wireless system" i am using beyond that. My job requires me to know a little bit about a lot of things , which unfortunately means I'm not an expert in any of them.
When the fixtures blink it is all of them at once. Because they generally only blink when they have been in use most of the day I am often not near them when it happens so I am not sure it they are powering off. The blink is extremely fast though and they go immediately back to the prior state, no matter the color or intensity so I am inclined to think it is the data, not the full power.

 

[klane2]

Hello Klane2 if you still haven't found a solution you can give us a call at 201-549-1160. The ColorSource Relay is using SHoWDMX by City Theatrical. We can go through some wireless troubleshooting and see if that is where your problem is.

I will keep that in mind, thanks. I may not be able to get to it this week though

 

[klane2]

Page 24 of the current Manual.
S4LED Manual Download: https://www.etcconnect.com/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=10737482826

If you are using the ColorSource Spot fixtures, they are different than the S4LED fixtures.
The ColorSource Spot fixtures DON'T self terminate as that added more cost.

View attachment 15032

Of course I just realized sk8rsdad beat me by 13min this morning.

I am using the ColorSource spot, so does that mean reflection might be the problem?

 

[JJBerman]

I am using the ColorSource spot, so does that mean reflection might be the problem?

I would suggest adding a terminator to the end of the line to see if it changes anything.

 

[David O Smith]

Klane2,

As Harrison said we are happy to help troubleshoot it. You can email me at [email protected].

Things to try/check:

What is your signal strength at the receiver? (how many of the 4 green LEDs)
Are your antennas both pointing up and parallel to each other. They should not point at each other.
Have you tried a different Wireless ID? There is no need to turn off other 2.4 sources, one of the purposes of multiple IDs is to use segments of the spectrum that are less busy. These devices are used in houses in busy cities where dozens of wifi access points are active.
The earlier suggestion to run a hard line to see if the problem persists would be a good idea as well.
If you have a console or tester that gives you RDM you can turn down the transmit wattage, as Harrison notes too much power sometimes causes distortion.
You should plug a terminator in.
Are your antennas in line of sight of each other?

Let me know how else I can help.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

How many units through the relay? Just wondering if you ruled out the power side?

 

[Lyle Williams]

I got a wireless par for testing this week. It had an occasional flicker with wireless and wired DMX. No problems on internal modes. Termination made no difference. Changing desks made no difference.

In 10ch mode all colours flickered. In 6ch mode only red flickered. It turns out this fixture had a difficulty reliably reading data from DMX timeslot 001. Operating on any address above this fixed the problem.

(10ch mode 1st chan = master dimmer, 6ch mode 1st chan = red)