DMX help needed please

MikkiMcMurderer

Hi guys,

I'm not sure if anyone knows much about this here but here goes:

I have a Chauvet Obey 70 and various lights like ADJ Innospots, mini Dekkers, Stairville TriBars. I linked them up and programmed some scenes and chases. All seemed sorted but when I reset them up at a gig, nothing happened apparatus from random flashes from the TriBars. I have just set it up again at home and mostly it still doesn't work but sometimes it starts talking to eachother again! 
I am using all DMX cables and a terminator plug. I've tried just plugging in one fixture at a time and that is OK. It's when they are linked to more than one where it all goes wrong!

Any ideas why it could be so unpredictable and what to do to make it 100% reliable?

If not are there any lighting forums anyone knows about?

Cheers

ESBlonde

Units need to be set as slave or receive so that only one device is the controller or sender/master.  Also do you have a cable tester? Dodgy cable in the string will throw a curve ball at the dmx. Finally some units set to slave might default to self terminate and not pass on the dmx. 
That's all I can think off while beered up.

Roland

There's a section on http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php which deals with lighting. You might get a response their. Before doing so I'd check:

1. Some DMX lights don't actually obey DMX protocols. Have you tried daisy chaining in different sequences to see if one is at fault. 

2. Has someone moved a light, and inadvertently touching the buttons which change the DMX address.

3. Has one of the lights been reset from "DMX controlled" to "sound to light" or "internal programme".

4. is the controller faulty?

MikkiMcMurderer

Thanks guys - its a duff controller. I got everything working again only once I reset the desk, reprogrammed some chases and it all worked fine until half a day later all the programs wiped again - back it goes!

Roland

If you are willing to take a laptop to the gig then you could try DMXIS, and a FC1010 if you need footswitching. Much more powerful that a Chauvet

MikkiMcMurderer

That sounds cool, what hardware interface would you need with the laptop?

Roland

Short story: Powered USB for the DMXIS box, plus whatever your chosen footpedal needs.

Long story: I started off with a spare FCB1010, through a midi/USB converter, into an old laptop. Unfortunately the laptop was too old (10 minute boot time).

So I bought a Windows tablet that had a mini USB for power in, and two powered USBs for the DMXIS box and the mid/USB converter. You have to be careful because many cheap tablets don't have powered USBs. You also have to disable the Windows feature which turns off USB to save power whenever it thinks you're not using it.

However I found that playing guitar and dancing on midi pedals was too much to cope with. So I programmed my Fractal MFC101 foot pedal to send lighting bank changes whenever I select a new sound patch. My AxeFX is configured to pass these messages on to the tablet by USB. The MFC doesn't have as many buttons as I would like so I added two external press-to-make footswitches which deal with cycling through lighting patches within the bank, and setting Tap Tempo.

To keep it simple each lighting bank sets a colourway. There are three lighting patches in each bank: sound-to-light from the guitar signal, pulsing from Tap Tempo, and flashing from Tap Tempo. Most importantly, the uplighters on the drum kit flash in time with Tap Tempo, which keeps the drummer on tempo without a click in his ear.