Zero 88 Fat Frog Sticky DMX Problem

[AlexRB]

Hi

Wasn't sure whether to post this in lights or smoke as it's to do with running a smoke machine through a lighting desk! So basically I work at a small scale venue (40 seat performance studio) where most of the staff are volunteers, and we've recently upgraded all of our equipment - with what is essentially very old equipment but is much better than our previous even older equipment! I'm in charge of our technical department, and I'm not a trained technician, however I have had a lot of experience working around people who are and I've asked lots of questions, read lots of threads and watched lots of videos to try and solve lots of problems and set up a DMX ready theatre, which I have completely done, except for one thing; correctly setting up our new smoke machine PROPERLY. Now Ive already done the basics, the smoke machine is ALREADY set up and I have control of it through our Zero 88 Fat Frog desk. It's at the end of my DMX loop and when I press the flash button on the desk, the smoke comes out. What's the problem you're probably thinking? The issue is that no matter what DMX channel Is set the smoke machine at (it's a brand new Beamz S1500 from a retailer, so its not something dodgy from China!!!) it will only come through the desk at channel 32 - as in slider and flash 32. That happens at every DMX channel programmed on the smoke machine from 1-48, by which I mean if I programme the smoke machine to DMX channel 10, the Fat Frog does nothing except on channel 32, where it will always pump out smoke. If you programme the smoke machine above DMX 48, nothing happens through the desk at all (as in desk channel 32 stop being armed for smoke). Does this make sense? I've read the smoke machine manual which is a page flyer, and that's useless, and I've searched the net for answers but nothing. I mean I could patch the smoke machine to channel 32, but that's in the middle of a set of DMX pars which can't really move anywhere else due to them needing 5 channels each. Any ideas on the smoke machine anyone?

Thanks in advance!

Alex

[kgallen]

In the Manual on pages 3/4 there is an example DIP switch setting for DMX address 10. Can you confirm that you have tried those settings? http://media.elektro...de/10010857.pdf

 

Has the Fat Frog got a 1:1 DMX address patch or could for example desk channel 32 be patched to DMX address 10?

 

Can you check the patch to ensure there are no multiple patches. Desk channel 32 could be patched to DMX address 32 and also 10.

 

Do you know how to check these in Desk Setup?

 

Later, when you get the DMX addressing working, it is worth considering setting up the smoke machine as a fixture rather than it sitting in the middle of your generics space on an intensity channel.

 

Let us know how you get on with these.

 

You could also post in the Zero88 Forum (http://zero88.com/fo...frog-range-mk1/) although you might just get me answering there too!

 

Kevin

 

ETA - You also mention some "DMX Pars" that use 5 channels each. It's worth considering setting these up as fixtures so they aren't eating 5 channels each from your preset faders. With you talking about channel 32 on a fader it seems to me you're using the desk in wide mode to get 48 channels of single preset faders.

 

The Zero88 page for the software and manuals is at this link. Latest software is 10.12, so worth making sure that is installed.

 

http://zero88.com/su...dex/57/fat-frog

Edited September 26, 2017 by kgallen

[Kazeja]

Had a look at the manual and found it strange that there is no mention of DMX pinouts.

 

Are there any markings on the unit describing which pin does what on the 3 pin DMX connector?

 

It could be a matter of DMX + and - being swapped.

 

 

K

Edited September 26, 2017 by Kazeja

[ianknight]

It looks like a generic machine that you can buy under various brand names so there are two issues you need to check through..

 

As Kevin says - check your DMX patch and it should certainly be possible to patch any fader on the Frog to any DMX desk assuming the desks battery is ok and retaining the patch table (otherwise you'll set the address now but when you power cycle the desk overnight - it will forget).

 

The second thing to try is plugging the machine directly in to the desk output (there are two DMXoutputs on the Fat Frog and both are useable) so that the machine is at the start of the DMX Chain. The reason for trying this is the DMX Transceiver chips on these machines (as with many lower priced LED's) are very susceptible to any noise or voltage induced on the 0v rail of the DMX and so can make them unpredictable. If plugging straight in to the desk makes it behave (and assuming the desk is OK) then you will need some sort of buffer on your DMX chain between the last fitting and your smoke machine.

[AlexRB]

Hi Kevin

 

Thanks for your help. Yes, that's the same set of instructions that came with the smoke machine, and I have indeed tried the address 10 as shown in the manual. I've also tried it in reverse with off being on and on being off just in case, but no that still left me with the same issue of channel 32 being the only one armed.

 

There actually weren't anymore patches when I was initially trying to set it up. I had initially completely cleared off all settings off the desk via the super user, and I wasn't going through my DMX loop, I went directly from the smoke machine into the Frog, so there were no cross patches. I've actually just gone ahead and reset the patches though in desk setup and no change unfortunately. ?

 

Setting the smoke machine up as a fixture? I've had a little play around with trying to get to grips with fixtures, but the manual has such a small amount of information, and I wasn't sure any of our equipment would work with fixtures. If that's even possible, that sounds very exciting though! I thought that the fixture were just for things like Mac 250s - I didn't know you could put LED lights and smoke machines through them!?! Do you just set them up through the super user>desk setup>assign fixtures?

 

I will have a look at getting the latest software installed. Not sure what we're running at the moment. Thanks for all your help Kevin!

In the Manual on pages 3/4 there is an example DIP switch setting for DMX address 10. Can you confirm that you have tried those settings? http://media.elektro...de/10010857.pdf

 

Has the Fat Frog got a 1:1 DMX address patch or could for example desk channel 32 be patched to DMX address 10?

 

Can you check the patch to ensure there are no multiple patches. Desk channel 32 could be patched to DMX address 32 and also 10.

 

Do you know how to check these in Desk Setup?

 

Later, when you get the DMX addressing working, it is worth considering setting up the smoke machine as a fixture rather than it sitting in the middle of your generics space on an intensity channel.

 

Let us know how you get on with these.

 

You could also post in the Zero88 Forum (http://zero88.com/fo...frog-range-mk1/) although you might just get me answering there too!

 

Kevin

 

ETA - You also mention some "DMX Pars" that use 5 channels each. It's worth considering setting these up as fixtures so they aren't eating 5 channels each from your preset faders. With you talking about channel 32 on a fader it seems to me you're using the desk in wide mode to get 48 channels of single preset faders.

 

The Zero88 page for the software and manuals is at this link. Latest software is 10.12, so worth making sure that is installed.

 

http://zero88.com/su...dex/57/fat-frog

 

Hi K

 

Thanks for your reply. I've had a look and I can't see any. I'm happy to give it a quick swap around thought to see if it works? How would I go about swapping to test this?

Had a look at the manual and found it strange that there is no mention of DMX pinouts.

 

Are there any markings on the unit describing which pin does what on the 3 pin DMX connector?

 

It could be a matter of DMX + and - being swapped.

 

 

K

 

Hi Ian

 

Thanks for your help. Yes it does feel a little 'generic' to tell you the truth! It's certainly not an 'industry standard' smoke machine! It's more the top end of what you might get at a disco setup, but for our little studio, it does the trick...if I can get it working through our desk properly that is.

 

I didn't even know the desk had a battery! We've actually lost entire shows before when the desk has been switched off for a few days, and we haven't saved it to floppy disk - whereabouts is the battery compartment?

 

Yes, I'd already tried one. I figured it may have been our DMX loop messing with it, but no still the same thing is happening.

It looks like a generic machine that you can buy under various brand names so there are two issues you need to check through..

 

As Kevin says - check your DMX patch and it should certainly be possible to patch any fader on the Frog to any DMX desk assuming the desks battery is ok and retaining the patch table (otherwise you'll set the address now but when you power cycle the desk overnight - it will forget).

 

The second thing to try is plugging the machine directly in to the desk output (there are two DMXoutputs on the Fat Frog and both are useable) so that the machine is at the start of the DMX Chain. The reason for trying this is the DMX Transceiver chips on these machines (as with many lower priced LED's) are very susceptible to any noise or voltage induced on the 0v rail of the DMX and so can make them unpredictable. If plugging straight in to the desk makes it behave (and assuming the desk is OK) then you will need some sort of buffer on your DMX chain between the last fitting and your smoke machine.

[kgallen]

Hi Alex,

 

For the battery issue, first check the battery type here: http://zero88.com/su...ery-information

 

If it's a "newer" Fat Frog with the coin cell, follow my instructions here: http://zero88.com/fo...sue/#entry28968

 

If it's a very early Fat Frog then you'll need a soldering iron or a local-ish repairman like Ian Knight who just replied above...

 

Regards fixtures, anything can be a fixture. You could define a dimmer as a fixture if you wanted (indeed the fixture library has such a definition!). But Fat Frog fixtures are mainly there for more complex things with multiple DMX channels and attributes like colour, beamshape and pan. So like moving lights as you say, but also equally for LEDs that have colours and strobe functions. However since a smoke machine is a little special, even though yours is single channel, you could get it out of the way of your dimmer control and make it a fixture. It all depends if you need the Fat Frog's 12 fixture capacity for complex things like LEDs and movers and can't spare one for the smoke machine.

 

For your LEDs I'd expect there is already a fixture definition built - either for your exact make/model or for one with the same DMX map - you say 5 channels so I bet they are red, green, blue, dimmer and strobe. If there isn't then there is a Windows Fixture Editor where you can make your own and load them into the desk. You could look at this thread for some background on this, posted for another user with essentially the same question: http://zero88.com/fo...round-fixtures/

 

It's up to you but we can continue the detail here on Blue Room or you could move over to the Zero88 forum if you wanted to save the good people of BR the gory details...

 

However first, we have to solve your DMX addressing issue... which at this point is frustratingly unsolved... As I'm assuming all of your other dimmer and LED lights are responding to desk control as you're expecting, it's not looking good for the smoke machine. Did you keep the receipt?! To try the +/- option you'll need to swap over pins 2 and 3 in the XLR connector - or buy a "phase reversal" jobby like this: http://cpc.farnell.c...erse/dp/AV21911 (plug to socket required, photo and description mismatch on this item, so check first!).

 

Regards,

Kevin

Edited September 27, 2017 by kgallen

[pumphouse]

To me this would seem to point at a faulty smoke machine - in particular the DIP switches used to set the DMX address, or the encoder inside the machine that is 'reading' them to tell the machine what channel to respond to. I don't think it is anything to do with the desk.

 

As it's new, I'd be tempted to get the machine swapped. Sadly, despite the fact you bought it from a UK retailer, it is almost certainly going to be 'something dodgy from China' anyway - but at least you have someone more local you can go back to. If you can take it back and get them to test it that would be best.

 

Jason.

[ianknight]

 

Hi Ian

 

Thanks for your help. Yes it does feel a little 'generic' to tell you the truth! It's certainly not an 'industry standard' smoke machine! It's more the top end of what you might get at a disco setup, but for our little studio, it does the trick...if I can get it working through our desk properly that is.

 

I didn't even know the desk had a battery! We've actually lost entire shows before when the desk has been switched off for a few days, and we haven't saved it to floppy disk - whereabouts is the battery compartment?

 

 

There isn't a battery compartment as such - if your desk as has a VGA output, it could well be a Mark 2 with an easy to swap battery and as Kevin pointed out the Zero88 forum has some help there. If it's a Mark 1 desk then it's more complex as the mainboard needs to be removed to change the battery - daunting if you're not confident with a soldering iron.

 

As Kevin says - I am "local" to you and more than happy to help out with repairs and stuff like that - my details are in my profile.

[Don Allen]

I came across a beamZ S1500 smoke machine, serial number POB13590 yesterday and it did not respond to DMX when trying to use the dip switches, got some random results. After extensive testing to try and get it going, using a conventional desk and DMX tester I found the smoke machine could only respond to DMX channels 001 using dip switch settings 1xxxxxxxx0 or 002 using dip switch settings 1xxxxxxxx1. The x is don't care, could be 1 or 0. Different to the original post of DMX address 032. Definitely a smoke machine to advise people not to buy or return for a refund. It may have responded to other dip switch combinations, I was using a 96 channel desk for quick checks.

[p.k.roberts]

Just to add a bit more confusion, this version of the manual;

 

https://www.manualsearcher.com/beamz/s1500/manual?p=3

 

Seems to imply that DIP switch 10 has to be on for the machine to be DMX controlled and that channel 1's address is 0000000001 etc. etc.

[martin-144]

Yeah, the good old times of DMX switch fiddling.

 

What I find strange on the first sight, is that the numbering is wrong here. The rightmost switch seems to switch DMX on or off. So it should not contribute to the DMX address.

But somehow they seem to treat it like that. It seems when the rightmost switch is on, you have to substract 1 from the DMX address selected with the 9 switches on the left.

To have this easier, I can recommend the (Android) App "DMX Calc", which is free and without ads. I am not the author of this app, but I find it useful.

For example: The App gives for DMX Value 104 a DIP switch setting of 000101100, but the image below says its for value 105, like adding the 1 in the rightmost place.

 

[I tried to upload an image here, but it didn't work. Its the same as in the dataheet one post earlier, page 1]

 

So for the smoke machine to be on channel 32, the correct DIP switch setting should usually be 0000010001, but in this case it could also be 1111100001.

Ah, I am confused by myself now.

 

Does this make any sense?

Martin

Edited November 4, 2019 by martin-144

[Don Allen]

After seeing their Example addressing, I thought that because switch 10 had to be on for DMX, you just subtracted 1 from the DMX address to set the dip switches, with 10 on. But that is not the case. I went back to the theatre today and tried setting a DMX address of 193 and 194, but the smoke machine would not accept either address. The only DMX addresses that would work were their listed examples as I tested them. I gave up and ran it at DMX address 001 as we could free that up.

[Swissbandit]

Hi, you are absolutley right

Mine works on any address if I follow your advise

 

You must:

Switch the most right DIP up (on)

Set an Address on the smoke machine

Set an address on your DMX Controller that is ONE higher than what you set on the smoke machine!!

 

 

E.g.

Set the right most switch to 1

Set 100 on the smoke machine (001001100 1)

Set the controller to 101 (101001100)

 

Again, the switch 10 on the smoke machine (most right one must be on one for DMX control)

Edited December 13, 2019 by Swissbandit