timsabre

So are you saying that there's no light output, but then the entire fixture works normally after you send a DMX reset command, until you set the LEDs to blackout, at which point the LEDs no longer work again?

Not familiar with this unit but is there a menu option to restore factory default settings? Sounds possibly like some weird option setting.

On 9/30/2023 at 9:00 PM, Stuart91 said:

Another potential clue is that I did notice a bit of a tingle from the blue core, nowhere near 230v, but enough to give me a fright. That might square with the +v power being supplied that way, even if it's not needed. 

 

Well that would certainly do it... Get that voltage metered to earth then work out which fixture it's coming from. 

I think the "Return" terminal is just a way of saying DMX ground.

I would check the continuity on the hot, cold and ground legs from the controller all the way through the 5 fixtures (using a long bit of wire to get back from the far end). Then I would check for stray voltages on the DMX hot, cold and ground relative to mains earth when the first 2 fixtures are connected, then when 3-5 are connected.

I suspect you will find that there is some mixup in the wiring, possibly more than one fault, on the way through. The fact that fixtures 3-5 don't work when directly connected make it sound like some sort of grounding fault.

You don't say what cabling lengths are involved but (although not the best plan) the HO7 cable shouldn't be an issue.

The black ones I've seen (as with black XLRs) are black anodized rather than painted, this is electrically conducting still. 

Presume you've tried calling the folks at showmagic who are usually very helpful. 

Not sure what you mean by "artnet is not seeing the network card". Do you mean the artnet settings in showmagic are not available? Or do you mean the enttec ode interface isn't receiving the artnet? 

If the 2nd, download an Artnet test program onto another computer and check what's coming out of showmagic. 

Do you have a switch./hub in between the laptop and the ODE? 

Yes, I would add that the requirement for stp / screened ethercons was not originally in the x32 instructions or printed on the desk. 

We have had loads of interference troubles using utp, and also stp where the metal screen of the ethercons wasn't continuous - dropouts and clicks/bangs on the audio. You may get away with utp or you may not. 

Is there an induction loop in the venue? I have seen a similar thing where a DMX system with a broken wire (I think Data+ was connected but not Data-) worked most of the time but audio on the induction loop would make it fail.

Which ones are you looking at, just out of interest, as this is something I was thinking about too.
 

For brightness comparisons, I have done building uplighting with the Smartbat+ quite a lot on pro gigs which is 4x 8W (RGBW) and IP rated but way above your price range, they stand up well against normal ambient lighting levels so I would say look in the 32W output range.

At the price point you are considering, the LEDJ QB1 is 4x8W battery and is around £200 so that would be a good option. But it's not IP rated so depends if you'd ever want to use outside. Considering it's budget kit I have found the LEDJ stuff to be quite resilient and also you can get spares for it.

XR18 used as a 16-input soundcard to a PC would definitely be a cost effective way of doing this. Note that XR16 does not offer the multitrack USB soundcard facility that the XR18 does, it just appears as a standard stereo source over USB.

Interesting, I had no idea something like that existed.

19 minutes ago, david.elsbury said:

The audio part is fairly easy. Do you need to signal/call the remote stations? That’s much trickier 

I don't think the audio part is possible either, Tecpro (and all other similar analog comms) is a party-line audio system where a balun circuit is used at each station to both listen from and send to a single (unbalanced) audio line. I don't think that can be done with Dante.

If one end only needs to listen you could take the audio from pin 3 of the comms circuit, digitise it then extract it at the other end, but they wouldn't be able to talk back.

As you suggest, if you cannot run a 2 core screened cable for some reason then something like Green Go or Riedel over IP would be the way you would need to do it.

I think the metal click disc is an integral part of the switch and you will need to replace the switch body. It looks like the top plastic part of the switch has cracked off releasing the metal bit.

I'm sure we've all had events where a previously undetected gremlin pops up at showtime. Or, there were several problems in setup and you ran out of time to fix them all. Or you thought you'd fixed it but it turns out you hadn't.

Whoa David, it's just a conversational chat, nobody's attacking anyone's work. We all have glitches on our jobs sometimes and all he is saying is it's reassuring to know that big events have the same problems as small events. 

This forum will end up with no content at all if people don't post a bit of chat to discuss.

For simple shapes I like SCAD, it's a bit different to the others because you define the object mathematically (i.e. I'll have a cuboid size xyz then cut out a cylinder radius r height h).

if you have a mathematical or computing background it's quick to use. It's not very good for organic shapes or curvy things. But objects with a lot of repeated similar shapes are easy because you just put a loop in to create the elements.

Paul's approach is pretty much how I run my business but you still sometimes get the nightmare jobs that sounded like fun in the first place but then go downhill rapidly for varying reasons. I don't feel I can walk away from a job having accepted it so there's no escape then until you get to the end!

As suggested, ring up Jem service on the phone, you get to talk to people who know everything about the machines and they'll quickly tell you what is needed. 

In my experience LED lighting is quite prone to total or partial failures, but fading/loss of brightness is not noticeable for basic lighting.

The place where you notice it is if you are mixing particular colours with fixtures of different age ... e.g. if you mix a deep purple with lots of blue and a little bit of red, an old fixture will have lost a bit of brightness on the red so the purple will look a different colour compared to a new fixture. But if you have fixtures of different brands (or even different batches of the same brand) they are different anyway so really, it's not much of an issue.

For typical basic use e.g. white or saturated colours, you will not notice it.

My advice would be to buy fixtures from known brands because you will be able to get spares then when the inevitable failures occur. I've got some cheapy LEDJ fixtures and have had a couple of power supply module failures but a quick call to the UK distributor Prolight has had replacement parts in a couple of days.

So what recent experience have you had?

It almost certainly is the microcontroller if there's power but it's not doing anything. If you have an oscilloscope you could check the crystal oscillator on pins 18-19, I have known these fail due to bad crystal. But as it started with a dnx meltdown it's likely that fried the microcontroller too. 

The microcontroller has its software internally on Flash, you'd need to get the right chip to match your unit. The ADJ one may or may not be the same...

No I meant I could not see the board ident number on the photos. It'll be an 80C52 or similar, these controllers are all modifications of a scanner controller I designed for Abstract in the late 1990s.

I mean the 40 pin microcontroller - I can't see the part number

If the micro has +5V to it, then the most likely thing is the micro has been zapped by whatever fault took out the 75176 (sounds like high voltage on the DMX line).

I recommend you invest in an optoisolated DMX splitter to protect against this sort of thing....