the grumpy one

Bit of an odd one. I just wondered if anyone else has had this issue. We have 4 CCT regal 6 DMX dimmers in our small studio theatre. On Saturday, whist we were shut, we had several local power dropouts and spikes. Some one had not followed procedure and turned the dimmer power off. They had turned the lighting board off. The fire alarms went off on Sunday. The key holder came in to find the whole 18K rig on full and the studio temprature had gone up above 50C. They just un-patched everything from the dimmers. When I came to investigate, I found that all the dimmers were still outputting 100%. I turned on the lighting board. But this did not take control of the dimmers. I turned the dimmer power off and all returned to normal. Has anyone else ever had this issue? Would it happen with modern dimmers? It is a bit worrying that a mains spike can open the thyristors to full and hold them open until power is turned off.

I recently purchased a ADJ MyDMX Buddy. £50 from thomanns. The free software works quite well. Just what our touring performing arts course needed. It does fades between states and chases, it even does movers. The only issue is the fixture library. Half of the included fixtures just don't work and you end up building your own, using the included fixture library editor. Steep learning curve. All you need is a laptop, which most schools have. Software, myDMX 2.1, runs in demo mode until you plug the MyDMX Buddy into the USB. So you can try before you buy, to see if it is for you. In demo mode everything works. With the standard Buddy plugged in you only seem to loose 3D visuliser. https://www.adj.com/mydmx-buddy Hope this helps