strand 200 series desk and martin cx2

[john@rockdesign.co.uk]

Hi all.

 

A new member with what will probably be a simple question, but here we go none-the-less.

 

I have just invested in a new Strand 200 series 12/24 desk. We have also added a new Martin CX-2 colour changer as an introduction to DMX controlled lights. We have 4 Source 4 Jnr's and 4 Fresnels which I am able to get working as before when using a zero88 plus desk. I have spent 4 hours today trying to work out how to get the Martin recognised by the desk with no success at all, not even a glimmer of light. The desk runs from a zero88 chilli 12-10i dimmer, which is showing me DMX: 1 and Temp: OK, so I think everything to the desk is OK.

 

I have set the DIP switches as I think it should be set according to the CX-2 manual... which is not the easiest to understand for beginners.

 

Anybody able to offer assistance?

 

Thanks.

 

John.

[richard]

without knowing the unit you mention specifically I can not help massively, however the guidance I could give is..

 

1) Have you got the desk set in wide (single scene) mode? This means that the bottom row of faders will operate channels 13-24

2) I am assuming that you have not altered the patch..

 

This would sugges to me that you should address your colour changers to start at 13 - which would be dip switches for the values 4, 8 and 1 - so switches 1, 3 and 4 (assuming that your cx1's have binary addressing.

 

The DMX cable should probably go out of the desk, into the dimmer, out of the dimmer and in to the martin unit. If the martin unit is 3 pin then you will need an adaptor wired in the correct way to join the two together.

 

This would mean that faders 13 onwards would work with the martin units. now the 200 is not a moving light desk, but theoretically you should see something happening when you move the faders.

[GridGirl]

Welcome to the Blue Room, and also the wonderful world of DMX-controlled lights! I've just had a quick look at the manual (thankyou Martin for putting it online!), and you're right, it could be slightly clearer...anyway, I'm guessing that you're running either six or twelve channels of dimmers, so theoretically your CX2 needs to be addressed either to channel 7 or channel 13 - so your dipswitches will need to be set to either 1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0 (1 being on and 0 being off) or 1,0,1,1,0,0,0,0,0 with the 10th and 11th dipswitches being off in both cases (I'm sure someone has explained dipswitch stuff here before, so I won't go into it now!). This should set it into full DMX mode on channels 7-10 or 13-16.

 

When you plug the unit into hot power (never a dimmer), I'm pretty sure it should spark the lamp automatically - it's been a while since I came across a CX2 and the manual is not forthcoming on this point! So, before powering up, check the DMX address, check that your power source is OK and that the DMX cable running from your dimmer to your CX2 is ok - I note from the manual that you'll need a 5-pin/3-pin converter, cos the CX2 won't take 5-pin DMX.

 

So, you should have DMX running from your desk to your dimmers and then from your dimmers to your CX2. If you plug the CX2 in and switch it on, the lamp should spark up. If you've got it addressed to channel 7, then channel 7 should control intensity, channel 8 your colour wheel, channel 9 the gobo wheel with channel 10 as a speed control which you probably want set to 0, given the console. Theoretically, it should all now work!

 

Hope I've helped some, good luck

[richard]

You could also look at the wiki at DIP Switch for more guidance to setting the Dip switches

[john@rockdesign.co.uk]

Thanks to all the replies. Helps a great deal. I think I had the dip switches set to the config 11100000 but I will try with 2 set to 0. I thought I understood the whole dip switch issue, but maybe not after all.

 

I'll hopefully be trying over the next couple of days to get over and get the thing working, so I'll let you know.

 

Thanks again.

 

John.