Behringer 2412 desk and NJD Datamoon effects

[WAL]

Hi there,

 

Please excuse my dimness (no pun intended), but I'm a virtual newbie to all of this DMX lighting business.

 

I have a Behringer 2412 lighting desk (am I the only one who believes that the manual was written by a German in Martian?) and I want to run some of the old style NJD Datamoon effects from it (by "old style" I mean that they have stereo jack DMX (rather than three pin XLR) sockets.

 

The Desk has a five pin DMX outlet. I purchased an XLR adaptor for it and fed a dimmer pack and a set of par cans. I manageed to get everything working. So I know that the desk is sending DMX mesages properly and that the adaptor I bought is fine.

 

In order to get the desk to control the Datamoons, I went to Maplins and purchased an additional XLR to stereo jack converter.

 

I set the desk with the DMX channels allocated 1:1 in the "preset" mode and I set a Datamoon with DIL switch number 1 only in the "on" position. The Datamoon manual suggests that the number on the DIL +1 is the DMX start address, and so I pushed up the faders 2, 3, 4 & 5 on the desk expecting to see the Datamoon motors start to fire up and the light effects start to change..........Nothing happened. In fact pushing all of the faders up produced absolutely nothing.

 

The Datamoon works fine on its own and merrily dances in the presence of a bit of a beat, so there is nothing wrong with that. However, the effects switch off when I insert the jack into the DMX input. Since the desk appears to be working okay, I presume it is one of two things - I have either programmed the DMX addresses wrongly, or the XLR to stereo convertor is wired the wrong way around, but I am not quite sure where the problem lies.

 

Can anybody please help me?

 

Regards

 

WAL

[dbuckley]

My datamoon responds just fine to DMX512, but the use of a stereo jack is very non-standard, so a bodge cable is required. I susupect that is where your problem lies. Sitting on top of my datamoon is its crazy cable, and plugged into the crazy cable is a DMX512 three pin reverser, so mines a bodge too.

 

I also remember having to go up a ladder to adjust the dipswitches last time I used it, which is almost unheard of (I dont go up ladders) so I must have set them wrong to start with, so perhaps the bits are upside down or something. I'd go and have a look, but the DataMoon is in the shed, and it's wet out there :(

[henny]

my guess would be a cable issue

 

the lead you need should

 

Tip- pin3

Ring - pin2

Sleeve-pin1

 

 

if the lead you bought from Maplins is wired as a blanced audio cable it would have 2 and 3 the wrong way round

 

for more info see the data moon manual

 

ian

[Jivemaster]

Make the required changeover lead using a short length of DMX cable or a very short piece of screened twin mic cable. Use ONLY good quality plug / sockets.

 

I too use datamoons, in wiring order, there are some XLR DMX lights then a single converter lead and some TRS jack datamoons. Cheap plugs give too many problems.

 

PS the TRS jacks will terminate the DMX transmission line if the DMX out has no plug inserted.

[LampieManPro]

The new Datamoons oddly have XLR5 sockets which is the correct standard but they are intended for DJ disco use so a XLR5 socket is just as arkward as a TRS jack!

 

The problem is most certainly DMX pollarity try swaping the hot and cold around on ONE END of the DMX cable it would be easier to do this on the XLR end, swap pins 2 and 3 over, pin 1 should be GND (ground/earth).

 

vince

[WAL]

Time to get out the sodering iron then. That should be fun. I'm bloody awful with one of them in my hand. ** laughs out loud **

 

Thanks for the assistance guys.