harryh733 Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 Hi everyone! Im sure the topic has been covered before so I apologize in advance if I haven't seen it.I bought 4 LED PAR 64's the other day so I could have a small lighting setup for party's and local gigs, all being controlled off my cheap and so far reliable Enttec Open DMX-USB. When I got got it all setup I could get hardly any control over the LED's without them flashing on and off or other colours flashing occasionally. I checked all the dip switches and cables as well as checking the terminator and they were all fine, so took them back to the dealer who tested the lights out and they were working fine, so he said it had to be the Enttec controller sending out a poor DMX signal. So I got myself a cheap Beheringer Eurolight today which can do the basic chases I need. But its causing the same problems again with the flashing on and off. They work fine when they are on Full RGB or Black, and it seems I can make them stable if say I wanted Red, then If I bring up maybe 5% of both Green and Blue then the flickering stops! I borrowed a different LED PAR 56 from a friend and that works perfectly with no flickering at all and I get full control!Im lost of what to do because I have a gig on Saturday and need to have them all working! Thought there might be someone who has had this problem before and might no a way to solve it!Many Thanks!Harry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkPAman Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 The only thing you do not seem to have tried is controling just one light at a time. It could be that one faulty one is messing up the others. That doesn't explain why they were OK in the shop though ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amillar Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 How many DMX channels do they take up? If they use more than you are making use of then make sure you have unpatched the ones you don't need (eg colour macros etc). I think I have seen a similar problem before and am trying to remember how it was resolved. If I remember I will post an update. Hope you get sorted. Andrew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niclights Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 If you have a separate switch on the back relating to sound-to-light, try in the other position. This was a known problem for some units. As long as a DMX signal is present it will override the sound-light mode anyway. On my units this comes with a music related low-level flicker, but only when there is ambient noise. At normal concert/club levels they don't react. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harryh733 Posted January 8, 2009 Author Share Posted January 8, 2009 Thanks for your replys!They have 5 channels in all, but only 2,3 and 4 are useful so I will take the advice on re-patching to get rid of the pointless ones! They have the separate switch for audio and auto, both settings seem to still cause the problem! Its one of those really annoying problems that has no obvious answer it seems! ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smalljoshua Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 What brand are they? Josh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amillar Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 Are you running them all on the same DMX start address or on different ones? If different, check there is no overlap. Also check that there is no Slave mode setting which may also cause an issue. A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.I think I have seen a similar problem before and am trying to remember how it was resolved. If I remember I will post an update. I have remembered (well actually found the pdf manual for the unit that caused the problem which reminded me what the issue was!!). The problem I had before was due to a feature whereby the units would "sync" or slave across the DMX chain when one of the channels was set to a certain value - I didn't want the feature and couldn't work out how it worked anyway so I unpatched these particular channels from my desk. This cured my problem but yours could be totally different especially when the dealer can get them to work etc. Do any of the units work on their own? Andrew. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Pearce Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 What DMX address are you using?Some LED pars only address up to 128, the dipswitches beyond that enable sound to light/colour scroll etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oramm Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 Hi I recently purchased some led cans and came across the same problem I found that it was the polarity of the DMX. I will assume that they are running on 3 pin DMX. The normal setup for the polarity of the pins in the cable is. Pin 1-ground Pin 2-data+ Pin 3-data- But some products run on the system of Pin 1-ground Pin 2-data- Pin 3-data+ This can normally be resolved by a small switch on the back of the control desk that will change the polarity of pins 2 and 3 the problem you have is that if you swap the polarity over the items you had working on the desk already will no longer work. If the desk doesn’t have the switch then the simplest thing to do is to make a cable that crosses pins 2 and 3 or simply swap the cable around inside the led can. Sorry if this is not very clear I am rubbish at writing and please excuse any spelling mistakes P.s. the cans that I brought were from thomann and were made by starvill I think that we have purchased the same product Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niclights Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 This can normally be resolved by a small switch on the back of the control desk that will change the polarity...I think you'll find that is not a common feature. Also, normal polarity is pin3 hot, not pin2 ;) But wrong polarity would result in no control at all, so I would think rather unlikely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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