Strange erratic behaviour when lights plugged into DMX

[mattyo96]

Here is my situation:

I have a very basic and cough , cheap rig consisting of:

1 Smart SSC-2

1 American DJ Revo Roll LED

1 Stairville Par 56 LED

&

1 KAM Par 38 LED

And up until very recently they have worked in DMX very well with no problems. But since say last few weeks or so they have developed a strange fault when DMX is plugged into them. The Smart SSC-2 either spins the colour and gobo wheel really fast in a random XY position or Stobes White Spot. The Revo Roll LED goes to the red pattern and the barrel spins extremely fast. And the LED pars cycle through all the colours that it is possible for them to make extremely fast. All of these actions happen when the controller is on and on a blank show or scene as I erase all my scenes after about a week or so (don't ask why) so no data should be being sent out, and when I go to start programming and select the fixtures none of them respond as if they are on blackout (but it is not switched on).

My first thought is that it was probably the cables so I bought in 7 new DMX cables (not mic cables, I actually bought 8 but took the 8th one apart to check the shielding ect to make sure it wasn't a mic cable) , they just arrived today and I tried them out, But the fault was still there. So I am not sure wither it is the controller or the PCB board (whatever that is) in the fixtures or the XLR connectors.

PLEASE HELP!!

(I bought 7 cables because I have 2 new ADJ lights on order, Revo Sweep and Mystic LED and funnily enough they are going to be delivered on xmas day :L )

[smalljoshua]

Have you tried without the SSC2?

 

Mine tend to spit out a load of bad DMX whenever they feel like it.

 

Josh

[david.elsbury]

Troubleshooting 101:

 

Start with 1 piece of equipment connected to the controller.

It would be worth, once you have a working system with the controller and 1 cable, swap the cables out and verify that the system still works with each cable, then you know all the cables are good.

 

If it works, start adding more equipment 1 by 1 until the system stops working. Then you have found your problem piece of equipment.

 

If you find one bit of gear doesn't play nicely with others, you could consider buying a DMX splitter (these are a plug-in device that regenerates the signal, you cannot just make a split cable) which might solve your problems as the splitter will isolate the DMX stream and the faulty unit won't be able to "talk back" and affect the others.

 

[Richard CSL]

this all sounds remarkably like the DMX X over switch on the controller has been moved.

[David A]

one of your units is probably in master mode and sending out DMX signals to confuse the other units, so test one at a time to see if that is the problem.

[mattyo96]

one of your units is probably in master mode and sending out DMX signals to confuse the other units, so test one at a time to see if that is the problem.

 

cheers , it turns out the controller was sending out a dodgy signal , thanks for all your helps though guys :** laughs out loud **: :biggrin:

[Brian]

cheers , it turns out the controller was sending out a dodgy signal , thanks for all your helps though guys :** laughs out loud **:

To help people who might have a similar problem in the future could you provide more information as to how you fixed it?