Cobra Colour COntrol 24

[Just Some Bloke]

Hello all.

 

I went to help out the guys at a church hall this morning, who were having problems with their lighting setup (i.e. no-one knew what they were doing!). I managed to get everything sorted for them (e.g. "when we use the LED Pars, sometimes they flash" - "that's because the intensity channel is also a strobe channel so if you don't want them to flash you need to keep that fader below 60%" etc.) but struggled wit the generics (not like me!). There were 4 500w fresnels on stage plugged into a 4-channel dimmer which had the start address set to 001. There were 4 500w profiles FOH plugged into another similar 4-channel dimmer with the start address set to 005. When I brought up channel one on the board it brought up all 4 of the fresnels. When I brought up channel 5 it lit 2 of the profiles, with channel 6 controlling the other 2. At first I assumed I was controlling scenes rather than channels, but the board was showing it was set to '1-48 Single' and the LED cans were definitely running as channels, as was the final piece of the armoury, a 4-circuit RGBA tungsten flood top-lighting from LX1. This all suggested that I was, in fact, controlling channels not scenes.

 

When I got someone to fade up channel one on the desk and looked at the dimmer, it clearly showed that it was receiving data on channels 1-4 and when we tried channels 5 and 6 on the desk the other dimmer showed it was receiving data for 2 channels each.

 

Looking at the manual, then, my thought is that it's a patching thing: that channel 1 on the board is set to control DMX channels 1-4, 2, 3 and 4 are set to control nothing, 5 is set to DMX 5+6 and 6 is set to DMX 7+8 (this can be done) but when I tried re-setting the patch by setting channels 1 - 8 to control DMX 1 - 8, it didn't fix the problem (nothing changed).

 

Does anyone know of a way to reset all the patch 1:1 in one go?

 

Or can anyone come up with another reason it might be doing what it is doing?

 

Many thanks.

[Gerry]

Are the 4 channel dimmer packs the showtec/ botex/ elation type packs?

If so have one of them been set to use all 4 channels via one DMX address and the other to use 2 channels via 2 DMX addresses?

Cheers

Gerry

[p.k.roberts]

As Gerry said, if they are the generic 'cheapo' packs, there is an' all channels work from the first DMX channel' mode;

 

http://www.electrovision.co.uk/technical/492.pdf

[Just Some Bloke]

It is, indeed the cheap Showtec-type, but it didn't have dip switches, just some buttons, none of which seemed to change the mode. Maybe I just didn't get the correct button-pushes.

[Gerry]

It is, indeed the cheap Showtec-type, but it didn't have dip switches, just some buttons, none of which seemed to change the mode. Maybe I just didn't get the correct button-pushes.

my bet is someone has been button pushing and got the settings wrong.

they don't have dip switches. the start DMX address is set using the buttons as is whether it works in 1,2 or 4 channel mode or one of the preprogrammed chase modes or even switc mode instead of dimmer mode.

cheers

Gerry

 

ETA

You can download the manual from http://www.google.es/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDgQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.highlite.nl%2Fsilver.download%2FDocuments%40extern%40Manuals%2F50386_MANUAL_GB_V2.pdf&ei=4TCKU-epI-nO0QXC_IGICw&usg=AFQjCNFXjS-PJxg33C_rlsYQy-8BljhKig&bvm=bv.67720277,d.d2k

[Just Some Bloke]

Thanks Gerry. Although the dimmer packs are not exactly the ones you've linked to, the menu buttons are the same so I'll give that a go. It certainly looks promising.

 

Eric.