Fixtures loosing sync with Botex 1216 II desk

[Kenshen]

Hi all

 

Beginner alert! Sorry if not describing correctly.

 

I run small community youth music projects and we recently added a cheap, but new, Botex 1216 II desk to 4 x ADJ Mega Tripar fixtures. Just for adding bit of colour to gigs and giving the young people an opportunity to get an introduction into lighting design

 

I've previously had the lights working in master slave mode (with no desk) and they are perfectly in sync, both within colour change modes and flash effects.

 

Linking up to the desk there is an obvious "out of sync" between two sets of 2 lights. Doesn't matter which lights are in which position in the DMX loop, or which channel they respond to, two fixtures are always out of sync.

 

Same holds true when running on auto mode through 8 scenes. All four lights aren't changing colour at the same time.

 

We also have a KAM Led Powerbar (I know, the level of spend here is truly huge!) which when linking to the desk seems to be doing something very similar when I add a flash to the sequence.

 

I am using standard audio XLR cables I admit, over very small lengths, and a terminator in the last fixture.

 

Can anyone shed any light on this timing issue? Am starting to think the desk is "broken" but again I don't know enough to make that judgement.

 

Bought from an educational supplier with no lighting experts and the company are German, so kinda at a loss.

 

Any help or guidance would be much appreciated.

 

Cheers

 

 

 

[alistermorton]

First of - have you got a manual. If not it's here

 

The desk expects each device to be addressed as 16 channels, whether it actually has 16 channels or not.

 

So if you want each of your fixtures to be individually addresses they will need to be addressed as 1, 17, 33, 49 etc.

 

Maybe you have an address conflict?

 

 

 

[MarkPAman]

OK - I think I understand what's going on.

 

In Master - Slave mode, the Master runs sound to light, chases or whatever & sends out DMX so that the other 3 slaves can follow it.

 

But in DMX mode, you are setting each one to run its own sound to light or chase as a master so they will go out of sync.

 

What you need to do, is use the desk as the Master (and each lamp as a slave), program chases on the desk and not use any of the built in chases or sound to light functions.

 

 

E2A - In fact, I'd put your Mega TriPar units int 3 channel mode, run them as RGB and then you'd never have to worry about the built in programming.

[Kenshen]

Thanks folks for replying

DMX addresses all ok, in terms of scanner number on the desk. Have the manual and each light responding otherwise as expected. At the moment I'm running the lights in 7 channel mode.

Don't really need the colour macros built into the lights so happy to be on 3 or 4 channel as need master dimmer. Think I understand about needing the desk to be the master, but thought that happened automatically when lights addressed 1, 17,33, 49. Which they are.

The out of sync still happens when not using any built in effects, flash or macro on the lights, just running a bank of scenes on auto. 2 lights change colour marginally faster than the others. Not using any sound to light function on either the desk or lights.

Have been thorough all the lights and made sure settings the same, but still lost!

Thanks again for your help so far

[timsabre]

What's "marginally faster"?

Those botex-type controllers are not the finest thing out there, they are based on an old slow microcontroller and do have some delays in operation. If it's a barely noticeable delay (a few tenths of a second) it's just how those controllers are. However if you're talking about half a second or more delay then that isn't right.

[Kenshen]

Realise I'm not working with the best equipment, but definitely delays of 1/2 sec are happening and totally noticeable. Don't really know what I'm asking, but surely even the cheapest of desks should be able to "keep time" without some fixtures running in an out of sync loop, then coming back into time, then out again etc... It's like there's a crap smpte clock source or whatever the lighting equavilent is, messing with my head.

 

If that's the way it is fair enough, might have to return and buy a better desk. Get what you pay for.

Taking to a local lighting guy I know on Friday in the hope of solving or finding out what I'm or the desk is doing wrong.Will let you know how get on

Cheers for now,