DMX Power Off, Lights On

[zman]

Hey all, it has been one hell of a busy year, with little time for perusing sites and forums unfortunately. Not a lot of growth this year. Display up and running fine.

I completely took the V1 wireless out of the show this year. It failed right out of the chute. I had no time to troubleshoot it due to a display deadline for Opening Night. So the LE hardware I have in the display is all hardwired right now. I will look to move to the latest LE Wireless for next season.

I have the DMX fixtures on a switched power scheme. I keep the controllers powered 24x7. The show shuts down, then about 5 minutes afterward, the switched power grid turns itself off. When that happens, only 1 of my LEs turns on all the channels. I use the iDMX as the DMX dongle and it stays powered.

From the other post RJ said this was normal and to put the LEs on the switched power. I can see that if all 4 LE boxes were acting the same, but it is only one controller. I am just curious to know if anyone has any insight on this. Last year with the Wireless working, I had no such issue.

I hope everyone has a great season.

Mark

[rrowan]

this is normal. with the lack of any signal on the line noise will over time fool the controllers into thinking it is dmx and cause them to start coming on. If you are going to shut it all down you need to power the controllers off also. Or leave the DMX dongle powered so it can contine to send out dmx of all channels off.

RJ

Rick R.

[rrowan]

I don't have wireless but I think they runs continuously even on the receiver side so it would keep telling the LE all channels were zero or off

Rick R.

[zman]

Rick,

I did read the snippet from RJ on the other post. I am curious as to why it is always the same LE, none of the others do this. Plus it is not over time, it is immediate.

[jess_her]

I don't know if this would help but think of your  powered down data or DMX cable  as an antenna. If that cable is parallel with a power cable, electrical noise will bleed into your data cable and can cause problems. So it's a good practice to add separation between powered and non power DMX data cables and power cables. Why it would affect just that one controler, don't know. 
Just a thought

[NeverBRich]

Zman, 

Are all the LE's the same version?  Just curious

Tim

[zman]

@ Jess - Understood. I take great strides to keep data and power separated or crossing at a 90 degree path.

@Tim - Good point. I need to check. I have some V3s and V5s. The one in reference may be a V3 I need to double check.

[rrowan]

Question: Does the LE that turns on the first one in the line from the Dongle?

Rick R.

[zman]

Question: Does the LE that turns on the first one in the line from the Dongle?

Rick R.

No, it is actually 3rd in line.

[deanathpc]

I have the same issue.  OR had rather.  Now I leave everything powered up.  I used to shut it all down but had problems with the last Express I built as it wasn't getting DMX or something.  I had to fiddle with the controller for a few mins. resetting it numerous times for it to finally kick in and work.  So now everything stays powered up.  Solved my problem.

After my Halloween display and the wireless issues I have eliminated it for Christmas.  I'm not hardwired everywhere.  Solved the flicker problem I had with wireless.  Now the show runs like it's suppose to!  Looks much better.

The controllers that would light up my display was random.  For example one light tower was at 50% or so and another time one segment on one arch was on full.  Neither one is 1st or even 3rd in the line up.  Strange.

Dean

[caretaker]

DMX can be very forgiving but it can be just as flaky too. In the professional world all DMX cabling is shielded 120 ohm cable (looks like microphone cable but it isn't) because no one wants to go to a concert or theater performance and watch as lights suddenly come on or shut off when there not supposed to. (think the stage is a blue except for one red light the suddenly turns on) It is also the reason they DO NOT use DMX for pyro effects.  So while us home blinky flashy enthusiasts use cat5 to run our DMX signals to cut down on cost (or use wireless) there can be random noise introduced into the cat5 cable that will cause weird behavior in our controllers.     

[zman]

Zman, 

Are all the LE's the same version?  Just curious

Tim

This unit is a V3 for sure. So the easy fix it to switch it with the DMX fixtures and static elements of the display. It sits right next to a large Zap strobe so I will pull the power from there.

[jess_her]

Zap strobe as in  strobe light?  The affected LE does it sit close to the strobe? What is the strobe doing when powering down discharging?   I think if the strobe is next to the LE now when problems are happening I would first power down the strobe first then shut the show off then the power to the controllers  and see what happens.   If by chance the strobe is zapping the LE with electrical noise then I would shield the LE( I've used aluminium foil) and ground the foil.

[zman]

Jess,

Thanks for the additional input.

Yes. The LE is on the ground immediately below the Atomic Martin 3000. So there is about 2' between them. The AM3000 is on the switched power grid and the LE is on the static power grid.

My DMX interconnect goes into the AM3000 then out to the LE. From there it goes out to the rest of the DMX loop.

There is no way to stage the power down. AM3000 then the LE. If I moved the LE to the switch power grid, they would both be turned off at the same time.