Leaderboard

Fixing an address issue is much harder than doing it right in the first place. Everything has to be right for it to work and it's easy to skip over things because you don't believe they can be wrong - especially if it used to work and now doesn't. @Edward Z88 suggested, you can patch these fixtures as multicellular fixtures (as long as they are in the library). This might help avoid these problems and allow the desk to use the fixtures in the best way. Stick with what you've got for now though - until you are more confident. Try and follow a logical sequence when diagnosing. For example... If a fixture doesn't appear to respond to the desk, even it it is doing mad random things you are not telling it to then check the DMX connections. Start with a terminator plug at the end of the line, swap out cables one at a time in case they are faulty. Worth noting that a wiring fault will often - but not always - start part way down the line and affect all the fixtures further on. Beware of cheap fixtures aimed at the DJ market. These often have a mode where the first one generates a colour/movement/strobing pattern and controls the fixtures further down the line. Sometimes this auto mode kicks in if there is no DMX signal owing to a missing/faulty DMX cable. Nothing against such fixtures, use them myself, but it is an extra headache. If all the wiring seems good then addresses and/or modes of the fixtures not matching what you have patched is next. If there is some sort of overlap this shows up as the fixture doing something just not what you expect. This is the situation you were in. Easy to be sure of this in hindsight but it was what @Edward Z88 and I suspected because it matched the symptoms you described. If there's no overlap then the fixture just sits there and doesn't respond. No shortcuts to this one, you have to look at the fixture,check it's mode and address and then go back to the desk and make sure they agree, if they don't then change one or the other. The desk doesn't let you overlap fixtures or choose invalid addresses so it is more likely to have the right address than the fixture so you'd probably change the fixture. If the fixture has the mode you want then you might have to change the desk and (in extreme cases) you might have to re-address a load of fixtures to do this (if the mode you want uses more channels than the mode you've got). Finally, there's the possibility of a faulty fixture. Setting it to the same address and mode as a known good fixture will tell you if it is working properly. There is a chance that it is some setting other than address and mode but a hardware fault is probable. You can also get situations where a fixture works fine but messes up the signal to the next and subsequent fixtures on the line so it could be the immediately prior fixture causing the issue. Finally, a fixture plugged directly into the desk with a short length of cable may fail to work when it's out in the rig. This take you back to the first set of diagnostics but bear in mind that the signal degrades over distance and number of connections so the last few fixtures don't work as they should. The official DMX standard specifies that a terminator is required. "Pro" (i.e. expensive) fixtures often have this built in but cheaper ones may not. If you don't have one then the signal reflects back off the end of the wire and confuses things.

We all have questions from time to time. Build your knowledge - Zero 88 training is free and well worth doing, there's the videos and, of course, there's the manual. When you run across something you can't solve then you may be able to find a previous post on the forum for the same or a similar problem that will give you the answer. If not then the forum is the best place to ask, there's a lot of very experienced people in addition to the experts from Zero 88. You'll usually get help pretty quickly and it seems that someone from Zero 88 is keeping an eye on new posts at least during office hours and often beyond. Try not to have problems during the Edinburgh Festival though - they are pretty busy then 😁. I've been lighting stages for about 50 years (DMX and desks as we know them now weren't invented for the first couple of those decades) but I still have questions and still learn better ways of doing stuff so don't be embarrassed to ask. The only dumb questions are the ones that aren't asked. Enjoy your journey 🙂

Fair point. We've established that the fixture works correctly with one starting address so it should be OK with any starting address. So, set it to the correct address (making certain that it is in 36ch mode) and make sure that the address of the first cell in this group on the desk is the same and see if it is OK now - it should be if you've got addresses and modes correct.

If, as you claim, 5 & 6 have the same starting address, are both in 36ch mode and neither is faulty then this should not happen. Bit of a long shot this but take the DMX line from your desk direct to fixture 5 and unplug 7 from 6. If you have a DMX terminator plug it into the DMX out of fixture 6. We are looking for a bad DMX connection here. If there's no change take the feed from the desk to 6 and connect 5 to the DMX output on 6. Move the terminator to 5 (If you don't have a DMX terminator then get a couple, they are fairly cheap on ebay/amazon. Put them in your toolbox and always try them first if things don't behave as expected.)

Can you post a link to the fixtures manual or, failing that, photos of the pages detailing the fixture's modes and channels.

I think you have. It looks to me as if you've made the address changes on the desk - what @Edward Z88 meant was to change the address on the fixture and leave the desk alone. In this case the desk only "sees" one fixture but both fixtures should behave the same.

Ah, I didn't know the shift and record was just a shortcut for snapshot, thought it was some magic key combination! Thanks

Ideal thanks.

Thanks @Edward Z88 This is what I have done for now, it was more so I can add remove easily without having to update the cue. Thanks for adding to the wish list.