Cross patch DMX?

[Simonkbike]

Hi,

Firstly, I'm a very newbie to this so go simply and slowly with any advice and excuse any wrong vocabulary.

 

We have a Solution control desk linked to suite of Chilli dimmers (about 30 dimmers in 2 racks and a 3rd rack with straight switches). All our lights are old non-fixtures (mix of fresnels, Pars and spots) and the Chilli dimmers and their associated power circuits are all numbered so no confusion about connection between control fader >> chilli dimmer >> light. Setup has worked fine for a couple of years, certainly when I last used it for a production in January. So far as I know it's not been touched since.

 

Today, I found that some faders on the control desk are working the wrong lights. e.g. fader 1 brings on light 1 and light 26. These are on different physical lighting bars so no confusion about which sockets they're plugged into.

 

Just in case, I installed the current ZeroOS upgrade (to 7.8?) but that had no effect.

 

 

So:

1) Can't find instructions in Chilli manual to set/confirm DMX channel for each dimmer in the rack.

2) Lots of instructions for patching fixtures for the Solution but couldn't recognise anything to help me.

 

How do I diagnose what's wrong?

 

Thanks,

Simon.

[Jon Hole]

Hi Simon,

 

If multiple channels are responding to a single fader, even after a software update, it sounds like the DMX address has been reset on one of your dimmers.

 

Check the addresses on the LCDs of your Chilli Dimmers. If the first one is address to '1', and is a 24 channels dimmer, it will require use of 24 addresses, starting from 1 upwards. This means the next dimmer should be addressed to '25' to ensure there's no overlap.

 

Hope that makes sense?

[Simonkbike]

Hi Jon,

Thanks for the swift reply. I found out this evening that the hall has been used by a pro group shooting a video so I'm beginning to suspect they've been mucking about with the addresses as you suggest. Had another read through the Chilli manual online (Page26) and I think I understand a bit more about setting the channel addresses (Top Menu >> DMX Controls >> Set DMX Patch).

 

It doesn't specifically have "View" instructions - if I enter a channel number, will it show me what DMX address it is currently set to?

 

Do I assume the channels are numbered top to bottom of the rack? I'll need to set each channel individually to match the wiring number. (sorry to ask daft questions, but it'll be late evening before I get another chance to sort it out and you'll all be a-bed!)

 

S.

[Jon Hole]

No problems on asking lots of questions!

 

You can set the 'start address' which will renumber everything sequentially, starting at whatever number you enter, or you can go into the patch and number each channel individually.

[Simonkbike]

Sorry for not updating this, in case anyone else is searching the forum. The answer was as Jon suggested, the DMX addressing on one of the Chilli racks had been reset, so 2 racks were set to the same DMX channels.

S.