Chilli switch for LED fixtures

[Simonkbike]

Evening,

 

Location is a village hall, mainly traditional lanterns on 4 lighting bars, bank of Chilli dimmers (one=12x; one=24x; 1=4x), all controlled through a Solution desk. The 4 channel box provides a switched supply (no dimmer) to a socket at each bar; i.e. with a dmx signal >0, the power is on. I don't have access to the original installation specs but it was circa 2010.

 

Q1: I checked that the dimmer law is showing "normal" so can I assume that these are the "bypass switches" on the Chilli product range rather than dimmers? How else would I confirm this?

 

The problem is that I need to use this to power the couple of LED fixtures we have, with the result that every fade to blackout powers the LED off/on causing a brief flash. I know it would be best to provide separate permanent power supply to the lighting bars, but with no budget it ain't going to happen, so I have to work with the feed through the Chilli boxes. My current thought is....

 

Q2) Can I remove the DMX control from a single channel and switch the power directly on/off at the Chilli box?

 

I read the Chilli manual (but I quickly got lost) and tried setting a channel to manual, level=100 to no effect (the Solution desk remained the only way of switching the channel), so if anyone can provide step-by-step instructions, that would be great.

 

New to this stuff so any alt suggestions welcome (apart from re-wiring!)

 

S.

[Jon Hole]

Hi Simonkbike,

 

The Chilli 4 is a "HF" rack - that means it has 4 x relays and also 4 x 0-10v dimming, which combined are used when dimming fluorescents and the like. It sounds like your installation has used this just to provide 4 relay channels, and they're just ignoring the 0 - 10v, which is quite common.

 

Therefore, you should be able to go into manual, like you say, and turn them to full to turn them on. I don't see a logical reason why that wouldn't work, so I'd first suggest you try that again on the 4 channel unit.

 

Another option would be to simply record those 4 channels onto a submaster, and leave that submaster at full. The only things that could then affect those channels would be the 4 channel faders (maybe tape over them?) and the grandmaster (other submasters / cues wouldn't be able to affect them).

 

An even better option would be to patch 4 "video" channels (there is a video channel fixture in the patch library under "standard fixtures") to those 4 addresses, and record that those at full onto a submaster. Although it sounds strange, because video channels are beamshape parameters rather than intensities, they aren't affected by the grandmaster / blackout button, and because they'd be a fixture, it's far harder to select them and wheel the parameter up/down by accident compared to just touching one of the faders.

 

Hope this makes sense?