leni

Thanks Peter, I'd be interested to know what these lights could do or not. I think we probably need new cables too. They are over 4 years old and in this climate, they are probably TOAST. Now to convince the owners that things do not last forever....

I'm just wondering why there is not a universal standard for dip switches? Why must the wheel be invented 152 different ways. But I suppose that's a whole nother thread... Sadly, the lights apparently do not do what I need them to do. I need to light a play, not a dance party, so I need more subtle and accurate lighting than what this rubbish can do. <>

So, here's the end story. The Vietnamese school maintenance dude actually knew one of the guys who originally installed them. (Would have been nice if he told me that to begin with...) He came by and said all the dips had to be ON and that these lights could not be set to function independently; they were too old. He got them to do solid green, red, blue, and white-ish, and do a medium flash. He said that was all they could do and they had to ALL do it together. We couldn't even get some of them to be red and some blue etc. An "all or nothing" deal. Sounds odd to me, but what the hell do I know, right? I would like to thank everyone who replied and tried to help. It's why I love theatre.

My biggest problem is that no matter what dip switch settings I use, the light is failing to respond. Or if it does, it responds and then without any change on the board, it changes and then shuts itself off. I started out with one light, with dip switch 1 on. Then with 1 and 10 on. Then with just 10 on. Those three settings seem to be the most standard settings to trigger DMX mode. It was only when 1 and 10 were both on that the light would go on to full brightness for all colours, then change to red/green/ and then go off, all while the fader 1 was at full... I'm really trying to troubleshoot here...

Thanks to all who have replied thus far. I have connected one light to the board. I have done a soft reset on the board, I think, as I got all LEDs to blink thrice. I have set the one light with dip 1 only, dip 10 only, dip 1 and 10 only (3 tries). The only response I can get is that the light turns on, then 3 seconds later changes (by itself) to red/green, then a few seconds later turns itself off, with no changes from the board. I have no terminator plug so I can't test it with a terminator plug in. When I unhook it from the DMX cable, I can set it to solid red/green/blue. I am beginning to think it is the cable...? Or the lack of a termination plug...? Could it be a software problem? p.s. I originally set all the dips for specific channels. I have done that before. Everything went haywire when I tried it, so I went back to the very beginning.

p.s. I would be super happy at this point if I could get my kit to just go "on" red then "off" red. Simple stuff. Really.

Let me begin by saying that there is no manual for these lights or for the board. Someone in their wisdom disposed of it before I came along. I have scoured the internet looking for similar lights/board and experimenting with the ones I have. Today I discovered that without DMX hooked up, dip 1=red, 2=green 3=blue, low intensity. My next 'experiment' was to start with fixture 1 and see if the board would talk to it in manual DMX mode. See above for results. Frustrating. When I had fixture 11 on red all the subsequent fixtures with dips 1 & 10 on went red just the same. Seemed like something was working ok. But as for listening to the board, nada. Like I mentioned, I could get light one to turn ON (all LEDS so white-ish) with the board, but then a few seconds later, it changed to red/green and then just quit. If I put the slider back to 0 then up full again, it would do the exact same thing. I am considering calling a priest for an exorcism. I have never seen lights do such erratic .

Most recent update: I tried to start with light #1. Tried to connect only it to the board. I could get it to turn on, but then it changed colours three seconds later and then turned itself off. WTF? I don't have a termination plug handy but I was HOPING that it wouldn't matter so much with just one light... Maybe I wrong...

Here are some pix of my problem children... I am hoping to at LEAST get the back to a master/slave set up...

Hi Matt, Thanks so much for responding so quickly! I will take some pix on Monday when I am back in the theatre and post them. I am also going to start Monday with fixture 1 and see if I can get it to listen up. Isolating 1 will make the process easier I hope. I will also check for a terminator and see what kind of cables these cheap bastards used too. It would make sense that they tried to shortcut to save money...

Hi. I'm having issues with my school's lighting system in our "theatre". I am new to the school here in Viet Nam and no one here has a clue how to use this lighting system. It is a 20 LED par can light system, 3 pin DMX throughout, a board that looks like a Chauvet Obey 40 but seems to be some kind of no-name DMX 512 desk. The lights look to have been daisy chained. In the past, they have been used as just a plain red wash or green wash or flashing mode. It was working ok but the stage looked like hell. I WANT to be able to control them individually. They were all initially set up with their dip switches set for 1 and 10 only. I have tried setting them to separate channels (i.e. changing the dip switches to 1 then 1,5 etc.) but once I did that, they started randomly flashing. I tried switching them back to 1,10 but they are still doing their own thing. I tried setting them all to the proper address with 10 switched on too. Still no response. Now, I can't even get them back to going all red. I'm fairly new to DMX systems. Can anyone offer suggestions as to what the heck I have done wrong? I also have a couple of other questions. Since I have 20 par cans but only 12 fixture buttons, can I assign 2 lights to one address? Could the polarity switch on the back of the board do this? Help, please, anybody.