Console can't control lights

Hi! I'm a high school student in technical theatre 15, so my terminology may not be correct. Anyways, we have a colorsource av console 40, and source four lights. We've had these lights up and running for maybe two weeks, and have been refocusing them. A couple of days ago three of our lights could no longer be controlled, they wont turn on or anything. One of them shows that it's power is on but the other two did not. They were working perfectly before. We checked the power and it was not the problem. Upon looking at the patches, we saw that the ones that don't work have white text and the ones that do have yellow. We tried rearranging them, checking that everything was right, deleting them and re adding them, but nothing has worked. We can't find the dmx number on the light, so if anyone knows where it would be that would be great to know. The lights are a spot and two par's. Also, if you know what the white vs. yellow text means that would be super helpful too. Does anyone know what the problem is? Thank you!

  • Hello,

    I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble with your system.  

    Fixtures that appear in Patch in Yellow text indicate they've been found via RDM (Remote Device Management).  That's a protocol that runs through the DMX cable and can let your lightboard "talk" to your fixtures to find out what type they are, and what mode they're in.  If they're showing up in White in Patch, that means they've been patched without RDM (which is the typical way).

    For the two fixtures showing that power is not on, you should see if you can plug their power into the same source as the one that's on, or maybe even just bring them to a known-good outlet on the wall (without DMX) and see if they turn on there.  Depending on your system, there could be a separate channel in the lightboard that turns the power to those fixtures on-and-off.  Whoever helped plug in / set up your system will hopefully know that answer.

    To troubleshoot this further, we'd need to know what sort of fixtures you have, how many, and what they're plugged into for power.  It may be faster to phone / contact whoever sold the system, since they may have paperwork for your system readily available.

    If you're in North America, you can call ETC Tech Support 24/7/365 at (800) 688 - 4116.  

    Thanks, -MattP.

Related