Need Fixture profile

stupid question, and sorry for asking this: are you sure, that the fixtures have been set to mode 5 and to the correct address...

No problem,

Yes they are all person 5 and I tested them to make sure they were on the correct addresses. I actually used the console to create the plot so that I knew where they would fit in the patch.

Another question. When you say flicker, as in random flashes while you are controlling them, or like a strobe channel that has been inadvertently activated? Is it just one color that flashes, or all colors? Is the Pan/Tilt smooth like you would expect, or are you finding it jumpy? Do all of the units flash at the same time, or each does its own thing.

How are these fixtures wired in with everything else. You mention 40 units all together. Are they all on one DMX chain, or do you have some Opto's in line somewhere. Is is possible to put these Chauvet units on their own chain off of an Opto. Or for troubleshooting purposes, can you temporarily plug them straight to the console and see if you still have the same behavior with nothing else on the DMX chain?

@Travisres

The flicker could be described at a blink of an eye. real quick and only once. They all do it at the same time and not at any set interval. the interval is about every 2-3min.

Any color will do this. if the master intensity for that fixture is greater than 0%   EX; if the fixture was red, it would just blink  once.

The units are functioning normal. all movements are smooth and the zoom shutter are fine.

The wires are as follows:

Console > dimmer rack > LED Par > Q-Spot 560 > 3x 419z > Q-Spot 560 > optical splitter > 2x 419z

(no more than 12 fixtures per each line of the Optical splitter)

All other moving fixtures in all dmx address are behaving fine and are not twitching or acting abnormally.

I'm several hours from the venue and would have to get scaffolding put up to get them down for any direct testing. (I'm having a tech at Chauvet test these fixtures on a similar ETC console at the manufacture. just waiting on results) If chauvet doesn't turn anything up I may have to do something to the wiring. Just trying to pin done the weak link.

@Travisres

The flicker could be described at a blink of an eye. real quick and only once. They all do it at the same time and not at any set interval. the interval is about every 2-3min.

Any color will do this. if the master intensity for that fixture is greater than 0%   EX; if the fixture was red, it would just blink  once.

The units are functioning normal. all movements are smooth and the zoom shutter are fine.

The wires are as follows:

Console > dimmer rack > LED Par > Q-Spot 560 > 3x 419z > Q-Spot 560 > optical splitter > 2x 419z

(no more than 12 fixtures per each line of the Optical splitter)

All other moving fixtures in all dmx address are behaving fine and are not twitching or acting abnormally.

I'm several hours from the venue and would have to get scaffolding put up to get them down for any direct testing. (I'm having a tech at Chauvet test these fixtures on a similar ETC console at the manufacture. just waiting on results) If chauvet doesn't turn anything up I may have to do something to the wiring. Just trying to pin done the weak link.

Hi John Mark,

Good that Chauvet is looking at it. 

Just confirming... the 3 units before the opto and the 2 units after the opto, all of them still flash at the same time? That is very odd. Then next time you are at the theatre, can you try unpatching a couple of them in the console and then report back if the unpatched lights still blink with the rest. This may help to tell if it really is a profile thing in the console or something else.

Also, just looking at your profile. While I assume that this isn't connected to the problem, I noticed when mucking with the color picker that it won't let you pick anything in the blues area. Looking at the profile, your hue parameter has the user max set at 100 and the label as %. The console default is user max 360 and the label as degrees. While I would assume that if there is only one range and you set user max at 100, it would change the behavior of that channel to work at a 0-100 scale, it appears that is not the case. Just because Hue-Sat land in Eos confuses the crap out of me, I would delete both Hue and Sat and let the console add them back in automatically with default values. 

I'll have the tech there unpatch some and see if they still blink in sync

To answer you question: Yes the ones before the optical and after it blink at the same time

The Hue and Sat channels were add by the console not me. :-\  so Not sure why they are like that. I'll take a look at them.

Could try changing the DMX speed on those ports? Try slow, and then  fast ? 

I was wondering if that might be an issue with the fixture but didn't know you can change that in a console. ( I was thinking about buying a Swisson RDM XMT-350 to try and fix this and I discovered that there are different spends of DMX )

Is that an easy setting on the console? I'll have to look that up in the manual because I didn't know it could be changed.

Yes its easy to change - just exit the Eos Application and once in the Shell go to Setup 

and on the right, select the I/O Tab. 

Here you can adjust the DMX Speed

of each output individually. 

I'll give that a shoot.

Thanks Corey

Are you using dmx terminators? I know only some of the units are flashing, but it may be worth a shot trying a dmx terminator(s).

@Bosox242

I'm not really sure where I would put a terminator? I thought terminators were for really long runs of DMX to correct for noise issues in the signal.

I attached a quick sketch of the system layout.

DMX terminators go on the "DMX thru" of the last fixture in every chain of DMX.

They are always recommended regardless of the length of your run, because not only do they absorb reflections, but they also show up wiring faults like "one core/pin broken".

If only one of the data cores of your DMX cable is broken, then fixtures will often continue to work some of the time, with occasional random twitching or bad response.
With a terminator fitted, the fixtures will simply stop responding if the wire's broken so you can easily find the broken wire before the show and fix it.
- Solving the problem before the twitch ruins your show or the other core comes free and you lose the rig while it's up in the air.

Incidentally, reflections normally only make the fixtures twitch at certain points along the wire, not everything, and an unterminated broken core is often similar.

All that aside:

Try removing/bypassing the LED pars.

Some of the 'cheaper' LED pars have poor DMX reception circuits, and a lot of them have a "master/slave" mode that can activate unexpectedly.
Either of these issues can affect everything else on the DMX segment.
Eg, If the PAR bottom-left of your diagram is the cause, it's going to affect everything - as that's the line feeding the DMX splitter!

If this is the cause, then the solution is to put the misbehaving fixture(s) on their own output(s) of the DMX splitter, without any other types of fixture on the same DMX line.

Finally, in general it is best not to have any fixtures between the console and the DMX splitter.
One of the reasons to use a DMX splitter is to isolate possible problems so if one fixture misbehaves, you only lose the small number of luminaires on that splitter output and the rest of the rig isn't affected.

While this isn't always possible/practicable, in your system you might be able to do this by running a second Universe of DMX from the Element directly to the splitter.

Is there any way I can get a ETC person to create a quick profile for this? (info at top of post)

I've wired the fixture straight to the console and it still flickers and blinks intermittently. I need to eliminate the console as a variable.

I also tried adjusting the speed of the DMX signal in the shell settings of the Element. that did not change anything.

If one of you guys would like to take a shoot at creating this that would be cool as well.

As An edit: I visited the venue and the fixtures do not always blink in sync. they more often blink at random.

The attached showfile is untested and doesn't include lamp controls. You can manually set the User 1 parameter (in Beam->Form) to do lamp controls as needed. Built in version 2.1.0. Please note that it's zipped currently. You will need to unzip it before transferring to your console.

5516.QWash 419Z LED 2014-01-14 10-31-39.zip

I'm sorry we missed your earlier profile request -  EDIT: Looks like it was initially a turn-around time issue. We can take care of it now though. -- I do see this in a future version of Eos. I'll see how quickly we can get that profile into a fixture library patch for 2.1.0/2.1.1 (coming soon).

Hans

Thanks Hans,

I will pass this along to my client to test.

Hi John,

One last thought - I missed that this fixture is actually in the v2.1.0 default fixture library. All your client would need to do would be upgrade, and it would be available to patch.

Updating Eos Family Software

Thanks!

Hans