Generic LED Pars and Patching Them

Question

Hello, 
 I have 5 generic RGB led par lights on a single bar and hooked up DMX-wise in a daisy chain method. At the end of the chain, I have a DMX cord going into a DMX Input wall plug which connects to our ETC ION in our booth. I tried patching them but they were not responding or doing anything. The lights require 7 channels per unit and i tried to use a generic LED RGB 8B as the type but it is not working. What am I doing wrong? I am not a complete expert with DMX lighting just yet.

RickR · Accepted Answer

Hi, 
 From your description there are several things that might be wrong. 
 
 The profile must match very closely. Intensity and color addresses must line up exactly to get anything useful. Strobe, macro and other functions are not so critical, but best practice is to get them all exactly. Look at your fixtures DMX chart and find the profile that matches best, then make a copy and edit it to be as close as possible. Sometime intensity is first, sometimes it's after the colors, sometimes a certain address has to be in at a certain value to use DMX at all. It seems nearly every manufacturer thinks they have a better way than the rest of the world. 
 You mention a DMX input rather than an output. Outputs are female and inputs are male jacks. This might be just terminology or you might have your wiring completely backwards. DMX officially starts at the console with it's output. (bypassing networked systems) So a wall plate for fixtures should be labeled as an output. Some places have alternate input jacks so the console can used in several places. Take a close look at the back of the Ion and the wall plate it is connected to, and look at all the other DMX jacks you can find. It's a common mistake for beginners. 
 You may not need it, but the proper way to use DMX includes a 'terminator' at the end of the daisy-chain. They are cheap to buy and easy to make, and prevent problems that are very hard to trace down. 
 You might even have a bad cable. Take one fixture to the console and use a very short, known good cable. This separates the console issues from the wiring issues. If it works you have DMX issues, if not you have Ion issues. 
 
 And of course post back here if you need more help.

Geoff Crisp · Answer

And of course if you don’t have any documentation I suggest that you address one light at 1 and then the direct connection to the console. Patch 7 dimmers starting at address 1 and then bring each channel up to see what it does. You might have to set a few of the dimmers to 50% because there may (most likely) be an intensity channel on the lamp. 
Once you know what each channel does you may find a profile to suitor you can edit one to make it work. 
I hope this helps you 
Regards 
Geoff