Daisy chained LED failure

I have no capability to have colored lights on my stage, but everything worked great for the past 5 years.  Maybe you can help me troubleshoot my issue? 

I am using an ETC Element...at least 10 years old, though it may be older.  For the past 5 years that I have been at this school, I have 12 Lustr LEDs daisy chained together that have worked beautifully. I had them programmed to submasters 31-34, and the channels are 101-104. They were programmed red, green, blue, and white, respectively. 

In March, a student "accidentally" parked numerous fixtures, and I had to figure out A) what "parked" meant and B) how to "unpark" them. I don't remember noticing if any of those were the LEDs.

  Since that time, a few of the LEDs come on with my "ALL STAGE"  submaster, but only intermittently.  Sometimes none will turn on, and sometimes I get 2 or 3.   None of the submasters 31-34 (which used to be the colored lights) work to bring up the LEDs at all.  I have tried reprogramming the subs, to no avail.

 I did get the  tech teacher to come try to fix the issue as well, with ETC tech support on the phone.  In PATCH, the addresses show as 2/1-8 for 101, 2/9-16 for 102, 2/17-24 for 103, and 2/25-32 for 104.   The ETC tech support person that we talked to about 2 weeks ago said that these addresses needed to be changed, but I'm not sure why since it has worked fine this way for the past 5 years.

P.S. I am a junior high Theatre teacher with an older auditorium in what used to be the high school.  I don't have a lot of lighting experience, but I've been trying to troubleshoot the issue on my own since mid-March. 

What should I try next?  Could it be a park issue or a hardware/cabling thing?  Or something else entirely?  

Thanks in advance!!!

Parents
  • When you say the desk, do you mean the lighting console? I will try that.

    101 is patched to address 2/1-8, when I look at Patch. I'm assuming that the 2 refers to universe 2?

    With the color picker, I've followed the directions from the manual and still no dice.

    I'll try what you suggested and get back to you. We're doing state testing right now. :)
  • Yes desk == the lighting console

    Yes 2 is the universe

    By colour picker I mean the screen on ETC that show a colour circle you can click on to get different colours, just select the channel ie type 101 and then click on the color circle somewhere to just make sure its got a colour selected.
Reply Children
  • Thanks for the clarification on desk and universe. I have used the color picker before. Do all the MLsettings (including intensity) save on old show files?
  • Yes things like intensity are stored in the old show files along with patches etc.

    There are a few things that aren't stored there and I think the actual output setup of the console isn't.

    So lets check that universe 2 is actually configured to come out one of the sockets. To do that you have to exit out of the software to what etc call the shell, you get there by choosing exit from the CIA (the screen where you do file save and load).

    Once in the shell (you might want to resize the window) on the right hand side there is a button Local IO and if you select that you will near the top left Console IO Port1 Address 1 and Port2 we would expect 513 is that how it is set?
  • Nearly everything saves with the show file. This is why backups are so important!

    Things that don't:

    • >Setup> Desk settings - recording defaults, monitor brightness, nothing related to this.
    • Settings in the 'Shell' including output settings like DMX port addresses. If your 2nd port is NOT set at 513 then the ETC tech would suggest re-patching those fixtures. Taking a fixture to the booth will help sort that out quickly.

    Park is tricky. It doesn't have to load when you load a new show, and the option is fairly new so it depends on your software version. The current one is 2.6 and updates are free.

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