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    Brian Walker
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3 Phase Power Failure

We have a bunch of the ETC SmartBars in one of our black box performance spaces and we recently had a power failure on one of the phases of power coming in to the building.  It caused some of the ETC SmartBars to start acting up.  Some of the dimmers wouldn't fade up when they came up in a cue, and instead started acting like a non-dim.  When I cycled the power on the breaker that fed the three phase circuits in that theater, they all seemed to restore to their original state.  It was very odd that only a few of the SmartBars "freaked out" when they all would have lost power.  


We also had the Element get a bit confused too, for some reason a handful of the addresses in the patch suddenly had a profile put on the dimmer curve.  In the end I wasn't on top of it enough to actually cross reference the dimmers that had the profile curve and the dimmers that hadn't been working properly since cycling power actually resolved most of the problem.  I'm wondering if the two were related though. Is it possible that the dimmers sent information back thru the network and somehow forced a profile on to the console?


Thoughts?


Brian Walker

Production Manager

Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston

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    It’s unlikely that the ETC SmartBars sent any data back to the Element console. SmartBars only receive DMX and cannot push configuration upstream. What happened is typical after a phase-loss event: some dimmers boot into a fault/safe mode, which can cause non-dim behavior or irregular fade curves until power is cycled.

    The patch-profile changes on the Element were almost certainly a console-state glitch triggered by the power issue, not something coming from the dimmers. A full reset usually restores everything. For anyone managing lighting systems—whether in theaters, academic venues, or studios that rely on digital learning materials and technical references like test bank resources or academic support libraries such as those on Academia TestBank Zone—it’s good practice to recheck power phases and console states after any electrical interruption.

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    It’s unlikely that the ETC SmartBars sent any data back to the Element console. SmartBars only receive DMX and cannot push configuration upstream. What happened is typical after a phase-loss event: some dimmers boot into a fault/safe mode, which can cause non-dim behavior or irregular fade curves until power is cycled.

    The patch-profile changes on the Element were almost certainly a console-state glitch triggered by the power issue, not something coming from the dimmers. A full reset usually restores everything. For anyone managing lighting systems—whether in theaters, academic venues, or studios that rely on digital learning materials and technical references like test bank resources or academic support libraries such as those on Academia TestBank Zone—it’s good practice to recheck power phases and console states after any electrical interruption.

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