The Avolites Discussion Forum

Hi,
I've experienced a problem when tying into venue dimmers with a tiger touch 2 console. This has happened in a few venues that have previously worked fine with the same desk.
All touring fixtures and signal have worked fine on other dmx lines and swapping the house dmx line into other dmx lines on the same console haven't solved anything.
When the same dmx line is plugged into the venue console it works fine which I assume eliminates a cable issue.
We have tested the console back at the warehouse with our own dimmer racks and it works fine. Even sending the dmx feed for our toured fixtures through the same venue tie lines works fine as I wondered if it may have been a signal strength issue.
It doesn't seem to be an issue tied to a certain dmx line and as mentioned we can go into a venue and have no problems one day and then go back for another show later in the year and have problems.
I have tried clearing the show files to a brand new empty patch but still no luck. The fault tends to be either no output control at all or when you plug the venue dmx line in you get random output and flickering even with no output from the desk and a clear programmer.
Has anyone had this issue too or got any ideas?

Thanks

I had that problem the other day with my mobile... the house uses old ETC dimmers and a newer ETC console. They were having problems with random flashing so ETC rep was called in and he said that the system "was double grounded" and his remedy was to remove the ground wire from DMX cable coming out of console to dimmers. That actually works for their console but when using that cable on the Mobile I got no output at all and a regular cable just caused random flashing. Due to time constraints I just ended up running 2 consoles. Odd thing about all of this was that we play this venue every year and it was never a problem in the past.

That sounds like exactly the same problem as we've had this week. Etc sensor dimmers and etc ion console, although I've had similar issues in other venues where the in-house consoles have been older avo consoles and not always etc dimmers.
Luckily in those shows I've been able to balance 2 consoles but that won't be the case with every show.

I have never seen anything like this but, assuming this is not already the case, it might be worth running through an opto-isolated splitter. This is generally good practice anyway as it will protect your console outputs in case of a fault.

I actually put a Doug Fleenor opto isolator in line but it didn't help any of the issues.. and I agree with Nic that it should be common practice to do that!

Jlamps, you weren't at the Opera House in Newberry, SC where you?

We tried with and without a splitter in line and it made no difference unfortunately.
And Oaksld no it wasn't Newbury, this latest one occurance was at Lighthouse Poole. It seems that they have had issues with their own console and dimmers previously but it still doesn't explain why we have similar issues at other venues on occasion.
It does seem as though there is something related to our console as that is the common denominator across the different venues.

For some dimmers it may be worth increasing the break length in DMX Settings. Press the cog icon next to Expert DMX and enter a new value for Break Length. Try something between 2000 and 4000 microseconds and see if this resolves your problem, the default is 968 microseconds. This setting will be stored as part of your show file so it will be maintained from venue to venue.

Thanks Gregory, we did try adjusting the break length but only approx 200 in either direction so maybe by increasing that much more it might be more successful. I'll bear that in mind for next time.