Help with DMX light controller issue

A small addition.

DMX was invented in a time that lights where just bulbs. Colors where made by putting a colored filter in front of it. The lights weren’t directly connected to DMX, but to a so-called dimmer pack. These had (for example) 4 channels and only 1 single function, namely dimming! You’d hook up a couple of lights to channel 1, couple to channel 2 and so on. The dimmer pack was then connected to DMX. A simple controller would offer a few faders (often two banks) to control the channels. If you wanted more channels you’d add dimmer packs. These you could set to identical addresses as the first dimmer pack (same fader, same channel) or to the next +4 address giving you another 4 channels.

So, if you would put RED filters in front of all lights (cans) connected to channel(s) 1, then fader 1 would control the RED lights.

Then came LED lights, suddenly it was possible to get any color combination you wanted out of one can, have the dimmer inside the can, have preset programs inside, sound activation and more. Now a single fixture can have 8 or more channels to control all functionality. And it can all still be done with the same DMX. You can even mix and match modern LED lights with traditional lights (very common in theaters) and still get everything to do what you want it to.

The only thing is that to have that flexibility that modern LED fixtures need, you need either digital controllers or some kind of PC/tablet solution. The traditional controllers (like the OBEY6) are out of their depth in this case.

Sorry, I forgot to say that I know that the master dimmer must be up to have anything visible.

richard
bg.

Hey Richard, kudos for tenacity m8!

With the above settings, you should have fader 1 up (at least a bit, for testing better fully open), and then fader 5 (the one marked white) would be red and fader 6 (marked UV) would control green. Blue would (unfortunately) be outside the control scope of the controller.

While the faders are marked RGBWAWU, this is just a Chauvet choice. All the faders (should) do in manual mode is send a value from 0 (fader closed) to 255 (fader fully up) on each of the channels 1 thru 6. DMX is dumb, so it has not clue, nor does it care what is on the receiving end.

When your fixtures receive some value between 1 and 255 on channel 5 and 6 they should open up red and green lights, with the 1 fader controlling the overall dimming of the color mix.

I don’t think your fixtures have mode settings, but you can check in your manual. If they do this might give you a 4- or 5-channel mode that will put blue back inside the 6-channel range of the Obey6.

Good luck.

Chauvet and American DJ are probably the only budget brands (sorry, all ebay, amazon and such are no-budget brands imho) I would recommend. And for a 4 pack of your current ones you would get one of those. And they are truly still a budget brand. American DJ and Elation are brothers, with Elation being BIG brother. It’s not quite a high-end brand and already fixtures there are significantly better built and higher priced. If you get to the real high-end brands, prices get really serious and a good light show will cost way more than a good DJ setup. Hence the folks that buy that have no problem getting high-end digital controllers (software or hardware based) that give them the necessary configuration options.

It’s one of the reasons I don’t “do” lights myself anymore. If a customer wants light, I call a friend that does only lights. He writes a separate quote and if the customers agrees with that, he comes, sets stuff up, controls the lights all night and breaks it down and carries it off again. Result, pro gear, pro operation and as small/big a setup as the customer wants.

As for the help, you are very welcome. It’s what we do here 😀

In the end, I got half the money back, and half the postage, so yes, I’ll keep the cheap lights and maybe just set them to ‘sound’ or to DMX with whatever slow-moving colours I can set, as you suggest .. For a tenner each, they’re OK.

Another LED parkan I bought off e-Bay (I must be glutton for severe punishment) didn’t work on DMX at all, although it was advertised as being fully DMX controllable. It’s a 75 watt LED Parkan and quite bright.
I shall keep that on the floor beside my stage monitor, and also keep it on a static colour..
I got a full refund for it, and only had to pay the four quid postage, from China. So not bad. That’s 44.00 quid I’ve laid out so far 🙂

So, apart from now owning a few crap lights, and having made a lot of stupid purchase mistakes, thinking I could get a half-decent lights setup on the cheap, it hasn’t broken the bank so far. 🙂
I live in hope 🙂

regards and thanks for all the great advice..

richard
bg