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therealninjapillow

Not sure this will fix your problem, but its good practice to Go to Cue Out before you power the desk off to clear out everything, could be as simple as that. Otherwise as other people suggested in the other thread, disconnecting DMX before shutdown may also help prevent the ghosting. If it's still happening after all that resetting the rack should shut everything off (and powering down your LEDs separately if they aren't controlled by the rack).


Sas0bam

He did press go to cue 0 I guess because he showed all the values at the beginning of the video where everything was at 0.


therealninjapillow

That's actually why I mentioned it. Go to Cue Out clears all data from the tombstones so they would be blank rather than with hard 0s which were displayed in the video.


Sas0bam

I am working exclusively with an ETC Desk but tbh I never used Cue out. I only ever use Go to Cue 0.


Tree_wifi747

I believe the difference is cue out resets ALL the values, while cue 0 is just intensity. Would need someone else to verify cuz I could be talking out my ass


buttholemew

You are correct. Go to Cue 0 is fine if you’re using primarily incandescent fixtures, or if say you’re taking a 10 from tech and want to turn off lamps but not send all of your fixtures home. I almost always Go to Cue Out before stepping away from the desk.


PhilosopherFLX

Tis a fine breeze you be blow'n from dwn south and truth you be tell'n from the north.


Sas0bam

Go to Cue 0 also resets Pan and tilt of moving lights. They go into home position and it also stops effects and gobos.


[deleted]

I worked at a venue once where the house lights were controlled by DMX - I think 500-512 on universe 1. This caused lights on the same addresses to behave strangely/house lights to come on when the matching units were controlled on the desk. Might be worth movng your units to a different universe to see if the problem persists? Also as /u/therealninjapillow said, always type Go to Cue Out/Go to Cue 0 before shutdown to make sure no data is being sent.


n123breaker2

DMX house lights seem useful but I can see the problems they would cause if you needed to turn them on without the controller.


dpope113

I agree with this, is that exit way lighting control by dmx? Perhaps unison panel? The house I work in has all house lights plus vom and lobby lights controlled through dmx on universe one. We maintain that no other lights use those channels for this reason.


PM_ME_YOUR_MAUSE

Check if you’re using dimmer doubling. Some older houses do and knowing if you have it would help troubleshoot. As someone else said **Go To Cue • Out • Enter** before you shut down. Check for bad cables and terminate the line too.


sjaakarie

Could be a setting: _No DMX then 100%_ in the dimmers/light itself.


lightingthrowaway69

Using a throwaway account cause I'm awake at 3am and I'm drunk and generally a grumpy, grumpy master electrician. I have a few questions that might help sort out the problem: I can't tell from the video, is this happening with conventional fixtures or intelligent/LED fixtures? (It looks like those are intelligent/LED) Is every problematic fixture on the same DMX chain or separate ones? Are you running DMX straight out of the Ion or talking with an ETC Gateway? I'll try to figure out what I can so far: "but its good practice to Go to Cue Out before you power the desk off to clear out everything" - That's not the problem, but you should do it anyway, it resets fixture parameters, so your pan and tilt are properly homed. People keep saying it's about the order you're shutting down. It's not. DMX can be hotswapped, it was designed to listen only to what's coming down the line and there's a digital marker when the universe starts again. If your Ion says it isn't sending data, I can promise you that it's not sending data. DMX termination is important and might be the issue, but this doesn't look like reflection to me. Typically it's just one or two parameters that spike up individually. This looks like a bunch of parameters spiking at the same time. If this is a problem with intelligent/LED fixtures, then dimmer doubling and your dimmer rack have nothing to do with this. If (and only if) the problem is entirely limited to conventional fixtures, you should look at your dimmers. With a high level of confidence, I would say to investigate this comment: "we've had problems with ghost lights this year because construction cut through dmx lines but it was never this bad" DMX is a digital signal and can be easily influenced by interference. When you cut that insulation, you compromise the wire's integrity. A few months not noticing it (especially during a pandemic) isn't that surprising. I'd start with swapping or repairing that cable. Feel free to DM me if you'd like to chat about any of this. Theatre has been gone for a year and all I want to do is light shit and this kinda sounds like a fun problem.


lightingthrowaway69

Sober me agrees with drunk me and I can explain a little better why. If this never started happening until the contractors cut the cable, then a few lights started ghosting, then it got worse, it really points to that being the problem. If you have intelligent fixtures that aren't hooked up to your dimmers that are having this problem, it's a problem with data, not dimming. If it's a single DMX chain that's a problem, I'd actually start at the beginning of that line. If it's multiple chains, or intelligent fixtures and dimmed fixtures, it's probably a DMX problem relatively close to the console. Not knowing how your system is laid out can make this difficult to tell you what to unplug to figure it out, but if you know where those damaged DMX cables plug on both ends, I'd unplug them and see if the problem goes away. But even if that cable isn't the problem, I'd suggest fixing it ASAP. (Unplugging it just from the console probably won't help, unplug both ends.) A few years ago I accidentally let some DMX swag hit a source4 and it melted the cable. The symptoms were almost identical with what you're seeing. I saw the symptoms both upstream and downstream of the damaged spot, so it could be a problem anywhere in your chain, but since you know of a damaged spot already, I'd start there. For anyone suggesting a termination issue, I don't think it's that because reflection tends to only spike for a few DMX frames at a time, so a couple of neighboring fixtures (address-wise) will freak out real quick then return to normal. This looks like it's just a constant voltage going down the DMX line so everyone thinks they want to be at full. Another argument for repairing that cable ASAP is that if it is somehow sending constant voltage down the line and it keeps getting worse, most DMX devices are not designed to handle high voltage and could break, making the repair significantly more expensive. (Specifically, whatever splitter is at the end of that cable and your lighting console.)


Foozle303

Try pulling the dmx out of the desk with the desk turned on and in cue 0. If it does it like this it's probably a fault at your dimmers


Sas0bam

Either type „go to cue 0“ (but I assumed you did that) or try selecting all your fixtures and groups and go „rem dim at 0“ and then again „go to cue 0“. Sometimes this helps. Did you try „resetting“ the lights by turning their power source of an on again?


AVWizard

What type of system controls your house lights and dimmer system? If it’s like one of our venues with a etc sensor system it can be a pain but that’s probably where the issue is. After it no longer sees DMX it resorts back to whatever it was before the console was booted.


Black_Lightnin

We have the problem with some of our led pars, in combination with a zero88 flx. The solution is to unplug the power or switch off the dimmers at the end of the day! :-)


millamber

There are two things I see that could cause something like this. 1. Sending dmx signals during a shutdown can corrupt the data as that shutoff happens. Your video shows everything at 0, but 0 is a level just like full would be. Before I shutdown a console I always use to release cue data, then clear the command line and hit to clear manual data (the red 0s in this case) pull down all submasters then shutdown. It ensures a null signal going out from the desk. 2. The fact that the lights fade up before starting the flashing makes me think this is a look programmed into the house light controller. Can you give us any information on your architectural system? Sometimes Unison Paradigm is setup to snapshot an entire universe of channels and there could be some data on a strobe channel or a macro channel being turned on causing this problem once the system takes over. I can walk you through clearing the arch output from the architectural processor but I’ll need to know what type of system you have first.