Wireless DMX problem

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rickryan.com

rickryan.com

DJ Extraordinaire
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Dec 9, 2009
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I have chinese made, 9X18 uplights. Wireless DMX is built in. Last night, I had them running off myDMX Go and noticed a couple of the lights went to green and stopped changing colors. About an hour later, as the event was winding up all of the lights went to green and quit changing. I switched controller back to a Chauvet Obey 40, same thing. Nothing would respond. Today, I changed out the Donner transmitter, no difference. All lights are green only. The most logical answer is the radio stopped working in the uplight, but all 15 at one time? That's hard to believe. I'm thinking the next thing to try is take down one light and put a Donner receiver on it. Has anybody run into this problem before?
 
I have not, thats interesting. Does the light change colors when you adjust the settings with the built in menu?
 
BlueLineDJ said:
I have not, thats interesting. Does the light change colors when you adjust the settings with the built in menu?
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Haven't tried that, yet. It's really weird. During the wedding Saturday, I had one fixture go to solid green. About an hour later, two more went solid green, then a couple more. By the end of the evening they'd all gone to solid green and haven't responded to any DMX signals since then. I tried changing out to another Donner transmitter but no difference. I'm going to experiment with them this evening.
 
rickryan.com said:
Haven't tried that, yet. It's really weird. During the wedding Saturday, I had one fixture go to solid green. About an hour later, two more went solid green, then a couple more. By the end of the evening they'd all gone to solid green and haven't responded to any DMX signals since then. I tried changing out to another Donner transmitter but no difference. I'm going to experiment with them this evening.
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Double check to make sure the computer or software is giving out a signal. Also make sure no fixture was accidentally put into a master mode and giving out a conflicting signal
 
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Sounds like an easy fix Rick.
Good luck! Waiting to hear what happened.
 
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rickryan.com said:
I pulled down one of the lights and noticed it was switched from DMX mode to Color mode, with green at 100%. Not sure what could've flipped the mode yet and I've brought that fixture and controller to my house for some testing.
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Color mode may be a default when the fixture re-boots after a power failure, even if momentary or a threshold voltage drop. Same could be true for DMX. Many fixtures or controllers will reboot under either condition.

Try disrupting one or both in turn and see how fixtures respond. If the chain includes slaves - such an issue could cascade downstream following the end of each DMX sequence.
 
Proformance said:
Color mode may be a default when the fixture re-boots after a power failure, even if momentary or a threshold voltage drop. Same could be true for DMX. Many fixtures or controllers will reboot under either condition.

Try disrupting one or both in turn and see how fixtures respond. If the chain includes slaves - such an issue could cascade downstream following the end of each DMX sequence.
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Each unit is standalone with a built-in wireless DMX receiver. One thing, I did end up having to change the channel on the Donner to get it back working. I have the tester light, along with an Obey 40 controller, sitting in my kitchen. Such a pretty shade of purple.
 
Mydmx go my be the issue?
 
Proformance said:
Is this a 2.4 GHz system? There's a sh** load of vulnerability in that band.
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It's Donner dongles. I assume they're in the 2.4 band. They've never given any trouble until now and I'm doubtful that it's the wireless connection that caused the issue. The uplights somehow all got changed to a static color instead of DMX control.
 
rickryan.com said:
It's Donner dongles. I assume they're in the 2.4 band. They've never given any trouble until now and I'm doubtful that it's the wireless connection that caused the issue. The uplights somehow all got changed to a static color instead of DMX control.
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These were on the ceiling out of reach? If there's no com channel (requires 5 pin DMX) then the only way for a fixture to self-switch modes is by MODE or RESET. It's bound to be something electrical - brown out, or hardware and software design flaws that initiate a reset whenever the fault occurs.

The other possibility is someone else in the room knows your fixtures and is using an an app or remote to screw with you. :)
 
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Proformance said:
These were on the ceiling out of reach? If there's no com channel (requires 5 pin DMX) then the only way for a fixture to self-switch modes is by MODE or RESET. It's bound to be something electrical - brown out, or hardware and software design flaws that initiate a reset whenever the fault occurs.

The other possibility is someone else in the room knows your fixtures and is using an an app or remote to screw with you. :)
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Yes, they're out of reach and this is the first time anything like this has happened. I thought about power issues, but they didn't all switch at once. I have an event this evening so will play with it a bit more.
 
djtaso said:
Double check to make sure the computer or software is giving out a signal. Also make sure no fixture was accidentally put into a master mode and giving out a conflicting signal
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Perhaps a guest was fiddlin' wit it.
Also, since it was later in the night, could it be the battery running low?
 
Ausumm said:
Perhaps a guest was fiddlin' wit it.
Also, since it was later in the night, could it be the battery running low?
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These units are all plugged in so I doubt battery has anything to do with it. One odd thing, only the first unit I took down was switched to static color mode. All of the rest of the fixtures were still on DMX mode. For whatever reason, I had switched the donner transmitter from the bright green channel to the blue channel. As soon as I changed channel on each of the fixtures they all went back to working correctly. I have another wedding tomorrow so it'll be interesting to see if any more problems pop up.
 
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rickryan.com said:
One odd thing, only the first unit I took down was switched to static color mode. All of the rest of the fixtures were still on DMX mode.
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That switch probably happened while you were handling the fixture and may not be at all related to the issue.
 
Proformance said:
That switch probably happened while you were handling the fixture and may not be at all related to the issue.
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Possible but doubtful. I have the bracket screwed into the wall and simply flipped the unit over so I could see the display (no buttons pushed). Either way, it's been a strange issue that I've never run into before. I have to say this, the Donner system sure has been solid for several years. I had Chauvet D-Fi before this and those dudes were tempermental as could be.
 
rickryan.com said:
Possible but doubtful. I have the bracket screwed into the wall and simply flipped the unit over so I could see the display (no buttons pushed). Either way, it's been a strange issue that I've never run into before. I have to say this, the Donner system sure has been solid for several years. I had Chauvet D-Fi before this and those dudes were tempermental as could be.
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If you're using a 2.4GHz system the conditions will always be changing both in the short and long term. There are just so many applications and potential sources of interference in that band including WiFi, Bluetooth, and a host of consumer wireless electronics. The environment can become so fluid that it resembles a game of wack-a-mole.

There's no reason to think your wireless environment would remain unchanged over time.
 
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Proformance said:
If you're using a 2.4GHz system the conditions will always be changing both in the short and long term. There are just so many applications and potential sources of interference in that band including WiFi, Bluetooth, and a host of consumer wireless electronics. The environment can become so fluid that it resembles a game of wack-a-mole.

There's no reason to think your wireless environment would remain unchanged over time.
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This right here. Could be something as simple as someone nearby could have gotten a new wireless mouse and as soon as it tried to transmit, your devices, one by one, received it and did what they thought they were being told. I'd say it's not "common" but not unheard of either.
 
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