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[John M. Roll]

I have a small rig with 4 led  pars on a truss and 4 led pars as uplights. I DO NOT use DMX cable for any connections. The truss lights operate normally. The uplights are flakey. Random sporadic flashing,lack of control. All the lights are controlled wirelessly. Terminators are in place on the truss and the uplights. Could the cable lengths be causing this? Cables between the uplights are 30ft ea.. The truss cables are shorter,but still non DMX. What could be causing the flakiness?

[Paul G. OBrien]

All the lights are controlled wirelessly.

Please elaborate, you have an app runnng on a device that has a wireless (WIFI) link to the hardwired lighting? What hardware is used for this?
And why did you choose to go this route instead of wireless DMX?

As for your lack of control, are all fixtures set to slave mode?
How are you splitting the signal?

I don't think the cables are the cause of the problem here but the fixtures could be, what are they?

[Steve-White]

"Random sporadic flashing,lack of control".

When I first started testing DMX lighting in a spare room at my house, I used standard DMX cables.  As I began adding lights and cables things started going whacky.

Switched over the DMX cables and the control problems evaporated.  I was also using short cables, so adding length with other short cables which meant additional connections so worst case scenario.  Didn't take much and couldn't control many fixtures without issues.

Now I use all DMX rated cables and splitters instead of long daisy chained runs.  Things work reliably.

Mount these in the trusses.
https://www.amazon.com/Way-Isolated-DMX-Splitter-3-Pin/dp/B00EHHVPVU

Also, the output of some DMX control devices will handle longer cable runs than other pieces of gear.

[John M. Roll]

Please elaborate, you have an app runnng on a device that has a wireless (WIFI) link to the hardwired lighting? What hardware is used for this?
And why did you choose to go this route instead of wireless DMX?

As for your lack of control, are all fixtures set to slave mode?
How are you splitting the signal?

I don't think the cables are the cause of the problem here but the fixtures could be, what are they?

I am using a scenesetter 24 to 2 wireless transmitters,Donner, I believe. The fixtures with the problem are Chauvet Slimpar 64s,RGB (3ch mode). The truss lights are also Chauvet Slimpar 64s,but RGBA.(4ch mode)
The fixtures with the issues are set to 3ch mode,two are set to one address, the next two to another,I e., the first two are set dmx 13,the next two to dmx 17. (Not sure if the 1ch space is causing this. As i wrote this i realised there was that gap in the addressing)
The split is a passive y coming out of the scenesetter to the two transmitters.

[Jeff Lelko]

The split is a passive y coming out of the scenesetter to the two transmitters.

So that’s a big “no” for DMX.  You need to be using a proper DMX splitter.  Also, why two transmitters? 

As an aside, a gap in addressing won’t affect anything considering that DMX is digital.  The splitter is flat-out wrong and multiple transmitters is suspect.  Hope this helps!

[Paul G. OBrien]

The split is a passive y coming out of the scenesetter to the two transmitters.

There is no need for the split and dual transmitters and that is likely your problem, remove both of those thing(leaving 1 Tx on the controller) and things should work much better. A wireless transmitter can "talk to" as many recievers as you need, I regularly do events with upwards of 30 recievers from a single transmitter.

[John M. Roll]

So that’s a big “no” for DMX.  You need to be using a proper DMX splitter.  Also, why two transmitters? 

As an aside, a gap in addressing won’t affect anything considering that DMX is digital.  The splitter is flat-out wrong and multiple transmitters is suspect.  Hope this helps!

Removing the "splitter" has fixed the issue. Also, we removed the multiple transmitters. Thanks for the help

[Jeff Lelko]

Removing the "splitter" has fixed the issue. Also, we removed the multiple transmitters. Thanks for the help

That's great news John!  I can't say I'm surprised - with the digital nature of DMX you can't just split it like you can an analog audio signal.  In the future if you ever do need to split out multiple DMX daisy chains you'll need to use a dedicated DMX splitter which can be purchased through pretty much any major AV retailer.  Glad to hear everything is running reliably now!

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