DMX merger problem

[jan_wd]

Hi Visual crew, I have experienced quite ruff times with one of our installations. I have reached a state from which I don`t know where to go next...

Problem is like this:

I have 3 DMX controllers:

LPU-2
Elation SDC-12
ETC ION XE

than i go to HTP ports of din rail Visual productions DMX Merger into 3 channel dimmer.

When i connect any of the devices separately directly through DMX line to dimmers, it works with no issues.
When I go through merger, dimmers behave weirdly, the first channel doesn`t shine at all, then, when I rise second channel, the first channel comes up and when I rise the third channel, the second channel comes up and the third channel starts blinking randomly once every 10-20 seconds.

Any idea what might be the problem?
We spent already three days troubleshooting that and started to run out of ideas.

Cheers

Yours Jan@WDLUX Prague

[Julien Levaufre]

Hi Jan,
I am sorry you are facing some problems using our products.
From the behaviour you are describing I would first check if your dmx wiring on the merger side is right. When you invert 2 cables in a DMX plug it gives the same kind of behaviour.
If it's not a wiring issue, did you test all inputs, and it's always getting the same behaviour not depending on which input you are using?
Last, when you are sending dmx from one controller, does the LED blink normally , or does have a strange behaviour?

[jan_wd]

Hi Julien,

thank you for your feedback. I will try to check all the input cables once again.

Cheers
Jan

[jan_wd]

Hello Julien,

we have chcked all connections and everything seems ok. We even used DMX tester and the output was correct. Anyway, the LED dimmer on the other side still behaves incorrectly. But it is probably a problem of the dimmer, so we have found some improvement from the manufacturer of that device (LDDE) that we will implement.

Unfortunately, we still need to fine-tune the controlling system, because it is not reliable. It seems that the merger does not communicate correctly with SDC-12 DMX faderdesk. I was wondering, as we have LPU-2 there as well, if there is some OSC or UDP fader controller, so we might replace DMX input of SDC-12 by OSC input to LPU-2, so then, we have only 2 DMX inputs to the merger (main board and LPU-2 only) which might solve the issue.

But I am unable to find anything on market that can do that. The customer demands some device with three or more physical faders. Do you have any idea?

Cheers
Jan

[Julien Levaufre]

Hello Jan,

thank you for the feedback, maybe it's a DMX speed problem. The merger is regenerating the DMX signal, and the output is at the hight limit of the speed range. Sometime some fixture do not manage hight speed DMX, this may be your case. The good news is you can switch the merger to a slower output speed. Opening the Merger case you will be able to see a "Slow DMX" label with 2 pins side by side. Connecting those 2 pins will active the slow DMX function.

It's strange that The SDC-12 is having some issues with the merger, we used the same kind of controller for our testing here without any problem.
Could you tell me on which input of the merger you are connecting each of your controllers?

About the possibility to send OSC message from faders, the only one I know is our KIOSC app. You can download it on android, Ios, PC, Mac and Linux. You can then create a custom layout , in your case 6 faders, and set the OSC message they will send to control the LPU2. It will be a touch interface and you said physical faders, but it's the only solution I know for now. A more expensive solution would be to use an IOcore and some faders,,,
I hope this will help you,