Unknown fixture request?

[Sarah213]

Heyo! I recently bought a few fixtures from a friend, and they work perfectly fine until I try to control them through DMX. The built-in color changes and chasers work fine. Even when I connect them with Master/Slave mode the chasers work perfectly fine.
But as soon as I connect a fixture to DMX through my Entecc USB/DM box they flicker/strobe. Basically with DMX mode I have been unable to get them to display a solid color. I've tried playing with different channels and here's what I've come up with

1 is the Master dimmer
2 Is Red
3 Is Green
4 Is blue
5-6 If kept at 255 allow me to change the channel 1's values anything. If they are not at 255 the only values channel 1 accepts is 0 or 255.
7 Appears to change the speed of the strobe from fast and random, to slow and a little more predictable.


The first two images are random listings that I've found. https://gc-light.com/html_products/18pc ... t-183.html





Image links since they seem to be glitching
https://ibb.co/V9xBTyt
https://ibb.co/Np8LLP6
https://ibb.co/vzRHjbY
https://ibb.co/mhpSzCj
https://ibb.co/HxQFFk8

[GGGss]

Welcome to the forum.
This looks to be a straightforward fixture to create in the fixture builder.
Invest some time in learning the fixture builder. Afterwards, you'll be thankful and be able to create your own fixture definitions.
Step 3 in https://www.qlcplus.org/discover/tutorials

[MichelSliepenbeek]

Unfortunately your description of channel 5 and 6 is not specific enough and (unfortunately again) the last page of the user manual (which i expect to provide the DMX Chart) is also missing.

It is very likely that 5 is a Color Macro and 6 is Strobe/Sound mode (but the order could be different).

If you follow Fredje's advice, you could start with making a copy of the Showtec Compact Par 18 Tri, then you already have the channels you need.
On the first tab you need to change the name of manufacturer and/or type model, on the Modes tab delete the existing ones and create your own.
Then you end up with something like this:

Sarah-Lights_Compact-Par-18-Tri.qxf

(5.36 KiB) Downloaded 13 times

For now i added two modes, the only difference is the order of channels 5 and 6.


If you are really going to use the Color Macro and Strobe/Sound channels you need to fine tune the tables.
Be aware that most of us never use those build in functions, because QLC has beter options for this.

[Sarah213]

Channel 5 is definitely not color macros. I tried the master dimmer at 255 and the macro at different levels and it did not do anything.

[MichelSliepenbeek]

The solution could be on the last page of the manual (the one you did not attach).

[Sarah213]

Sorry for getting back to you so late. School has been crazy. There is a channel table on the back of the booklet, but it does not appear to work.
It says that channel 5 that 0-3 is No flicker, and 4-255 is strobe slow through fast. This is false. It has no affect on its speed.
For channel 6 I have tested it out in different ways. I have tried with RGB on, RGB off, and so far I cannot get it to do any of the functions. Not that I would use them.
Channel 7's speed adjustment does work and slow down the flickering though.

https://ibb.co/xCYh76q

[MichelSliepenbeek]

This Fixture definition matches with the RGB chart.

Sarah-Lights_Compact-Par-18-Tri.qxf

(1.91 KiB) Downloaded 11 times

If you keep channels 5, 6 and 7 all to zero, you should not have a flicker.

[Sarah213]

It is still flickering unfortunately ;(

https://ibb.co/0JJWyqf

If they just dont work through DMX, would there be some way to kinda hijack the OS running on the board to custom program them?

[GGGss]

Open-DMX 101
* lower the output frequency of the DMX bus
* use a terminator
The number of threads of claiming flickering fixtures is piling up. Cheap and Chinese are most common issues, where they (the fixtures) don't respect the current DMX dialect. Al be it that the latest version should be backward compatible...

[MichelSliepenbeek]

Have a closer look at: https://ibb.co/vzRHjbY (posted by Sarah in the first post of this thread).
As both PARs are not in sync and the flashes seem to have a fixed frequency, i would think that the fixtures are not in DMX mode, but in Pulse mode instead.


Sarah should have a look at the last page of the manual, just underneath the table:

"When you receive DMX signals, "d" keys will be flashing. Otherwise not received."

Allthough this text seems to be in ChEnglish (Chinese English), the message is: when QLC is in operate mode and the DMX cable is connected, the display should show that a DMX signal is received (something should be flashing).

If it does not:
Press MENU untill you see a "D" (or a "d") on the first position of your display, now use the UP button to set your first fixture to D010 and (don't forget to) press Enter to confirm.
In the same way set your second fixture to D020.
In QLC+ on the Fixtures tab, change the address of your first fixture accordingly to 10 and the address of your second fixture to 20.
Go to Operate mode and check the display again.


By the way: if you see a "d" (not on the first, but) on the last position of your display, it could be that you are reading your display upside down.
A lot of Fixtures provide a Display Inversion option (" diS" and "rdiS"), although it is not mentioned in the manual of your fixtures.