Q Light Controller+

Hi all,

I'm trying to move from a simple light panel to QLC+ in a bouldering gym and I have no experience with running lights from a computer, but do have an IT background.
I'm running the latest version of QLC+ on a Raspberry Pi 3 and the bit wizard interface. Tests with only a few lights went well, but now I've added all my light to the system and it starts to behave strangely. I also switched from normal PAR56 lights using a big dimmer to LED lights to save some power, as the lights are used in a fixed setup and are running for 12hrs+ a day. I bought a bunch of Eurolite PAR64 COB LEDs to replace the old PAR56's.
I have attached the fixture definition I made for them, as the problem could also be in there.

I used to have 3 different scenes: normal, after climbing (when the normal lights in the gym go off and only the terras is still lit) and off.
I've tried to make something similar but the lights behave quite strange, as in when I move the siders in the simple desk, multiple lights change intensity, but not lineair, some light go from full to off and back when moving the slider from 0 -> 255 (I double checked the settings of the lamps themselves, they are all using the single channel mode and all have the correct unique address). I tried adding a DMX booster yesterday, because I was not sure if the RPi had enough power to get the DMX signals to the end of the cable and the problem seemed to be mostly with the higher numbered lights, but this did not help.

Yesterday I connected my trusty (but terrible to program) old light panel to the lights and they all worked as expected, reacting to the address I gave them, so this should be ok. I also added the last few lights, with are at the beginning of the DMX cable (but with the highest addresses) and they do not turn on when they are supposed to and not at all, not when using my scene button, but also not when using the simple panel.

I have no idea what is going wrong, there is nothing in the log of QLC+ and although not very fast, the RPi seems to be coping quite ok as it's not a very difficult light show

I probably should be reading some more on how to achieve the 'show' I want, but I'd like the lights to work as I expect using the simple console first.

Sorry for the long read and thanks for hanging in! I really hope someone can shed some light on what is going wrong.

Regards,
Sander.

PS I've added the workspace I started out with (created on my desktop, so the output for universe1 is missing from it, I changed it after loading it in the RPi).

Most likely your DMX frequency is set too high ... albeit the bitwizard should perform alright.
Start with lowering the frequency to 34Hz. viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12850&p=54576&hilit ... ncy#p54547
Now the higher channeled fixtures should start to behave normally. You might have to play a bit with the frequency.

Since it's a fixed installation, a terminator at the end of the DMX line is welcome also.

Thanks for your reply.

I don't think the frequency of the DMX signal can be changed for the bitwizard interface, it behaves as an serial interface and there is no configuration option for it as far as I can see.

I always had terminators at the end of the chain even when I only used a small set with only 2 dimmers (and now at the end of both boosted chains).

The weird thing is several lights change intensity multiple times when moving a single slider of a different channel than the reacting channels, this really puzzles me, why would a channel (or even several channels) react to a signal not addressed for them?

This is really strange... so you are saying the timing is right and the fixtures react without flickering?
And now multiple fixtures are reacting?
Can you check through DMX monitor, to verify what you are sending to the bus?
Overlap in DMX addressing?

It is getting even stranger. I connected my old Showtec panel to the system and everything works as expected all lights react only to the channel they should react to and none of the lights increase and decrease with intensity when moving the slider up as they do with QLC+.
I had the RPi system and the Bitwizard interface checked by the manufacturer and it really does work as expected. Using a logic analyser we saw the right values for the channels as set by QLC+ and the DMX signal was 100% correct.

None of the channels above 24 work at all using the Bitwizard and I've bought myself a Enttec Open DMX USB interface and when I connect this to the system, none of the channels above 24 work. When I connect the same interface to my Windows laptop, load the same project everything works as expected too.. This a a small relief as I started to think I was becoming insane. So something with QLC+ and the RPi does something strange, but as the logic analyser showed the DMX signal was correct, I have no clue where to look now and I'd really like to get rid of my terrible to program Showtec panel and use QLC+

Any ideas?

Did you check with the DMX monitor inside QLC+ to verify that it IS sending out channel info above channel 24?

Yes, it definitely is sending out values for channels above 24. I even tried only connecting one lamp on channel 26 and disconnect the rest of the setup, but channels above 24 do nothing when using the Bitwizard.

For some reason the Enttec started to work and after changing the max number of channels to 256, the setup is stable (it was flickering every 30 seconds or so before), so I'll stick with the Enttec USB for now. Thanks for your help! If I have some more time to dig into this problem I will post the solution to this board. Hopefully I've reached the status where not all my posts have to be moderated by then, so my responses come a bit quicker..

With the next occasion - I hope still in 2020, I'll get out my BitWizzard and try it for myself...