ADJ X Scans LED

This is a very simple answer:

You need to invert the PAN or tilt on the other lights as well. The master is still sending the "normal" signal, but has been told for itself to invert whatever the heck you told it to invert. The others must be set the same to match.

A cool effect would be to set only one slave to invert.

Answered. Go have fun again.

Thanks for your speedy reply Chris. I understand what you mean, and that is what I have done to get them to work, however, with these lights having built in DMX, isn't the purpose of the master to that signal to the other three lights automatically? After all is sends it to the nest light in the chain, just not the remaing two??

No, not at all.

Master/Slave mode is that these work in an entirely stand-alone grouping, sepparate from the DMX controlled lights. Don't mix master/slave on the same data chain as DMX.

The whole purpose of DMX is to provide direct control. If you want more than one light fixture to do the same thing, then you have many choices depending on exactly what you want to do. Since you have 4 of the same fixture, you could quite literally set them up using identical DMX addressing and they'll all do the same thing. Do keep in mind that your invertion of pan or title will have the same effect: behaving in reverse of what the "non-inverted" setting would be.

When in DMX mode, you just attach all the lights do the DMX signal in a serial chain(they daisy chain one after the other). No need for master/slave in this situation.

Any other questions? You seem a bit unclear.

Master/Slave is a 100% INDEPENDENT mode that is TOTALLY sepparate from DMX. You can't mix and match master/slave and DMX on the same "data signal chain". You can not use DMX to control lights in master/slave mode, they MUST be in DMX mode. DMX mode and master/slave mode are incompatible. There are a few lights that support a DMX input, then a master/slave(slave output) connector while also having the DMX through/out connector s well.

OK - thanks Chris. It is getting clearer by the minute! Let's forget about the DMX, if I have 1 master and 3 slaves then should the slaves not do exactly the same as the master?? So if master is set to Pan Inv then the 3 slaves should go Pan Inv - automatically??

You're definately getting it because your questions are also getting better.

The answer is to "If I set my master and then 3 slaves and set my master to pan invert, will the slaves follow the master with pan invert automatically?"

No. Let's look at this from DMX point of view, it will help make sense.

Let's say since we're dealing with PAN, and to keep this super duper simpler, the light can move 180-degrees left to right. I know, DMX has 512 values, so we're using like quarter degrees. Whatever.

So, let's say that in NORMAL mode, 1 is full left and 512 is FULL right.
If you pan invert that fixture, it is now 1 is FULL right while 512 is FULL left.

Makese sense, nothing wonky there. You've inverted the PAN setting, so it should be reversed.

The same basic concept works with master/slave mode. While you may have set the master to pan invert, it's still sending out the regular instructions. The slaves have no clue whatesoever that the master is using PAN invert. The only way you can "adjust" for this is to set one or more slaves to ALSO have pan inverted in order to properly follow the master. Of course, mixing and matching can give you some pretty cool effects too, if you like what you see(say 2 pairs criss-crosing lights).

So, it's not a matter of the slave defacto follows the master light. It does follow the values presented to it via the master. In order to have the slaves properly follow the master, they must also have the same settings that the master is using, namely the pan and tilt inversions must also be set the same.

To recap: No. The slaves will not automatically pan invert. You must tell the slaves to use pan inversion. Then they will follow the master unit properly. Otherwise, they will still receive the instructions but move opposite. Pan and tilt inversions are settings unto themselves. For the most part, these will have to be set at the fixture either via a menu system or DIP switch(es).

Clear enough yet? If not, keep asking. As I said, it's getting obvious that you are getting it.

Top answer Chris - and thanks for your patience. I totally understand now. At least I know the lights are working correctly. One final question, is it normal for the lights to switch off and think about things after telling them to change from one setting to another??

One thing I would like to correct Chris, DMX is a binary, 8 bit system. Binary uses two commands, on and off (hence why it is called binary). The way you determine the number of commands is simply take 2 and raise it to the bit value. So a 1 bit system would be 2^1 or only 2 commands. 8 bit is 2^8 or 256 commands (this is why values are displayed from 0-255, 0 counts remember). 16 bit is 2^16 or 65,536 commands.

This is also the reason for not having 24 bit DMX signals, since the motors in the lights just aren't that precise. At 16 bit movement, if you have 640 degrees of pan, every value in theory moves the light .01 degrees. 24 bit for the same 640 degrees would be .00004 degrees for each value (16,777,216 commands). 16 bit is better then 8 bit, but beyond 16 bit is simply too much for the motors to use in these fixtures. So for your example above, each value in theory pans the light .7 degrees.

You confused signals with channel count limit per DMX line. There are 512 channels per DMX universe, each transmitting an 8 bit signal or 131,072 on/off commands on a signal DMX universe. DMX can technically do more, but expanding beyond 512 channels causes issues to arise, so thus the 512 channel limit. Ethernet based controls can do multiple universes down a signal Cat5 cable. MA Net for example does 64 DMX universes on a signal Cat5 cable.

Those weren't in the questions raised. I had to "streamline it" a bit just for the sake of ease of understanding.

BUt, if we want to get all techie:

If we think about it, 0-255 is 8-bit addressing. DMX is using values up to 512, which is 9-bit addressing, and unless they are using a 10th bit for word spacing(1 1-bit byte, 1 word = 1 byte in this case, so much easier than MIDI and no null bit).

However, knocking my mis-allocation of degrees to bits, that's fine. I didn't feel like doing any math and I'm answering stuff in the middle of the night while my idiot nieghbors are either:
1) blasting music
2) Revving car engines
3) Screaming, yelling, fighting, arguing at top volume
4) Smoking and/or drinking
5) Choosing 2AM to sort their massive collection of beverage containers and crussing
6) Any combination, inluding ALL of the above(which ain't unusual) or adding unlisted OTHERS, which is also not unusual.

I did not confuse signals with channel count. The issue never was raised in this conversation. It was clearing out Master/slave against DMX and clearing up that confusion. The second issue was "what really will a master actual be master of", which was the core question.

Going back to DMX being a binary signal, so is master/slave. The main difference is that DMX is a standard, while the master/slave arrangement tends to be relatively proprietary per fixture type. Nobody is going around re-inventing the wheel here, but the two signals are not compatible ON THE SAME WIRE at the same time. Master/slave signalling is also binary but uses a non-DMX protocol that is most likely either specific to the lights involved or is at least only going to behave properly between the identical fixtures.

As far as lights switching on/off between changes, I don't get what you mean.

Let's say that your master/slave mode operates off being "sound activated". The only light listening is going to be the master. The slaves will listen to the master's signal.

This is a lesson I learned the hard way and confirmed it on the forums. I will get specific because it helps.
I bought a pair of Color Fusions. These must be manually addressed using DIP switches, including their mode. When making changes like this, you have two choices: DO it with the fixture not receiving power, or if done while the fixture is ON, then power cycle it after changes are complete because the changes aren't "live".

If you're changing the lights from master/slave mode to DMX mode, or doing a pan or tilt invert, I think it may be normal for the light to switch off and back on briefly as it resets itself to the proper mode. With my Chauvet Q-Spot 150's, I regularly use the pan invert on BOTH fixtures. I think this is because I am confusing what the FRONT is of the fixture, but Chauvet won't answer me that question. At any rate, when I do the pan invert, the light "resets" itself after I enter that value in via the panel menu system. To me, this would be normal. While the fixture has I think 540 degrees of rotation via DMX, the light clearly has more rotation capability. I think this is to compensate for being able to do this inversion. I think the light COULD technically rotate a full 720 degrees of rotation(twice around), so this leaves an additional 90 degrees of "wiggle room" on either side of that 540 usable degrees, hence able to fully support the pan inversion.

It's almost like you tell the light "this is how you have to behave now" and then it seems like it "reboots" itself to behave properly.

If the lights are switching off and on in response to instructions from the master fixture, that would NOT be normal.

Also, typical warning stuff: Use DMX cables, not microphone cabling. I am not sure if a DMX terminator is necessary in a master/slave mode even when used for long runs. I know that DMX cabling and microphone cabling looks and from a pin to pin pespective is totally interchangable, but they aren't. DMX cable is data grade at 120 ohms, while microphone cable is typically rated at 600 to 1000 ohms. While XLR microphone cable WILL work, it's not your best option. If it comes down to a cost issue, let me say that for the most part, DMX cable is going to be priced at or below most microphone cabling of the same length. Unless it's crappy XLR cabling, in which case the DMX cabling would be more expensive.

I ran my lights using XLR for years. Worked GOOD. Changed to DMX cabling, works a LOT better.

Thanks for your help Chris. Used the lights this weekend in anger and they were great, even though I wasn't allowed to use smoke!! Thanks again.

Chris, a single DMX universe is 512 eight bit signals. One could, in theory, link all 512 channels together and make one 4096 bit interface like how 16 bit links 2 channels together.

As for master/slave, a lot of times it is actually a DMX signal being sent, the master light is just considered the 'controller' so to speak. If I took 2 Opti Tri Pars and linked them together with a DMX cable, set the one to stand alone color and the other to a channel mode, the second will mimic the first one. Discovered this by accident one day and realized it made sense. Tested my theory by putting an Opti Tri Par connected to a Vision 250 set as the master. Addressed the Opti Tri Par as channel 17 and could control it via the commands on the Vision 250. There are exceptions however, Trackspots for example, use their Trackspot protocol for stand alone, not DMX.