elektraLite P100 Manual Part Two - Manual (Page 65)

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Tips, Hints & Other "Good Things"!
1. Terminator. At the end of a DMX line you should fit a terminator. A terminator stops signal
reflections at the end of a DMX line. Reflections cause the fixtures or dimmers to behave erratically:
meaning that they appear to react to you moving the rotaries and then they seem to fly off to do their
own thing! A terminator can be simply made by using a 100 ohm 1/4 watt resistor. You connect the
resistor across pins 2 and 3 of the 5 pin XLR at the output side of the last fixture in the cable run.
2. DMX Cable. Do not cut corners, buy the best cable. If you cut corners and go out on the road,
eventually one of two things will happen.
One: the cable will break, at worst, right in the middle of a show!
Two: you'll have to join several cables together to make a long run and the signal will be reduced in
"strength" to such a degree that the signal fails to power the fixtures. Or worse still make them behave
erratically.
3. Y split a DMX Cable. Never do it!
4. DMX 3 to 5 pin connectors. The standard written by the USITT calls for the use of a 5 pin XLR
connector. However these connectors are more expensive than the 3 pin XLR connector. Further, the
3 pin XLR is easily available in just about every town! But
be careful, make sure you get the signal
wired correctly. Secondly, watch which cables your hook into, you don't want to mix up a sound cable
with your 3 pin XLR cable.
5. Pin Configuration.
Be careful to get this right. There is a standard for the 5 pin XLR which is as
follows. Pin 1 = screen, Pin 2 = data - (negative), and Pin 3 = data + (positive). The other pins are not
used. Please check with the manufacturer's manual. So many manufacturer have their own opinion
and reasons not to use the USITT standard. Also make sure all your cables are wired correctly. It only
takes one cable to be mis-wired or for one strand of wire to touch/short against two pins and the signal
is lost or the fixtures behave incorrectly.
6. Preset and Feature Presets. The CP-100 is a very powerful board and it allows you the freedom
to program the fixtures in many different ways.
In its simplest form, to create cues on the stage or in the club you merely set up the fixtures in terms
of position, color, and gobo and store it as a cue. This is all well and good, but this has its drawbacks.
Drawback 1: You have to set up your fixtures individually then store each cue one at a time. (It's time
consuming).
Drawback 2: You want to edit the cue. Then you have to make your adjustments to the fixtures and
then store the new information back on the cue. (It's time consuming).
Drawback 3: You move a fixture (or fixtures) or you move to another venue. There is very little
chance that you will get your fixtures in exactly the same position. So, now you have to change (edit)
every cue which has pan and tilt values. (It's time consuming. Also it is very boring and frustrating!!)
The solution to these drawbacks are to use Presets and Feature Presets.
Preset: Preset is simply a special type of cue. You can put any feature of a fixture into a preset and
then run the preset by itself or as part of a cue. Running a preset as part of a cue, is the normal way to
use a preset. So you will hear people say that a preset is a subset of a cue.
Example: Take the pan and tilt values for a position for one or more fixtures on stage and store it as
preset 1. For ease of explanation, let's say preset 1 is 6 moving lights (fixtures) which are all pointing
to the center of a stage onto the lead singer.