If you are a beginner you may be finding yourself having a hard time with understanding how your light fixture works or how your controller works? You may be asking yourself, “What the heck are DIP switches?” and “What in the heck is DMX?” and you’ll most likely find that the user manual of your product does not explain this to you.

This is because the manuals take assumption that you already know what DMX is and what DIP switches are for and thus proceed to explain the operation of your products under these pretexts.

Keep in mind that many lighting professionals spend years learning this information. Lighting is a profession for many people and it’s difficult to explain all that information in every user manual of every product, thus this information is useless for many in the professionals in the lighting business.



However, before you get upset there is help.

Here is some useful information in helping you understand the world of lighting in a nutshell.

We strongly recommend that you read through all this information prior to posting how DMX works or what are dip switches.



DMX 101 handbook, this explains DMX512, dip switches and programming.

http://www.elationlighting.com...dmx-101-handbook.pdf



Dip Switch calc, this is a tool that explains the values of those switches.

http://www.elationlighting.com...iles/dipcalc.exe.zip

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jingles,

Also a nice video on the difference between DMX and Microphone cable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4f7WxnMa0Q
Sincerely,

Hello, I just bought a FC-400 foot controller and it came with the DP-415 dimmer pack. I have four American DJ par 56 lights hooked up to it. I am having a tough time learning how to program the controller. The manual is of little help. It says for instance that if I select AUTO from the "mode" pedal, that the channels will chase, but nothing happens.How do you activate the chase? I have the dip switches set to "1" on and the other nine in the off positions. I have also tried he "Music" option and have tried plugging a feed into the controller from my sound board "phones jack" and also from my sub woofer. I am using the lights with a Bose L1 Model 1 sound system. I can get the lights to chase the music, but not very brightly. I have tried everything in the manual and I can't get the lights bright enough when in Music or Auto chase. I have set the brightness in the "Scene" menu for each of the four channels. What am I overlooking? Is there a better instruction guide for programming the FC-400? I wish someone would make a video and put it on Youtube. Can you help?

Thanks,
Dale