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First fixture in DMX chain keeps getting fried

We have been experiencing this problem ever since moving into this venue. If anyone has any insight we would greatly appreciate it. We have had an electrician come look and install a UPS in case this was a power surge issue but it is still happening. Our house lights are the color pendant series. We have a second, smaller room for other events that has newly installed sixpar 100's as the house lights. In the main room (with ther color pendants) the first fixture in the DMX chain continually gets fried. It either begins acting sporadically or simply stops working altogether. However, the dmx still makes it to all the other fixtures in the chain just fine.

Recently we installed sixpar 100's in the smaller event room to the side to act as the house lights for that room. The power comes from the house to one fixture and then daisy chained to each fixture. The DMX is coming from a dimmer w/ dmx out in the main room. This was a brand new install done by myself. Each fixture had power and the dmx lines were connected aside fom the main DMX in from the main room. Once I brought in and connected the DMX, everything seemed to work fine. I went to lunch and came back 30 minutes latrer to see the first fixture in the DMX chain (the one connected directly to the system via the dimmer) was not on but all the other fixtures were. After investigating I found that while it was not turning on at all (the lcd screen was not even on), it was still sending and receiving power and DMX. I took the fixture out and connected the next fixture in the line directly to the main DMX line from the other room and let it go for the rest of the day. Everything worked exactly as it should have. Since the incident, the sixpar that was initially connected directly to the main DMX line does not turn on at all.

We are all very confused and a little annoyed because sending these fixtures in to get reapired is becoming very expensive.

Sidenote: When we send the broken fixtures in, they always find something fried in the electronics, but it is always a different component than the last time. One would think that if it were a consistent issue then the same component would be getting fried each time.

Has anyone experienced anything like this before? Is the fact that it is happening consistently across mutiple types of fixtures indicative of something? The only common denominator we can see is that they are always the first in the DMX chain. The DMX comes from an 8 output hub or the dimmer that is connected to the hub.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am a college student and I work at this venue part time so if it is a stupid mistake... sorry. Thank you.

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