DP-DMX20L Question

Hey LCOS Lighting Guy and welcome to the forums.

What wattage lamps are you using? Sounds like you may be drawing too much power and are getting voltage drops which are causing the flickering. Hence why three lamps on is fine and the fourth causes problems.

Also, how is your power broken up for the dimmer packs? Does each one have its own, dedicated 20 amp circuit?

Each pack is on it's own 20 amp breaker.. The pack in question has, after further investigation, 4 500w Frenel's so should be able to hold them all. curiously this flickering doesn't happen with just three channels on this pack on till you bring up the rest of the channels on the other packs. like 1-3 up and then 5-48 up to full. guess I'll have to make it work till I get more info.. Thanks for your Time

the DPDMX20L is actually sold and supported By American DJ. So you will need to call their service dept.
1-800-322-6337 ask for service.
Sincerely,

Well, the pack is really designed to handle 10 amps, so there's your problem right there. You're pulling 2000 watts, that's above the 1800 watts a 15 amp would deal with, and the plug is a 15 amp plug.

While it claims to handle 20 amps, I'd not trust it to handle 20 amps. Again, 15-amp edison plug, and despite the 10 amps/channel rating(20 amps total), I would NOT try to run more than 1800 watts through it.

I like my DP-DMX20L's, but for you, I'd recommend a better dimmer pack.

A 15 amp plug and 20 amp plug aren't physically different other then the 20 amp has a prong horizontal vs 2 vertical. The only reason for the distinction is because older buildings and some people use higher gauge cable.

For 20 amps, you need 12 gauge. A lot of homes and buildings are wired with 14 gauge. Most buildings don't need more then 15 amps for things. They will have a few 20 amps and that's it. In society today everything needs to be made idiot proof. Who knows the number of homes and buildings that have burned down because of over loading the wires in them. Thus, we end up with this horizontal prong to prevent that.

The problem is, in making it so everyone can us it, it makes things more difficult for the professional. Case and point, I had to cut off all the ends on every DP-640B I have because I don't have a single right angle plug in my inventory. Likewise, it makes no sense for me to carry them because I can't use the cable for normal things like LEDs, speakers, TVs, computers, etc. So every pack I get costs me a little more time and effort since I put new, '15 amp' plugs on them. Its not Elation's fault, its what the stupid standard wants. Normal people just should simply not play with anything higher then 15 amps .



Anyway, enough side track. Have you tried changing the address on the pack and/or swapping out the pack with another? See how the problem follows and that will help you discover what exactly is the culprit. It might be console, dimmer, power, or a signal issue. Let us know.

I see where you're going. I still prefer proper plugs for proper circuits. But, my KV2 Audio EPack 2500's do require 20-amps but they terminate at the amp pack in a 20-amp Nema twistlock, while the other end is a male 15-amp Edison, and that's how they ship from the factory. If you don't like it, they ship you a male 20-amp twistlock to match it.

Personally, I'd rather make pigtails for my 20-amp capable items to go into 15-amp plugs. But, in one case, it's cheaper to get 20-amp twistlocks that terminate to 15/20 amp female edisons than make my own(and they have a nifty light in them too!) It's those ones you can get at hardware stores for letting you hook up to work site generators. I get shows frequently where I hook up to large diesel generators provoding mondo amounts of power. I need to buy me some of these pigtails because the generator folks never seem to provide enough!

I wonder if the fuse in one of the channels might have been replaced with a wrong rated fuse, but that doesn't really support what is being seen. Definately more testing is in order. I wonder what the building's access panel is rated it as well.

I also have to ask if all the dimmer packs are the newer ones or the older ones. The older ones are dimmer only, where the new ones can be set dimming or switching on a per channel basis. This is a great feature for me to have as an option. For an install, maybe not so much.