More updates. Just odd things. Sort of leading to a "ghost in the building" sort of thing.
1: OK, my day got way screwed. Depends how you look at things. I have to cancel a lot of things based on other things and then cancel more things based on still more things and now I gotta cram a lotta work into a little time because some dumb dink decided to hand off a project she didn't want to really work on in order to get lazy on something else. Just riddle me this: How the f*&$ am I supposed to do a video project with no direction? I mean, I don't know if there is a purpose or focus or function for this. I haven't a clue. I don' have the time to sludge through 50 god damn hours of video in 15 hours to "find the good parts". Chances, there really aren't any.
2: So, since I have this "freedom yet restriction" in my schedule, I could deal with the HZ-300.
Initial tests:
Fired up the HZ-300, turned on(no surprise). Let it warm up. It worked fine off the remote. Again, no surprose. No DMX connected, I see the light come and flash 3 times, go off, then repeat the 3 flashes and go off. Repeating the pattern. No shocker. Obviously, this means "no DMX". Again, not worried yet, showing same symptoms.
I attach a 50 foot DMX cable and a terminator to the fixture. I then take the other end and connect it to my MyDMX dongle. I the plug in the dongle to USB port(same cable I used for the show), launched MyDMX. I noticed the light went to 1 blink, pause and repeat. Hmmm, perhaps that means "good DMX signal". Used my Korg NanoKNOTROL to trigger the HZ-300 via MyDMX. it works. WTF? I mean, this is good. I mean, I prefer it when problems remain consistent.
This is NOT the same as at the show. Things are much simpler in testing.
At show:
MyDMX dongle to input on Elation OptoBranch/4, then out of split 4, it went to a 25-foot AccuCable DMX cable to the producer's fogger. Then OUT from the fogger to 50 feet of DMX cable(via 2 25-foot AccuCables) to the Ice-101(which was flawless). From the Ice-101, it was a 10 foot AccuCable DMX cable run to the HZ-300. Out from that it went to a 25-foot high quality XLR(but a microphone cable) to a ADJ PP-DMX20L with a DMX terminator plugged in to the DMX OUT. A flame bowl was placed on channel 4 and the pack was set to DMX channel 9, thus channel 4 would be DMX channel 12.
Now, let's examine a few things:
The fogger failed(or did it?). It would sit idle, then I could trigger it and I could in fact control it, but I would get a big blast that could not be stopped unless I turned off that fogger. This would be after maybe a 30 minute standby time. I'm starting to question things. I do wonder because there was a wireless remote plugged in, and maybe someone sat on the remote or perhaps it was picking up some crazy signal? Either way, bypassing the fogger by connecting the DMX cables and removing the fogger from the chain did not improve things for the hazer. It also did not make things worse either.
ICE-101 worked perfect. While I always have the same issue of having to think 4 seconds ahead to hit the cue right, that's a "me" issue since I run that via manual control through DMX.
Flame Bowl worked almost flawlessly at the end of the DMX chain until the end, when the silk landed in a way were it flopped under and the fan caught it from below and it would not come up. Not an ADJ/Elation product, and it sort of pee'd itself out(inside joke, check the ADJ forum to get let in on it).
HZ-300 worked fine via the wired remote, but never worked via DMX, but clearly it passed DMX signal through it.
Now, back at home, the HZ-300 is behaving as it should now.
I rule out the OptoBranch/4 as it was clearly passing signal just fine, all the way through the entire run and even through non-DMX cabling and properly triggering a fixture hanging off a DMX element that was at the end of the line.
So, clearly, with my simplified testing, I needed to screw things up. After the 50 foot DMX cable, I have attached a heavily coiled 100-foot XLR(yes, microphone cable, remember, I am a sound production company), and connected it to the HZ-300. Still works fine. Removed the terminator, still no problems.
So, I'm happy things are working. I'm confused as to why things aren't working now.
I'm not done testing. I need to get the OptoBranch/4 back into the mix again and test more. That will take a few days as it's really buried in the truck in a rack that is not accessible right now.
I almost want to crack the HZ-300 open and examine for loose connections, but I don't want to void my warranty. But, whatever I do, it will have to wait a few days before I can address this issue further.
Also, unexpectedly, Elation called me this morning trying to help me. Since I didn't recognize the number, I didn't answer. And my schedule changed a lot between their 9:45 call and the 12:05 when my plans for the day all went to crap. All I can say about Elation is "Impressive". Definately class act all the way. I know I made a righ decision sticking with ADJ and Elation. This should be a long and productive relationship. Yes, I may have to get non-ADJ/Elation gear from time to time, but that will be the rate exception and only after exhausting all options within the brands.
For the moment, I'm going to let this issue sort of rest. I'll do some "emulations" to test moves. I'll stick the HZ-300 on a card and push it around the block to simulate a move, then fire it up again and see what I get. I might toss another 500-feet of XLR cable and 300 feet of DMX cabling just to see if I can really hose things up that way. Now I'm trying to cause failure but without doing something obviously stupid. Put the item in the box, take it around the block on a cart, unpack it, stick it on the cart and fire it up. No box, put it on the cart, walk it around the block, fire it back up. I get the feeling this is a loose socket and is perhaps user servicable for advanced end-users who can do repairs.
Anyhow, thanks for the help. It will be taken advantage of, but not just yet. I need to simulate some conditions first to effectively rule out just about everything.