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6 replies

SD1 pan/tilt sensitivity

FM Former Member
Hello - I'm having an issue with the level of sensitivity with the pan/tilt sliders (fader 1 & 2) of my SD1. The SD1 is new and has never been out "on the road".

The sliders are very, very sensitive to movement; so much, that when I move one of the sliders (i.e pan), to a certain position, the display will read 140, then it will jump to 141 for a brief second and then back to 140... maybe down to 139, back to 140. Because of this, I can't really program chases for separate fixtures because the slider positioning is changing (by one) in a millisecond, which causes the other fixture to "reposition" to where the faders are.

Is there some way to "lock down" the positioning on the sliders so they don't "drift" between positions? Is there something in the setup of the SD1 that can aid with the sensitivity of the sliders?

There's no vibration going on with the unit and I'm not accidentally hitting the unit.

Thank you in advance!
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FM Former Member
Thank you SD - I unplugged the DMX cable and then moved the sliders... there was no jitter/drifting! So, looks you hit it on the nose... electrical noise. I moved the wires (DMX and power) around; it seems to have helped some with the jitter (not completely helped, but much, much better). The cables (where they can) are now crossing at right-angles. However, where the DMX/power connectors go into the unit, there's not much I can do there.

The DMX cables I have are for DMX (including a terminator). How is the system (as a whole) still getting electrical noise when using DMX "approved" cabling? Aside from a "best practice" of cabling, is there another cabling protocol I'm missing for cabling the scanners? For right now, the scanners and controller are sitting on the floor; the cabling has been on the floor in sort of a pile during my testing and learning - could this also be part of the problem?

Thank you.
sdmansdmanMember
The SD1 uses an AC to DC transformer that isn't grounded so the ground on the SD1 is floating. The DMX cable has a ground wire that connects the SD1 ground to the ground of your lights so that is where the ground level is coming from. Three things to try:
1. Try connecting the SD1 chassis to a ground nearby.
2. Disconnect the ground pin on the DMX cable going into the SD1 (pin1). Use an old cable and just cut that wire on one end.
3. As a last resort, you can buy a DMX opto-isolator box that isolates the grounds from the controller to the lights.
FM Former Member
Thanks SD. I chose cutting the pin-1 wire (on the SD side). It's made a noticeable difference in the channel drifting, but it has not completely done away with it... damn. Looks like it corrected the problem to about 95%.

With pin-1 cut and not too much of a drifting issue, do you think the remaining ~5% issues are from the close proximity of the AC and data wired to each other? They are separated as much as they can be with where they are currently located.

Thanks.

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