I suspect we’ve all been there- we are handed a light and expected to make it work NOW.  We load up the profile in EOS and (hopefully) immediately test every function.  But one function doesn’t function.  So we scramble for the manual and check the DMX personality chart against what EOS has, and things seem basically right.  But if there is a parameter that is split into Ranges, there is another layer between you and information you need now.

The Situation

I’m on a film shoot at the moment, and I was presented with the Nova P 300c light.  I had it set in CCT RGB mode.  CCT worked perfectly, but when I was testing saturated RGB colors, I couldn’t get full saturation.  The profile has a parameter called Color Mode that is split into three ranges: CCT, RGB and CCT2.  When I clicked RGB, we were nowhere near saturated.  CCT2 helped a bit, but not enough.  I looked at the manual, and it seemed like full RGB saturation happens at 8 bit value 255.  So I needed to know what value the board was outputting so I can correct this quickly.

The Tip

By selecting the channel with your troublesome profile, and pressing [About], you can view the raw DMX values to figure out how to fix your faulty profile.   

The Dismount

Once I did that, I saw the profile was only outputting 178 of 255, and I realized the parameter was misidentified when the profile was created.  (Please don’t blame the fine folks that made the profile.  They aren’t able to get access to the lights to test.)  It should have been identified as a Color Crossfade as it was intended to smoothly transition between the CCT engine and the RGB engine.  I quickly corrected the problem before anyone on set was inconvenienced by erasing the Ranges as making the parameter continous.  Then, when I had down time, I emailed service@etcconnect.com to let them know so hopefully others will be spared. 

Hope this helps a part of your troubleshooting experience.  Would love to hear your profile stories (or requests for other tutorials or Tiny Tips) in the comments.