My brother-in-law bought this light bar from an auction site that sells off Amazon and Walmart return items as is. He thought it was a lightbar that he could mount on his truck, it wasn’t until he got his hands on it that he realized it was party lights. Since I DJ weddings on the side he gave it to me for nothing.
It didn’t come with a power cord but it used the same power input that every powered speaker/sub/amp I have ever seen in a mobile sound system used, I had an extra but when I plugged it up nothing happened. So I took it apart and discovered that one of the wire connectors head just not been cramped will and had came apart so after putting a new end on it and putting it all back together I now have power but I still don’t have any lights.
As you can see in the pictures I don’t see any brand or model number anywhere on the light bar. However on the back there is what appears to be an extremely confusing mode diagram for the driver. If you’ll notice it has an input and output for common microphone/music cables, I’m assuming so that The light skin flash to the beat of the music and also be hooked up in a series (notice the 110v out). It looks to me like there should be an option between DMX modes ( where the lights flash to the music ) and non dmx . But I’ve tried pushing all the buttons in all kinds of ways and while the LCD retail changes I still have not yet gotten any light output. All of my sound system here i’ve tried pushing all the buttons in all kinds of ways and while the LCD retail changes I still have not yet gotten any light output. I store all of my sound system gear at my mom and dad‘s because I don’t have room at my house so I cannot hook up the DMX input to see if that makes a difference right now.
But I was hoping maybe that someone on here could help me make sense of what I am looking at.
( I will edit this post with pictures in just a second. ) (second edit - i am n00b failing at posting pics… been a while…. can yall see those pics?)
You will need some sort of device that can produce DMX signaling. What the diagrams and information are telling you are exactly what the various parts of the DMX signal will cause the unit to do. Until you are able to issue DMX commands to the device, it isn’t going to do anything. DMX uses RS485 signaling, which is a serial communications interface (much as the computer connections labeled COMx are on your computer. You are going to need an interface unit (something that usually goes between a computer and the DMX cable that connects to your light bar, usually uses a USB port on your computer), a DMX cable to actually connect the light bar to the interface and software to actually drive the lightbar, i.e. something to send the DMX commands to the lightbar to make it do the things you want. You might want to take a good look at www.lightjams.com They provide both interfaces and software that you could use to drive the light bar. What you actually have isn’t really a disco light, it is more like a piece of stage lighting used for a show or a play.
Matheww1950 , thanks for that information. that confirms what I was beginning to speculate, that DMX input was required. Would I be able to run the light off my sound board, or put it in series with one of my speakers?\
[quote=Clovis Point]
Matheww1950 , thanks for that information. that confirms what I was beginning to speculate, that DMX input was required. Would I be able to run the light off my sound board, or put it in series with one of my speakers?\/quote]
Ok. Reading up a little more on dmx lighting…. didn’t realize how much there was to it. Pretty complicated… not really my cup of tea. I just do mobile djing for weddings and parties, I’m not really a house beats mixer edm dj. I’ll probably just end up selling the light on eBay. Shipping will be expensive but I have $0 in it so …
[quote=Clovis Point]
Matheww1950 , thanks for that information. that confirms what I was beginning to speculate, that DMX input was required. Would I be able to run the light off my sound board, or put it in series with one of my speakers?\/quote]
The obvious answer is indeed no, but it isn’t really difficult to do what you want. You will need a computer (it really doesn’t have to be very fancy or expensive, because you aren’t trying to process huge spread sheets or surf the web in record time), a DMX interface box, a DMX cable, and software such as that offered by lightjams. .You connect a high level output from your sound system (generally that is an RCA jack on the back of the amplifier, the voltages to the speakers are much too high) to an audio input on the computer. The computer has the circuits to digitize the sound and the lightjams software would them be able to utilize that information to drive your lights. It would make for a very impressive display, and that might well improve your business substantially. See Synchronize Music Playback And Lights - DMX Controller Software. In fact you might elect to run your music through the lightjams software and then into your amplifier because the lightjams software can provide all sorts of special effects to music you play. What you actually have a pretty advanced light bar that can do a lot of neat things if you have the software and hardware to drive it. While the learning curve on this stuff tends to be steep, once you get the hang of it, you are likely to discover it can do all sorts of really neat things for you. So I’d view this as an opportunity to substantially ‘up your game’ and attract more customers who are willing to pay more money for the show and services you can put on for their event.
