Technical Information

Colortran ENR

This equipment, Colortran ENR (Electronic Noise Reduction) has been produced since 1990, and is still in some limited production today. You might recognize these dimmers by their black plastic construction, and with their control modules located in the bottom of the rack.

ENR was produced in 96 dimmer racks, 24 dimmer packs, and 12 dimmer packs. A typical system had 2 ENR 96 racks for stage lighting, and an ENR 24 pack for houselights.

ENR was a rack, which was “self-syncing”. That is, it recognized the 3 major dimmer signal types (AMX-192, DMX-512, Colortran multiplex), and “sync-ed” automatically to that particular signal. Pretty handy where a road show might come in with their own console, and like to “speak” to your dimmers!

There are 2 control modules in the ENR 96 dimmer rack. The upper control module controls the upper 24 dimmer modules, and the lower control module handles the lower 24 dimmer modules. The third control module (if any) is the “ViewPoint” control module. This is the “logic” for house and stage “ViewPoint” controls, a separate control of lighting from the control console. Each of the 3 control modules has 3 pilot lights, which are: power (red, and indicates there is valid power to the rack and that the processor in the control module is working), signal (green, and indicates signal on the multiplex inputs), and airflow (yellow, and indicates LACK of airflow)

The ENR 24 has only one control module, and its’ pilot lights are just the same as the ENR 96 (above).

OK, so you have an ENR system, and you think you might have a problem. Listed below is a brief list of some typical problems…….

1. One dimmer stays on ALL the time, except when the circuit breaker is switched off. (the dimmer power cube is shorted and should be replaced by a factory authorized service center. DO NOT open the plastic dimmer module, as there is no way to put it back together, without the correct tools.
2. All the lights in a rack cycle on-off by themselves. (get a vacuum, and clean all the visible portions of the dimmers and control modules. the failure is an airflow problem, and some dust is probably blocking a airflow sensor port)
3. All the lights in a rack act as though they’re not controlled by the right DMX dimmer number. (the thumbwheels on the control modules are not correctly set)
4. When I run the lights up and down, all the lights flicker around 85%, and again at around 17%. (the control modules have old software in them, and should be upgraded)