Category Archives: DMX

Chauvet DMX-RT compatible microSD cards and benchmarks.

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In my previous DMX-RT post, I listed some of the problems I’d encountered. Today, I’m going to solve one of them.

I went through four DMX-RT units before I got one that worked. The first one was “dead on arrival” (no menu). The second one worked fine for a while (using a Kingston Class 10 MicroSD card), then died. The third had problems accessing any MicroSD card I gave it (reporting “no F”). Finally, the fourth unit appeared to work as expected, though I would find the loops would stop playing every now and then.

I exchanged numerous e-mails with Chauvet technical support during all of this, and wanted to pass along their recommendation about which MicroSD cards they “know” work in the unit. I tried Kingston, Sandisk, and a few others, but here is one they use:

I would hope that the 16GB Ultra PLUS would also work, but I wanted to get exactly what support was using to test my DMX-RT out. I let it run a loop overnight and it was still looping the next morning.

There is also a step up from this card — SanDisk Extreme PLUS — which is supposed to be a bit faster. I picked one of those up as well and ran some benchmarks.

First, here is the Kingston Class 10 Canvas Select card I was trying to use:

  • Kingston Canvas Select 16GB via Amazon (affiliate link). These are high rated and cheap ($3.54 as of this writing, as an add-on item). I have several of these I am using in Raspberry Pis with no issue.

In the above AJA System Test benchmark, nonie that the write speed (the blue line) jumps around. This could be a problem when recording DMX streams. The read speed seems okay, but dropped off at the end. Maybe this is why my unit would stop looping when using this card?

I also had an older SanDisk card that I tried:

  • SanDisk Ultra 32GB (not the PLUS model)

Notice that the read speed is only a bit faster than the Kingston, but the writes are a bit more flaky. I did not have success using this card in the DMX-RT.

  • SanDisk Ultra PLUS 32 GB – This is the card suggested by Chauvet for me to use.

Write speed is a bit faster, but read was a bit slower than the normal ULTRA and had performance dropouts. Interesting, considering this card seems to work fine.

  • SanDisk Extreme PLUS 32GB – This one I just tried for fun. It’s only a few dollars more, and it claims to be faster.

Wow! Look at those write speeds. They may be jittery, but they are fast. Read speeds were only a tad faster than the older Ultra card I had.

I don’t really know if any of this is useful. I’m happy just buying the card that Chauvet suggests, but I thought it might be fun to look at the others I tried to see if I could spot why they failed. (I do not have benchmarks for a few cards that seemed to die on me during the testing process.)

Coming up next will be a video showing off the Halloween project I am using the DMX-RT for.

Until then…

Chauvet DJ DMX-RT problems

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When I do extensive searching on some topic, and can’t come up with any satisfactory results, I will often do a blog post with the results of my research. This helps it at least get indexed by the search engines for others following the same path.

You may disregard this post, unless you came here through such a search.

The Chauvet DJ DMX-RT DMX recorder/playback device is a cool little gadget.

https://www.chauvetdj.com/products/dmx-rt/

I have been having problems with the units I have received. Here are some search terms:

  • DMX-RT locks up with yellow LED with no SD card inserted.
  • DMX-RT lockup on RECORD or RUN playback.
  • DMX-RT says “no F” when trying to RUN.
  • DMX-RT Err 5.
  • DMX-RT problems.
  • DMX-RT compatible microSD / SD cards.

Feel free to comment if you came here after searching for any of these terms.

We now return you to your normally scheduled programming…