Automated Fixtures - Striking the lamps???

[buddy101089]

Hey,
My church is kinda throwing me in a loop and renting 2 martin 250 entours and one martin 550 profile for our christmas concert and I was wondering what striking the lamp means... I see it in the manual and everywhere here and kind of need a definition as to the point and like do you unstrike a lamp? I mean just an description would be helpful. Thanks!

[brethughes]

Moving fixtures generally use an arc lamp rather than a standard filament. The arc is not dimmable, rather you just douse the light with shutters of the like from one of the parameters. Therefore, when you turn on the fixture, the lamp will not be on. You will have to "strike" the lamp. You can do this one of two ways.

You can either surf through the onboard menus of the fixture until you find the command Lamp On or Lamp Strike (generally shorthanded L On of LStk) Once the lamp strikes, exit out of the menu. If you leave it on the Strike option, it will continue to strike the arc.... no good.

You're second option is, within your palettes, (or just via one of the channels on a standard console) you will have a Lamp strike option, and you can strike them all via DMX.

Once they are struck they will take a short amount of time to glow to full illumination. Then you are set to go.

***VERY IMPORTANT*** When you are done working with them, you must turn the lamps off and let them cool before cutting DMX and powering down the fixture. Same, you can do this from the menu on the mover, or you can do it via DMX channel. Once the lamps unarc, unstrike, turnoff, whatever you want to call it. THEY NEED TO COOL. Make sure you give them ample cool down time. While it varies from mover to mover, it is generally good to let them cool for at least 15-20 minutes just to be safe. Once the fans have had the opportunity to cool the unit (and mostly the lamp and reflector assemblies) then you can power down the fixture and you are finished.

Hope this helps.

Bret

[derekleffew]

See this glossary entry: http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/g...ing-lamps.html.

For most Martin fixtures:
Holding the Control Channel (channel#1) at a DMX percentage of 90-93% for at least five seconds sends a LampON command.
Channel#1 at 82-85% is RESET.
98-100% is LampOff.

On a conventional desk (Express, Expression, etc.,) one often writes a macro to accomplish the above.
On a moving light desk (Hog, grandMA) the commands are usually put into the Beam palette.
I believe the Ion and Eos already have the commands built-in.

What console are you using for control?

[TimMiller]

With martin, you have strike the lamp and turn off the lamp from the console or the instrument. Some people set the fixture to turn on the lamp when you power on the fixture. But if you cannot turn off the power then you have to remember to turn off the lamp from the console. I like to kill the power to the rig at the end of the night just to keep anything weird from happening and the fixtures possible lamping back on.

[buddy101089]

Ight, Yea it's just 3 fixtures 2 on stage and 1 at FOH but, we are using a Classic Pallette II with Palltte os v10 to control the fixutres (all of that is from strand) didnt know if that was important. Thanks so much for y'alls help! I had no clue. If you have used this board or OS can you let me knw how I should strike them or if it's built in or if I need to go through the fixture.

[sk8rsdad]

I suggest you set the fixtures via their menu to PERS->ALON = DMX. The lamps will strike automatically when they receive DMX data and shut off 15 minutes after DMX data is lost.

You may want to start familiarizing yourself with these instruments. User manuals can be downloaded from the Martin site.

Product - MAC 550
Product - MAC 250 Entour™

[derekleffew]

I suggest you set the fixtures via their menu to PERS->ALON = DMX. The lamps will strike automatically when they receive DMX data and shut off 15 minutes after DMX data is lost. ...

I would vociferously disagree, as I feel this practice leads to unnecessary lamp hours; and occasionally, needless heat build-up within the fixture. A user MUST learn how to do a soft-reset from the console, so learning the procedures for LampON and LampOff is a minor stretch.

[buddy101089]

Ha yes... I have been looking at the manuals... actually i've read most of em all the way through but i'm going all the way through as we speak. Anything else I need to know about my first time using Martin's?

[sk8rsdad]

I would vociferously disagree, as I feel this practice leads to unnecessary lamp hours; and occasionally, needless heat build-up within the fixture. A user MUST learn how to do a soft-reset from the console, so learning the procedures for LampON and LampOff is a minor stretch.

In this case, the original question indicates a lack of understanding about MLs to a degree that warrants simplifying the problem as much as possible. Perhaps the person who raised the question knows how to configure fixture profiles and write macros to manage lamp on/off but my gut tells me otherwise. These are being rented for a short term event. The Entours and MAC 550 reduce power to the lamps when the shutters are closed so I stand by my response.

[porkchop]

I have to whole heartedly agree with derek. Just the act of striking a lamp puts as much wear on it as running it for 2 - 3 hours (we can argue about the time and how it varies but you get the idea). So if a random person that doesn't know the lights are set that way comes in and flips on the board you're now burning your lights unnecessarily. Also it becomes a big problem if you use the board to control the house light system. Also I don't know how these particular lights work, but I would guess that if you have them set to strike when they receive DMX that they send the strike signal once and then assume it's on. Well what happens if it didn't strike, you're gonna have to strike it from the board anyway. I would rather have to strike the fixture by hand at the fixture itself than have to rely on receiving DMX for strike.

[icewolf08]

The Palette OS has built in LampON LampOFF commands for all fixtures that are in the built in library. I Asked this question at the demo we had the other day. I don't remember how to get to it, but I believe it was under one of the softkeys when you select the channel.

[buddy101089]

Yea, since I dont have the remote on my comptuer because it's a mac, I will look at it on sunday. Thanks guys for all the answers and help!