Control/Dimming - Shutting down

[xander]

The "Ghosting Lights" thread has encouraged me to ask this question of the community. It has 2 parts really. The first dealing with the Grand Master. Do people bring the GM to zero before shutting down? I seem to have an unnatural hatred of this. There is no reason to. I just find it annoying, but I know some people do it, so I wanted to know which is the majority.
The other part is something that I thought was a given, but reading the responses to "Ghosting Lights" gave me doubt. Do people out there turn out all of the lights before shutting down the board, or just flip the switch whenever you are done? I never really thought of turning off the board withOUT clearing the faders, channels, subs, parked stuff first. Kind of like shutting down my PC without closing the running programs.

P.S. I realize that on most boards there is a shut down process because of the integration of the XPembedded or similar. For the purpose of this question, pretend you were using an old board like the Expression3.

Thanks,
-Tim

[Grog12]

Don't take my endorsement of bringing the GM to zero before shutting down as something I like to do. I only do it on boards that have proven they are sending out bad packets. I've had more times where I've sent someone up to turn on the board and a channel and they couldn't get it to work because they didn't turn up the GM than I care to count.

Also you should always clear the show/subs/channels/fader ect before turning off the board. Its good ettiquete.

[chslighttech]

Whenever I leave the board at my college I release anything that is up and turn off all the subs. I do not bring the grandmaster to zero though. I do know that if you do not release or clear any channels that are on they will stay on when the board is turned off.

[icewolf08]

My shutdown is usually as follows:
1) Destrike MLs
2) Goto 0 (clear faders)
3) Take out any subs and/or other held channels
4) Save show
5) Break tracking sync
6) Shutdown

[willbb123]

I have an Expression 3 at the theater I work at
1. Make sure the Unison system has control of house lights
2. Clear Faders
3. Bring down all subs
4. Hit release a random amount of times. (2+)
5. Shutdown

I worked with someone once who pulled the GM down. I forgot to check one day when I walked up to the booth to turn on the board. I walked down to the stage and plugged in the RFU and couldn't bring anything up.... dude.. I was pissed...


I have disabled the blackout button on my board, because I see no use for it. I also want to disable the GM. I have figured out how to make inhibitive submasters, which I use in the GM's place. I can exclude my color scrolls, so just the light intensity goes down.

[ship]

Gee, I might hold olden days standards but good SOP anyway in voting first shut off the dimmer power, than shut down the board. Granted the dimmers/board was first at zero.

Otherwise if one shut down the board in the past, the dimmers used to go crazy in potentially going either random strobe or all on at full and blowing the main. Believe me, you can hear the humm starting to go and it builds and there ain't a thing you can do about it. Granted most systems wouldn't do this these days in a last takes presidence type of way when loosing the signal, but I would still follow this concept as good practice.

Zero the faders/dimmers. Shut off the power to the dimmers than do what you need with the light board even if it necessitates a walk back to the booth in doing so.

[ship]

Originally Posted by willbb123

I have disabled the blackout button on my board, because I see no use for it. I also want to disable the GM. I have figured out how to make inhibitive submasters, which I use in the GM's place. I can exclude my color scrolls, so just the light intensity goes down.

Ah' but that takes the fun out of "paying attention" to light board operation in a way that you really really know when they screwed up.

On the serious side and in my opinion, you might want to re-establish that link. Blackout is more than just a quick way of going black, it is a safety thing where by if you see sparks in the grid, you have a way of properly dealing with the problem before you have a fire.

[JD]

Originally Posted by ship

Gee, I might hold olden days standards but good SOP anyway in voting first shut off the dimmer power, than shut down the board. Granted the dimmers/board was first at zero.

Same here. No reason, just old habits!

[xander]

That is definitely an "old habit." I know a designer that does that too. However, these days it is actually the reverse. If one is going to cut power to the dimmers at all, you should power down the board first. That way if there is some sort of surge in the dimmer power while flipping the breaker, it doesn't hurt the delicate innards of a computer board.

[SteveB]

I shutdown maybe once a month, if that.

Reason 1: I often have calls that are prep or focus, but no have need to access the console (Express 48 with Emphasis), which is in a well locked position. I'd prefer to simply be able to plug in the RFU backstage and go to work.

2) Express doesn't need to get turned off. There are no fans and shutting down only kills certain functions and as it was explained to me by ETC Tech Services, there's no real reason to shut off - IF it's on a UPS. Emphasis, being a computer, also has no need, as there's no need to shut off many computers. Remember that servers run 24/7 and last seemingly forever. Both console and Emphasis are on UPS, so they're protected. The box under the console desk that houses Emphasis is on a temperature controlled cooling fan system that keeps the system cool enough, so that's not an issue. Likewise, my AC power is fed underground, so lightning is not an issue.

Thus, for 10 years on Express and 5 on Emphasis, the systems have been up and running all the time.

Close up procedure.

1) House, warmers and work lights are always on Unison, so nothing to deal with there.
2) I sometimes Snapshot the Express output into Unison if it looks like I need to hold the post show look and want to close up the console position. I can always kill the snapshot from a backstage Unison
3)I drop the GM, clear C/D fader (A/B is usually the 2 scene), clear subs, load next patch and show file, check patch, clear tape, restore GM (If I forget, I have a macro that makes the GM into a scene master, which restores RFU control over channels), cover console, then turn off little lights and monitors (first checking that no channels are ghosting on the faders) Then I close up the console position.

Steve B.