LED Pars - DMX Channels

[kenneth]

Hi guys
We have an old 48 channel Strand MX board in our theatre at school. 43 of these channels are occupied.
I have been looking in to getting some LED Pars. Would each colour take up a channel, or do I need an intelligent board to do this. Also, could one channel control more than dmx output channel - e.g. RGB output from two LED pars to control each colour. So that's 6 channels. But would it be possible to have one channel to control both the reds, one to both the greens, and one to the blues... Would this be patching?
I apologise if I don't understand how these work. How much are cheappy sort of LED Pars in the UK anyway?
Thanks
K

[icewolf08]

First of all, how many dimmers do you have? Odds are you have 48, so are you using them all? Do you have multiple dimmers patched into one channel? If so, then you should already know the answer yo your question. You could set all the LED pars to individual addresses and then patch all the red channels together and all the greens, and so on. Thus giving you mixing control of all the units at once. You could also set the addresses of all the LED units the same and then just have them all controlled by the same channels.

Would you be happier with a board with a higher channel count? Probably, it will make life easier. Do you need it to make your idea work? No. The real question is how much are you willing to spend and what do you hope to accomplish? Just because you can do something doesn't mean it will work the way you really want it to.

[kenneth]

Originally Posted by icewolf08

First of all, how many dimmers do you have? Odds are you have 48, so are you using them all? Do you have multiple dimmers patched into one channel? If so, then you should already know the answer yo your question. You could set all the LED pars to individual addresses and then patch all the red channels together and all the greens, and so on. Thus giving you mixing control of all the units at once. You could also set the addresses of all the LED units the same and then just have them all controlled by the same channels.

Would you be happier with a board with a higher channel count? Probably, it will make life easier. Do you need it to make your idea work? No. The real question is how much are you willing to spend and what do you hope to accomplish? Just because you can do something doesn't mean it will work the way you really want it to.

Thanks for your speedy response. I presume that we have the 48 dimmers.
We have just bought a new Jester 12/24 for the smaller drama room, so I could see us investing in a 24/48 for the theatre. And some new LED pars.
It's unlikely that there will be a huge renovation to the theatre lighting - like getting more channels, and such like.
Just as a question, do CYC lights - e.g. all four reds, get patched in to the same DMX?
Thanks again
Kenneth

[icewolf08]

If you are going to consider purchasing a new console then you should seriously think about what the future has in store for you. If you think you will get into LED fixtures or possibly moving lights down the road then you should invest in a console that has some future expandability. If you only buy a console that does just what you need it to do now, then you will end up having to buy another new on later on. even if you don't see a major systems upgrade in the near future ( like adding more dimmers and such), if you are going to invest, make sure that it has some futureproofing or the people with the money will wonder why you keep wanting to buy more new consoles.

As for your question on cyc lights, it really depends. First off, it depends on if you are talking about conventional cyc lights or LEDs. If conventional, then usually you can't put more than two windows of each color on one dimmer as most people lamp their cycs at 1kW. Sometimes you might want to have individual control of every window of every color, sometimes not. In LED land you have similar concerns unless you happen to have one continuous LED strip that runs the entire length of your cyc, then you might not have a choice.

[kenneth]

Originally Posted by icewolf08

If you are going to consider purchasing a new console then you should seriously think about what the future has in store for you. If you think you will get into LED fixtures or possibly moving lights down the road then you should invest in a console that has some future expandability. If you only buy a console that does just what you need it to do now, then you will end up having to buy another new on later on. even if you don't see a major systems upgrade in the near future ( like adding more dimmers and such), if you are going to invest, make sure that it has some futureproofing or the people with the money will wonder why you keep wanting to buy more new consoles.

As for your question on cyc lights, it really depends. First off, it depends on if you are talking about conventional cyc lights or LEDs. If conventional, then usually you can't put more than two windows of each color on one dimmer as most people lamp their cycs at 1kW. Sometimes you might want to have individual control of every window of every color, sometimes not. In LED land you have similar concerns unless you happen to have one continuous LED strip that runs the entire length of your cyc, then you might not have a choice.

Cheers that's great.
I will look in to the Jester ML, or something like that. But it won't be anytime in the next year or so.
Really good advice - thanks a bunch.
K

[misterm]

Some conventional cyc lights you can daisy chain together to control the inidvidual colors together (i.e. the reds together, blues, etc...). Most LED pars have dip switches that allow you to easily change what DMX address they are on so yes, you can control them all together if you set them to the same address. We do that most of the time to save room on our console, then just switch over the ones we want individual control over. Remember that if you have an LED fixture that it will take between 5 and 7 channels to operate. 1 for each color, so 3 (or 4 or 5 depending) then usually one for strobe control, and one for overall intensity. Make sure you know exactly how your dipswitches are setup so you can change the DMX address without totally confusing yourself. We're using LED pars in our blackbox so we're definitely beginning to understand all of their little complexities.

[NickVon]

Originally Posted by kenneth

Thanks for your speedy response. I presume that we have the 48 dimmers.
We have just bought a new Jester 12/24 for the smaller drama room, so I could see us investing in a 24/48 for the theatre. And some new LED pars.
It's unlikely that there will be a huge renovation to the theatre lighting - like getting more channels, and such like.
Just as a question, do CYC lights - e.g. all four reds, get patched in to the same DMX?
Thanks again
Kenneth

as per your question at the end.... it Depends :-)

Personaly for my theatre I have 4 color strips, and 3 each top and bottom (not LED) I like to mix top and bottom colors to provide nice sunset/sunrise type coloring. If you are using LED's in which case you are simply talking about dmx addressing to faders/board channels it's kind of up to you (and how many physical faders you have for ease of use). For simplicity if you have a House Rep Softpatch i would think ganging all your red LED dmx to dimmers makes sense. If for a show you want to create crazy horizontal rainbow effects you can re-softpatch each strip individually so SR strip had 4 unique dmx channels, C Strip has 4 unique dmx, etc.

another example:

I hve 2 Rosco I-Que. they are set for 4 dmx channels worth, 1 for Tilt, 1 for Pan, 1 for tilt (micro), 1 for Pan (micro)

in theory on my board, IQ A's movement controls would take up 60 - 63 (4 faders) hower ever i un patched 61, and 63, and should 60 and 62 right next to each other. If for what ever reason i need micro adjust on them, i can manually edit it use channel captures in the 200' based on where i ever i move them, or re patch them so other faders on the board. This way i don't need to actually physical reach teh I-Que's to change there dmx address/settings.

[TimOlson]

Originally Posted by kenneth

Hi guys
We have an old 48 channel Strand MX board in our theatre at school. 43 of these channels are occupied.
I have been looking in to getting some LED Pars. Would each colour take up a channel, or do I need an intelligent board to do this. Also, could one channel control more than dmx output channel - e.g. RGB output from two LED pars to control each colour. So that's 6 channels. But would it be possible to have one channel to control both the reds, one to both the greens, and one to the blues... Would this be patching?
I apologise if I don't understand how these work. How much are cheappy sort of LED Pars in the UK anyway?
Thanks
K

as long as the LED instrument you get has a mode that allows for 5 channels or less, you're in. some led's allow a very simple 3 channel operation because they only have red, green, and blue led's. some have multiple "modes" like the color kinetics colorblaze - all the way from 3 channels to more than 50.

peace,

TimO

[len]

An LED par can will use anywhere between 3 and 8 - 9 channels. BUT the big reason to buy an LED (versus a conventional) is the fact that you get color control from the board and don't have to change gel. So if you have 12 pars and address them all the same all you have is one large par can. So 12 par cans with individual addresses requires a MINIMUM of 36 dmx channels.

So depending on your goals, you really should consider a larger desk. A 2 - 4 universe desk might be within reach as opposed to a 1 universe desk, so it might be worth it to expand way more than you think you need.