Equipment Tips: Strand 300/scrollers

[Artemis133]

I just started working at this theatre, and they have pretty new equiptment. It's only three years old. The problem is, the old TD left before they trained anyone to take over, and the people who installed the equiptment to begin with took the manuals. I understand the basic ideas of the stuff, but not how to do more than that. I took over as LD, ME, and TD. So, basically, what I'm worried about right now is the light board.

I have a Strand 300 series, and know how to write cues and submasters, and basic things like that. What I am trying to do is find out how to do that other, more comlicated stuff. For instance, I just found a couple of forerunners in the loft, but I don't know how to connect them to this board. Anyone have any helpful tips for me?

[Footer]

http://www.bobbyharrelllighting.com/...g/support.html

That will tell you just about anything that you would want to do with that console. Bobby knows more about this console then anyone else out there. If you have any questions beyond what is covered there, just make a post, if Icewolf or I can not answer your question then when can find the answer for you. Do a search for hooking up scrollers, there are many threads that will explain how to do this. My advice on the manual thing, start at the begining and work through page by page. It might sound dumb, but there is a reason why he wrote those guides like he did.

[avkid]

Product Support page:
http://tinyurl.com/2zdz87

[stantonsound]

Where are you located? I am sure that there is someone out there that wouldn't mind giving a fellow controlboothie a hand.

[Footer]

Originally Posted by avkid

Product Support page:
http://tinyurl.com/2zdz87

Really, there is very little info on that site that it at all useful. The strand manual is 400 pages of the most confusing rhetoric ever. Bobby's guides should get you just about anything you will ever need. I'm not knocking the manual, its just written to give you the info, not how to actually use it. Bobby does the opposite.

[icewolf08]

Sorry for taking my time getting here. I was camping this weekend... So nice to get away from the world.

Originally Posted by Artemis133

I have a Strand 300 series, and know how to write cues and submasters, and basic things like that. What I am trying to do is find out how to do that other, more comlicated stuff. For instance, I just found a couple of forerunners in the loft, but I don't know how to connect them to this board. Anyone have any helpful tips for me?

Let me start with this question. If you have Forerunner color scrollers hopefully you have a power supply that goes with them. The Forerunner series scrollers can be used with any standard scroller PSU (Apollo's SmartPower or a Chroma-Q PSU), just not the ColoRam PSU. Assign each scroller a DMX address on the controls on the scroller itself. When you connec the scrollers, best practice is to make a loop out from the PSU to the scrollers and back. The PSU should have a 5-pin DMX port that you should use to connect to your console.

So, here is the fun part, and probably the information you wanted. If I remember correctly the Strand 300 has at least 2 DMX out ports. The general rule of thumb that I use is that I connect my dimmers to DMX 1 and I start my accessories on DMX 2 (unless I have more than 512 dimmers). If you go into "Console Setup" (Press: [REPORT] {Adv. Setup} {CONSL. SETUP}) you need to make sure that you have both DMX outs set to "DMX OUT" and that the address range for DMX 1 is 1-512 and for DMX 2 is 513-1024.

Now you should be set to start patching. So, lets assume you have 8 lights with scrollers, the lights are plugged into dimmers 10-18, the scrollers are set to DMX addresses 1-8, and you want them in channels 1-8. You would go in to the patch display (press: [PATCH]) from here you can assign your dimmers to channels. So for arguments sake we are going to assume everything just goes in numerical order so you want the light that is in dim. 8 in chan 1. You would patch as such: 10 [@] 1[*] (this will patch your light to the channel). Followed by: 2.1 [@] 1.2[*] (this will patch the scroller to the color attribute of the channel. The reason you use "2.1" is because you have the scroller set to address 1 but the scrollers are connected to universe 2.

That is scroller patching 101 on a Strand. Feel free to ask more questions if you have them and if the other sources that were pointed out before don't answer them.

[Footer]

Originally Posted by icewolf08

Sorry for taking my time getting here. I was camping this weekend... So nice to get away from the world.
Let me start with this question. If you have Forerunner color scrollers hopefully you have a power supply that goes with them. The Forerunner series scrollers can be used with any standard scroller PSU (Apollo's SmartPower or a Chroma-Q PSU), just not the ColoRam PSU. Assign each scroller a DMX address on the controls on the scroller itself. When you connec the scrollers, best practice is to make a loop out from the PSU to the scrollers and back. The PSU should have a 5-pin DMX port that you should use to connect to your console.
So, here is the fun part, and probably the information you wanted. If I remember correctly the Strand 300 has at least 2 DMX out ports. The general rule of thumb that I use is that I connect my dimmers to DMX 1 and I start my accessories on DMX 2 (unless I have more than 512 dimmers). If you go into "Console Setup" (Press: [REPORT] {Adv. Setup} {CONSL. SETUP}) you need to make sure that you have both DMX outs set to "DMX OUT" and that the address range for DMX 1 is 1-512 and for DMX 2 is 513-1024.
Now you should be set to start patching. So, lets assume you have 8 lights with scrollers, the lights are plugged into dimmers 10-18, the scrollers are set to DMX addresses 1-8, and you want them in channels 1-8. You would go in to the patch display (press: [PATCH]) from here you can assign your dimmers to channels. So for arguments sake we are going to assume everything just goes in numerical order so you want the light that is in dim. 8 in chan 1. You would patch as such: 10 [@] 1[*] (this will patch your light to the channel). Followed by: 2.1 [@] 1.2[*] (this will patch the scroller to the color attribute of the channel. The reason you use "2.1" is because you have the scroller set to address 1 but the scrollers are connected to universe 2.
That is scroller patching 101 on a Strand. Feel free to ask more questions if you have them and if the other sources that were pointed out before don't answer them.

You can also patch scrollers like this... I find this easier... this also gives you frame by frame feedback at the console instead of a 0-100 value

patch fixtures as usual... dim@chan
to patch the scroller...
DMXaddress of scroller [@] Chanel of the fixture its connected to [@ATT] 15 (number of frames in the scroll NOT including the 1st clear frame)

[icewolf08]

Originally Posted by Footer4321

You can also patch scrollers like this... I find this easier... this also gives you frame by frame feedback at the console instead of a 0-100 value
patch fixtures as usual... dim@chan
to patch the scroller...
DMXaddress of scroller [@] Chanel of the fixture its connected to [@ATT] 15 (number of frames in the scroll NOT including the 1st clear frame)

Well, you got me on frame count, but I don't think your patching will work. If you want frame-by-frame control (using the "@ATT" key) you need to patch the scroller to the X.2 channel. If you patched as you said Footer the scroller would go with the intensity of the fixture. If you patch the scroller as such: ScrollerDMX [@] X.2 [@] 15 (where X is the intensity chan) then you will have patched the scroller with 15 color frames plus clear (frame 0) to the color attribute of the intensity channel.

So, if you want to bring up the fixture in a color you would hit: Chan# [@] Intensity [@ATT] Frame#. When you patch things like this you can take advantage of "Auto Move While Dark." Also, the color is fully selectable for split frames using the white/top encoder (on a 500 series console). On your 300, I believe if you plug in a trackball mouse with a scroll wheel then the scroll wheel would control the color positioning.

[Footer]

Originally Posted by icewolf08

Well, you got me on frame count, but I don't think your patching will work. If you want frame-by-frame control (using the "@ATT" key) you need to patch the scroller to the X.2 channel. If you patched as you said Footer the scroller would go with the intensity of the fixture. If you patch the scroller as such: ScrollerDMX [@] X.2 [@] 15 (where X is the intensity chan) then you will have patched the scroller with 15 color frames plus clear (frame 0) to the color attribute of the intensity channel.
So, if you want to bring up the fixture in a color you would hit: Chan# [@] Intensity [@ATT] Frame#. When you patch things like this you can take advantage of "Auto Move While Dark." Also, the color is fully selectable for split frames using the white/top encoder (on a 500 series console). On your 300, I believe if you plug in a trackball mouse with a scroll wheel then the scroll wheel would control the color positioning.

try it, you will be suprised, it does the exact same thing but you get the frame count.

[icewolf08]

Originally Posted by Footer4321

try it, you will be suprised, it does the exact same thing but you get the frame count.

I certainly will. It also shows the diversity of the programming syntax of the Strand.