Help with first-time moving light setup?

I am going to be starting up a new project...
Fairly moderate sized. 20-40 Conventional lights, 4 moving heads. (all ETC lights).

ETC board, 24/48 Express.
I understand most of the user manual for the Express on patching, conventionals, etc etc. As soon as the Moving Lights chapter comes up...I'm gone.
I understand how to patch them (I think), set them up, I know they don't go into a dimmer, they go right to a breaker in box. DMX goes to the board or last dimmer.

I also understand that ETC's Source Four Revolution takes up quite a few channels of DMX (can't remember off top of my head).
I don't understand how the CONTROL of these lights work. Could somebody politely explain this to me? If I patch Moving Head 1 to channels 1-whatever, what level do I set channel two at (pan, course) and channel four at (tilt, course) to move the light around? How do I go about putting these in cues (follow cues) or submasters? This I'm lost on. Please help.

[Charc]

Can you give us some background on yourself, perhaps a thread in the New Members board?

Now onto your issue:

What sort of experience do you have? Are you a HS tech with MLs for the first time? Are you familiar with MLs, and are familiar with the Express, but not with the two together? Anything else that might be relevant?

[icewolf08]

I am sure that there is someone who can tell you the specifics of the actual patching in the console, as it has been quite a while since I worked with MLs on an Express. However, I can tell you more about working with the MLs, I work with Revs on a regular basis (and anyone who wants to trash talk them can go blow it out their nose!).

The Express has a basic ML patch setup. The nice thing is that the Express should have a profile prewritten for the Revs as they are ETC fixtures (though I could be wrong). You could patch the fixture without using the fixture patch, but that is somewhat laborious.

Originally Posted by Freedomiii6

I understand how to patch them (I think), set them up, I know they don't go into a dimmer, they go right to a breaker in box. DMX goes to the board or last dimmer.

Actually, the Revs can go into a dimmer as long as the dimmer is set to constant on. It says so in the manual. So, if you have free dimmers and they are easier to get to than a regular circuit then you can use them. As for DMX, you are correct, you can daisy chain out of your dimmers or you can use the second output from the Express. You can setup the second output to have any starting address you want, though it is usually easier to keep output 1 as universe 1 (1-512) and output 2 as universe 2 (513-1024).

You then need to address your fixtures. There are three red rotary dials on the base of the fixture, one for 1's, 10's and 100's. If you were daisy chaining out from your dimmers to the fixtures, the first fixture would have to have an address of at least one higher than the number of the last dimmer. That means if you have 96 dimmers then you would have to set the first Rev's address at 97 or higher. Personally, I like to address with easy to remember numbers especially if I don't have a lot of MLs, so I would pick a starting address of 100. Then the next fixture has to have a starting address that is above the last address the first fixture will use. (more on this in a second)

Originally Posted by Freedomiii6

I also understand that ETC's Source Four Revolution takes up quite a few channels of DMX (can't remember off top of my head).

The number of channels the Revs use varies depending on what modules you are using. If you have a gobo rotator and shutters that will take the max number of channels. The channel layout is listed on the bottom of the fixture and in the manual. The max is 31, and that is only if you have a shutter module in. Without a shutter module then the max is 23 and that is with 2 gobo rotator modules. And so on...

So (continuing from above), the second fixture needs to be addressed above the last used address of the first. Since you are only using 4 MLs, I would suggest just setting the address at 50 higher than the first fixture. This just makes the numbers easy to remember and the math easier to do. So if you follow my example address for fixture one the address for fixture two would be 150 (but if you wanted it could be 132 or 124 depending on the modules you are using). Then repeat for fixtures 3 and 4.

Originally Posted by Freedomiii6

I don't understand how the CONTROL of these lights work. Could somebody politely explain this to me? If I patch Moving Head 1 to channels 1-whatever, what level do I set channel two at (pan, course) and channel four at (tilt, course) to move the light around? How do I go about putting these in cues (follow cues) or submasters? This I'm lost on. Please help.

Control is pretty easy. You can assign the channels used by the fixtures to subs so that you have easy tactile control. In fact, on the Express, I would recommend doing just that. With the fixture patch on the console you can call them up as a fixture, and I believe that you can control pan and tilt with the built in trackpad (may be wrong so an Express user should correct me if so). I think you can also use the trackpad to control other attributes, but once again, don't quote me on that.

If you assign attributes to subs then as you bring the level of each attribute up it will change. So, per your example of tilt, as you bring the tilt channel up the fixture will move through it's 270˚ tilt range. It will stop whenever you stop changing the level of that channel.

All of this information records into cues just like any other channel on the board. The channels used by the moving lights behave just like any other channel on the Express (this is not true of all consoles).

One of the things that you should read up on in the Express manual (or if there is an Express user on CB who can explain how it works on that console) is Focus points. Focus points are essentially groups that store position and attribute info for MLs. The make recalling looks faster. For instance you might make a focus point that has all the fixtures in color 1 pointing to DSC and zoomed tight with a sharp focus. Then, whenever you needed the fixtures DSC you just call up that focus point and any or all the fixtures will go there.

Hope that helps some. Fire off any more questions you have, and do take Charcoaldabs' advice (wow, did I just say that?) and stop by the New Members Board and tell us about yourself.

[porkchop]

I think Alex's post pretty much sums it up and I understood it all having programmed ML's on an express, but there were a few things that I wouldn't quite understand if I hadn't done it before.

First of all channel setup: As Alex said this changes with toys, figure out what you have and there will still be channels that you don't use or don't like the order of. What we used to do is have a separate submaster page where we mapped the appropriate channels to submasters, but only the ones we would use and in an order we liked. (I've used fine pan/tilt once ever so I nixed that for instance).

Submaster control: Unless you can setup attributes (don't think you can) the manual for your rev's will be a god send here (PS there's a cheat sheet on etc's website http://www.etcconnect.com/docs/docs_...Expression.pdf). Basically the way I found best to think about it is every value on the fader say 16% on channel 13 (color scroller) would cause the color scroller to move 16% of its way from one end to the other. With your standard 12 pane color wheel that means you would be just into R05 with some R02 showing still. Pan/Tilt is the same way. You have 540 degrees of pan so 10% on channel 2 would put you at ~54 degrees around the base from the fixtures stop.

The main thing that I personally would have missed is that this fixture for as smart as it is, just knows numbers. 10% on channel 2 will always be ~54% from stop point. It doesn't matter if it was just at 100% and you bumped it there in a 0 count (bad idea) or if you put it there by hand in a very slow hand fade. 10% just corresponds to a number which in turn give the fixture a task (rotate gobo wheel, scroll colors, pan/tilt).

[chrispo86]

Though this is my first post, I've been watching this forum for a while now, and let me say, this is why I love this forum. I'm in exactly the same position right now. About 40 convential lights, an Express 24/48 is our normal board, though we rented a 48/96 for this show, and we're running 6 Martin MACs (4 300's and 2 250+'s). I could tell you pretty much everything about the Express, but I've never used it for moving lights!

I wanted to post a link to a guide I found on ETC's website for programming moving lights on an Express console, but the website is down right now. It didn't answer all of my questions, but it was definately a help in at least giving me a general idea of what I was doing. I found it in the downloads area, it was called the Expression Family of Consoles Moving Lights Programming Guide or something to that effect. When the website comes back up I'll post the link.

Best of luck!

Thanks to all so far! The long post (sry don't remember name) was a somewhat review but still extremely helpful. I did know how to address fixtures, hook them up, did know I could patch them to an non-dimming dimmer, etc etc.

Also, to post just prior to my reply, on the Express board, is there a way (I seam to remember reading it when I read the whole (100 pound) manual for the Express, to select certain channels/ubs that didn't apply to the blackout key?

Let me know.

[chrispo86]

Okay, so here's the link I mentioned:

http://www.etcconnect.com/docs/docs_...ming_Guide.pdf

As far as your question, I was under the impression that the blackout key takes priority over everything else. I haven't personally heard of anything that will escape the effects of pushing the blackout key, but if someone else out there knows otherwise, I'd be very interested to find out.

[Footer]

Well, you managed to catch me when I am working on a show on an express... Remember, the express 24/48 only has 96 or so control channels, it does have 1024 DMX slots but you can only control 96 of those slots independently. So.... you have 4 revs at 31ish channels, which is 120ish needed channels... plus 20-40 conventionals... your out of channels. Time to move to a bigger console. Also, on how to patch them into the console...

Download the ETC varified personalitys here... http://www.etcconnect.com/product.do....aspx?ID=20325

Make sure the rev is on the list, throw it onto a floppy (first find a computer with a floppy drive...)

go to setup, then moving light functions, then personality setup. Put the disk in and load the personality from disk (S1). Note the number of the Rev's personality.

go back to moving lights under setup, then go to fixture patch. On express console each mover is looked at as a fixture, not as a channel number as most consoles do. So, each mover will be fixture 1-4, and control channels will be assigned to each fixture. So, add a new fixture, in the personality field type in the personality number of the rev, the start channel is the first channel you want the mover to be patched to, on an express this needs to be between 1-96 and leaving enough room for each attribute on the light. The DMX512 start is the DMX address that you assigned to each light, remote dimmer is if you have a light that needs a remote dimmer. Don't worry about the other fields untill later.

Really though, you need to look into getting a different console in there, your express does not have the power to run 4 revs plus other lights.

Originally Posted by charcoaldabs

Can you give us some background on yourself, perhaps a thread in the New Members board?

http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=7331

[Charc]

Originally Posted by Footer4321

Well, you managed to catch me when I am working on a show on an express... Remember, the express 24/48 only has 96 or so control channels, it does have 1024 DMX slots but you can only control 96 of those slots independently. So.... you have 4 revs at 31ish channels, which is 120ish needed channels... plus 20-40 conventionals... your out of channels. Time to move to a bigger console. Also, on how to patch them into the console...
Download the ETC varified personalitys here... http://www.etcconnect.com/product.do....aspx?ID=20325
Make sure the rev is on the list, throw it onto a floppy (first find a computer with a floppy drive...)
go to setup, then moving light functions, then personality setup. Put the disk in and load the personality from disk (S1). Note the number of the Rev's personality.
go back to moving lights under setup, then go to fixture patch. On express console each mover is looked at as a fixture, not as a channel number as most consoles do. So, each mover will be fixture 1-4, and control channels will be assigned to each fixture. So, add a new fixture, in the personality field type in the personality number of the rev, the start channel is the first channel you want the mover to be patched to, on an express this needs to be between 1-96 and leaving enough room for each attribute on the light. The DMX512 start is the DMX address that you assigned to each light, remote dimmer is if you have a light that needs a remote dimmer. Don't worry about the other fields untill later.
Really though, you need to look into getting a different console in there, your express does not have the power to run 4 revs plus other lights.

Footer, are you saying you can't control channels that don't have a corresponding fader on an Express?

Strand 300 for basic educational situations and limited DMX Gear is, in my humble opinion, for the win.