Need a remote douser ?

[derekleffew]

YES, Alex! The only time I've ever needed all five pins is on a WholeHogII RFU. Get over it people. But I like the MAC2000, and others, which have both 3pin and 5pin, as I use the fixture as an adapter (but not a splitter) all the time. Really handy when one universe is VLs and one is MACs on the same pipe.

[TechiGoz]

Not sure if anyone else has seen it, but you can get DMX board and chuck a servo on the end of it, and give it one parameter - TILT - and the the servo will move up and down. On the end, place a long bit of card/mdf or whatever you fancy, and you have a working mechanical, remote arm that you can trigger off you're lighting console!

Magic!

[Van]

Originally Posted by TechiGoz

Not sure if anyone else has seen it, but you can get DMX board and chuck a servo on the end of it, and give it one parameter - TILT - and the the servo will move up and down. On the end, place a long bit of card/mdf or whatever you fancy, and you have a working mechanical, remote arm that you can trigger off you're lighting console!

Magic!

Yeah it the and chuck a servo on the end of it, That most folks usually have a hard time with. For me this was simply a quick and dirty way to throw together a douser. I'd love to go with a servo unit but building the drive unit, and the programing would take a bit more than the average folk usually get into.

[Grog12]

Originally Posted by Van

Out of the blue we suddenly have issue with the light comming out of the front of the projector during the final black out of The Clean House . Yesterday,I get a note which says, basically,
" We can't have this light in the final scene. It's distracting! Fix It Now!" Of Course I reply,
" If you will remember I brought this up at the very first Production meeting, Projectors don't go black. You said That wouldn't be a problem, if you want it fixed I need $580.00 for a DMX controlled Douser, and it won't be here for a week."
"No Good you have 'till opening, two days."
So as I'm fuming my Master Carp/Shop Foreman says to me,"Hey I had a kid at UNLV last year who made a douser out of a CD-ROM drive, I don't know how he did it and it took him two months."
This starts my wheels turning. Two solder burns, $27.00 in parts at Radio Shack, one pretty much dead 32x CD-ROM drive, and 25' of Cat 5 cable and 6 hours later.....
I have a working , electronic remote control douser. Now I think I'm going to find a dmx decoder board, see about rigging it into the thing, I think I can give City theatrical a run for their money.
I'd be happy to share the details/plans with anybody here, but I'm seriously thinking about building a few proto types and marketing them....... With serious discounts to CB members of course.

Kid at UNLV is a friend of mine (my MFA is from UNLV) and I actually have his instructions on how they made it. I just ended up making one myself took me about 4 hours all told because I knew what I was doing.

This is a picture of UNLV's...when I take one of ours I'll post it here.

[David Ashton]

Without wishing to make life too simple, has anyone considered buying a cheap dmx lighting effect for around $50 then using the components to make the dowser.this would seem to be much easier than the options so far.

[Grog12]

Actually this project is rather easy and cheaper than $50. The original was built because they didnt have the money to even buy a $50 lighting effect to cannabilize. But they did have the rest of the parts lieing around the shop to make the CD Dowser.

[David Ashton]

yes but not dmx.

[gafftaper]

Originally Posted by Van

Well I looked for it here and didn't see it. Rats. I may keep going anyway. I'm tenacious that way.

While I'm late arriving to this thread, it just would feel so good to taunt Van about using the search function. Furthermore the fact that the "OSHA Kid" beat him to it makes this even more intriguing. But alas it's just been too long to get in a good shot along these lines. So I'm going to bed instead.

[Charc]

Originally Posted by derekleffew

van, this one for $155. Or for $39.95, this is probably more your speed.

Or, this can be found quite cheaply on the interwebs. 0-10V output, you just need sacrifice a 1/4" cable.

I think it looks like a cool thing for a fair amount of low voltage applications.

Thoughts, anyone?

[derekleffew]

Unless I'm missing something, I don't think the Chauvet unit would be appropriate for dousing a projector. And I know of very few professional strobes that use a 0-10v input as a trigger. There must be some purpose for it, or they wouldn't make it, but I can't think of a good use.