Moving fixture color problems

[jdsilverm]

Hey everyone. Let me first say thank you to all the contributors. You have been so helpful in the past, and we have recently discovered an interesting problem while programming and running a new show.

Here is our main equipment list:
Congo KID console
4 - Elation Platinum Spot 15R PROs
10 - Elation Platinum Spot 5Rs (not PROs)
2 - Chauvet Q-spot 260s
Tons of conventional fixtures
several special effects (fog, haze, etc).

We have been using all the equipment very well for the past two years since we purchased a lot of new equipment. Since we are a large church, we always program lots of small "shows" for each Sunday, but do several very large shows a year (over 100 cues, etc). It seems whenever we do a very large show with lots of cues, weird things start to happen. Last year, during Christmastime, we had a couple fixtures with pan/tilt changes. When we would go to a cue in rehearsal, they would not be near where we programmed. We would simply take the time to redo the cues and they would be fine for the rest of the show. Little bugs like that. Being completely honest, we just assumed it's because we got a Congo console and not the best GrandMA (!), so the software might be a little buggy. Obviously, finances are always a factor.

This year, we are finding that after programming, some of the Elation 15Rs are not responding well to COLOR changes. Obviously the cues are all programmed well, and we keep redoing them, but they seem to default to a yellow color instead of white all the time. If we select a fixture and control it's color, we can get it to go back to white (or whatever other color we need). We then update the cues, etc. But, in realtime, they don't go to the color they are supposed. Interestingly, this is only happening with 2 of the 4 - 15Rs and 2 of the 10 - 5Rs. On the channel strip they show the mover should be on white, but it's usually yellow. (We have even tried changing the color back to white in previous cues while they are 0 intensity, and it looks like it should work on the channel strip - we see the color change - but doesn't happen in the fixture).

We have reset the fixture, checked everything else we could think of, but to no avail. Just seeing if anyone else has experience something similar to this and might have some advice. Before we spend the time going up to each fixture and resetting the color wheel I wanted to be sure there wasn't something strange on the console end. By the way, we did slow down our DMX send on the Congo to "Medium."

Sorry for the long post, I just try to be as thorough as possible and give as much information as possible. The rest of the show runs great: timecode is perfect, pan/tilt, gobos, etc. Just color seems to be our issue in this particular production (which has around 160 cues).

Thanks everyone!

JDSILVERM

 

[starksk]

Hi @jdsilverm,

This sounds suspiciously like a fixture issue if the console is showing the correct data and some of the fixtures are responding correctly. However, a tip for recording attributes on Congo Kid when the intensity is at 0: By default, Congo only records attributes when the intensity has a value above 0. To record attributes but not have the fixture on, set the intensity to Mark. This is a softkey in the channels group of softkeys above the encoders. Your syntax would be #[CH/ID]{Mark}. This will tell the console that it should pay attention to the attribute data as a part of the record/update.

As always, if you would like to talk through the issue, please feel free to give us a call at 800-688-4116.

 

[porkchop]

After you reset the fixture does it come up correctly? If not, it's probably a problem with the fixture. The sensors they use to home/reset go bad over time. The offending fixtures might need to go to your dealer for maintenance.

 

[jdsilverm]

I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone for their assistance. Interestingly, after applying some of the above information, we discovered that it's only an issue with the CMY colors on the fixture not resetting. We finally noticed that whenever CMY colors were being used, some of the fixtures do not reset the yellow wheel properly. So, since we are on a time crunch, we took out some of those colors and are using the standard color wheel which exhibits no problems.

Interestingly, out of the 4 15Rs we have, they all exhibit the issue at some point or another, which makes me suspicious that it's a fixture problem since the probability of all 4 having a problem is nil. So, we will wait until our production is over and do a little more seeking on this issue. We got the 15Rs for their power and size, not necessarily for the CMY color mixing. So, for now, not a big deal. But, in the future, we need to get this sorted out. Thanks again, everyone!

 

[cbrandt]

I recently did some service on a Platinum Spot 5R Pro, with that exact problem. I'm not sure if they use a similar color mixing setup, but on the 5R, the guide rail that the color flag moves along was slightly bent, so that it would often get stuck, but not consistently. Hope that helps!