MightyRedDevil
Member
Hey everyone, I’m a theater teacher for a relatively small high school program. I don’t have a lot of technical experience and I’m trying to wrap my head around some stuff when it comes to LEDs, DMX, Dimmers, Channels, etc. So, this may be a long post, I may have some fundamentals wrong, and if you could explain it like I’m five, I would greatly appreciate it.
So here’s the big question: How can I set up my LEDs so that I can control them individually, and select the color using software rather than submasters.
Here’s the situation:
I have a relatively old auditorium (’67) and we recently switched our colored strip lights from old 8” roundels to ETCs ColorSource PARs. For the Cyc we got the ColorSource Source 4s with the Cyc adapter. We have three electrics with the pars, 8 pars per electric all chained to a wireless transmitter/adapter at the end of the electric. This adapter is then plugged into a dimmer plug at the end of the electric. We have an ETC Sensor+ Dimmer rack with 48 ETC D20s for a total of 96 Dimmers.
When the company first came to install the PARs we had an old ETC Express 48 board, and I was told that we wouldn’t be able to run the lights individually because we didn’t have enough channels, and if we got a new board, we’d be able to have more control, but for the time being we would only be able to control them electric by electric. So the lights were put into RGB mode, 1st electric addressed to 201, 2nd to 204, and so on. We patched our old board accordingly, and that was that.
Well, we recently were able to get an ETC Element, and my district auditorium specialist feels like we still won’t be able to control each individual light, but need to go electric by electric. But, to put it politely, we’re all still learning... I just feel like, with ETC lights, an ETC Dimmer rack, and an ETC board, shouldn’t there be a way to set this up where I can have more control?
Do I need to change the setting on the lights to something else? Do I just need to readdress the lights? Is this not possible because of how they are chained together/talking to my board? I know that I can tell the board exactly which light I’m using, will that allow me to have more control?
I know this is a long post, but I wanted to make sure I gave enough information. I just really feel like there’s just a setting or something that needs to be changed and my world is going to be so different. Or maybe I’m stuck in an old run down auditorium that will be a curmudgeon forever and never accept new tech.
Thanks in advance for the help.
So here’s the big question: How can I set up my LEDs so that I can control them individually, and select the color using software rather than submasters.
Here’s the situation:
I have a relatively old auditorium (’67) and we recently switched our colored strip lights from old 8” roundels to ETCs ColorSource PARs. For the Cyc we got the ColorSource Source 4s with the Cyc adapter. We have three electrics with the pars, 8 pars per electric all chained to a wireless transmitter/adapter at the end of the electric. This adapter is then plugged into a dimmer plug at the end of the electric. We have an ETC Sensor+ Dimmer rack with 48 ETC D20s for a total of 96 Dimmers.
When the company first came to install the PARs we had an old ETC Express 48 board, and I was told that we wouldn’t be able to run the lights individually because we didn’t have enough channels, and if we got a new board, we’d be able to have more control, but for the time being we would only be able to control them electric by electric. So the lights were put into RGB mode, 1st electric addressed to 201, 2nd to 204, and so on. We patched our old board accordingly, and that was that.
Well, we recently were able to get an ETC Element, and my district auditorium specialist feels like we still won’t be able to control each individual light, but need to go electric by electric. But, to put it politely, we’re all still learning... I just feel like, with ETC lights, an ETC Dimmer rack, and an ETC board, shouldn’t there be a way to set this up where I can have more control?
Do I need to change the setting on the lights to something else? Do I just need to readdress the lights? Is this not possible because of how they are chained together/talking to my board? I know that I can tell the board exactly which light I’m using, will that allow me to have more control?
I know this is a long post, but I wanted to make sure I gave enough information. I just really feel like there’s just a setting or something that needs to be changed and my world is going to be so different. Or maybe I’m stuck in an old run down auditorium that will be a curmudgeon forever and never accept new tech.
Thanks in advance for the help.