LED Master Dimmer parameter question

I'm doing my first set up (and learning as I go) in a high school and just connected a set of 12 LED lights to the board.

LED's are iLED 64. They have 5 parameters, Red, Green, Blue, Master Dimmer, and Strobe. You have to run all parameters.

The board is an old ETC 48/96.

When I connected them, I found to turn red on that I needed to increase the lights's red and master dimmer parameters on the board. For example, if the light was running on channels 1-5 I had to increase channel 1 and 4. Is this normal in an older style board? For shows, instead of running in "1 to 1" mode where each parameter matches the channel, would the correct way to do this is to group the parameters to channels as follows:

Fixture 1
1- 1 (red), 4 (dimmer)
2- 2 (green), 4 (dimmer)
3- 3 (blue), 4 (dimmer)

Fixture 2
4- 6 (red), 9 (dimmer)
5- 7 (green), 9 (dimmer)
6- 8 (blue), 9 (dimmer)

And so on.... so when each channel is increased it automatically increases the dimmer too?

Thanks for the advice.

- Matt

You need to patch the Master Dimmer address to a separate channel for each fixture, your choice as to patching the strobe, if you dont use it, skip that address. The Master Dimmer (I assume) is the master intensity for all the colors, thus that channel needs to be at a value to have any light out of the fixture. At least thats how I assume it functions. And yes, this is normal on consoles that do not have an attribute channel function, such as the Eos series. Your patch would thus be Ch1 - Address 1, Fixture 1 Red, Ch2 - Address 2, Fixture 1 Green, Ch3 - Address 3, Fixture 1 Blue, Ch4 - Address 4, Fixture 1 Master Dimmer. Ch 5 - Address 5, Strobe as needed. Ch6 - Address 6, Fixture 2 Red, etc.....

An "Attribute Channel" console, uses 1 channel for each fixture. You configure in patch what kind of fixture and how many addresses each fixture uses and what function is on an address. It allows you to set the channel at a value, which in this case would set the Master Dimmer to that value. You then use the console moving light/LED controls to separatley manipulate color and any other attributes the fixture has (strobe). The console has an extensive library of fixture types to choose from when setting the patch,

Adding on... The desk won't let you patch the same "dimmer" (or fixture attribute in this case) to more than one channel because that would result in a whole lot of ambiguity over what that dimmer should actually be doing at any given moment. The reason fixtures include a separate intensity parameter is because that lets you more easily control the overall brightness while keeping the same color mix (at least, on well-designed fixtures).

The reverse can be good. Grouping parameters will reduce the channel count considerably.

If the fixtures will alway be the same colors you can group all the reds on a channel, and so forth, using individual intensities for control. Or group intensities too, so all the units always do the same thing. That's great for color washes. Less commonly, you could group the intensities and leave the colors individual.

Strange idea, would there be an issue with having all master dimmer channels set to max all the time even without colors?

For example, if I create a subgroup of all the master dimmer channels and then set the subgroup to max intensity. Then the colors can be operated without having to touch a master dimmer channel.

RHINESEL said:

Strange idea, would there be an issue with having all master dimmer channels set to max all the time even without colors?

For example, if I create a subgroup of all the master dimmer channels and then set the subgroup to max intensity. Then the colors can be operated without having to touch a master dimmer channel.

Click to expand...

That works perfectly well. As stated though, the Master Dimmer is essentially your intensity control. You can set the RGB parameters for a specific color, then control intensity without dealing with the color mixing. An example would be to adjust the colors to a specific choice, record into a cue with Master Dimmer at Zero. Then next cue has those same color values set and all you do is raise intensity. This way the cue only raises and lowers intensity, you won't see the color channels trying to find their values as the cue progresses, which can be really ugly.