Automated Fixtures A couple of right arm questions

[JChenault]

I am hanging a Right arm in a new space, and I'm trying to understand how the tilt range and pan range work.


First where are we measuring from. ( let's use Pan as an example ). I can pan a total of 300 degrees. IE if I laid a compass rose under the unit, with North pointing straight ahead, I could pan between 150 degrees and 210 degrees. If I were to set the Pan value to 180 degrees, would my pan angle be 90 degrees to 180. Or would it be between 30 and 210. ( or between 150 and 30). Same question for tilt. Am I setting the limit based on the 'center' position 32767 in 16 bit mode ) or from the 0 value?

Second question, how does the unit interpret DMX when in a range mode. The two ways I can imagine are that it would ignore commands to move outside of the range in which case we are not using the full 16 bits to control the device ) or it could rescale everything so that if you set Pan to 50% , the angle of change for a DMX delta would be different than the change for the same DMX delta if the range were set o 100%

Finally is there a way to see, without using a console just why a specific range will give you? The pan/tilt range test seem to move the fixture through the maximum (300 x 270 degrees). Unless I was doing something wrong. I would have liked a way to set a range, and then have the unit move through that range.

Thanks fr the help

 

[Kelite]

The Right Arm will cover half the pan range to the right of the center line, half of the range to the left.



Not having designed the software of the unit, I'll go as far as stating the pan and tilt range are user defined. When set at 300*, 50% is 150* left and 150* right of center (zero). When the user sets the range at 180*, 50% is 90* left and 90* right of center (zero).



Upon powering up, the unit will home through through the full range of motion as all moving lights and color scrollers do. If you have a small handheld DMX recorder, you may simply plug into the Right Arm's 5 pin XLR input and find which range of motion works best for that particular unit.