Adding Channels to a board or additional side dmx control? LED light boxes

[DannyDepac]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks in advance for any help given. For background - I am a HS teacher that does stage directing (Sets, sound, lights etc). I'm trying to decide if building LED light strip boxes would be worth it.. not sure I have the capacity to control them on my current board.


So my HS has a Strand Lighting Preset Palette II (32/64) Lighting Control Console (120VAC) by Phillips. Its not exactly the greatest but its all we have and serves our purposes for the time being. We don't have a lot of fixtures but after the led color sources we rent are hooked up we are pretty much out of channels (we daisy chain them and each chain takes up about 6 channels to change color and strobe effect)

Can this board do more than 64 channels at a time? Can it do 100? The description says 32 channels in two scene mode, 64 channels in one scene mode, 100-channel control over your lights"

Is there an in expensive side system I can run maybe on a laptop or table.... some sort of extension? I know there are wireless dmx controllers but even that would need a separate controller.

Thanks!

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

The most basic Preset Palette II seems to have 1024 channels. http://www.grandstage.com/images/pdf/palette/presetPaletteII_Data_101210NA_EA1.pdf The 32/64 refers to sliders, which may control onlyone channel or may control a lot more, and that's using an aged "channel" concept.

So, what all are you controlling? How many dimmers? How many ColorSource fixtures? What else?

Not sure what you mean by "LED light strip boxes". Scenery? Border lights? Foot lights? Yes, you can control LED tape light, but you need the driver as well as the tape.

 

[RonHebbard]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks in advance for any help given. For background - I am a HS teacher that does stage directing (Sets, sound, lights etc). I'm trying to decide if building LED light strip boxes would be worth it.. not sure I have the capacity to control them on my current board.


So my HS has a Strand Lighting Preset Palette II (32/64) Lighting Control Console (120VAC) by Phillips. Its not exactly the greatest but its all we have and serves our purposes for the time being. We don't have a lot of fixtures but after the led color sources we rent are hooked up we are pretty much out of channels (we daisy chain them and each chain takes up about 6 channels to change color and strobe effect)

Can this board do more than 64 channels at a time? Can it do 100? The description says 32 channels in two scene mode, 64 channels in one scene mode, 100-channel control over your lights"

Is there an in expensive side system I can run maybe on a laptop or table.... some sort of extension? I know there are wireless dmx controllers but even that would need a separate controller.

Thanks!

Calling @Ron Foley
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[DannyDepac]

Hi Bill,

Thanks for getting back to me so fast. Please excuse my Noob-ness... lighting is something relatively new to me and although I really enjoy it I don't know a lot yet.

As for what we are controlling - we have about 12 source 4 (non LED) cans on the side wall trees they take up the first 12 sliders/faders , 3 VERY antiquated Lights bars of red white and blue incandescent (working on getting them replaced in the future with LED Colorsourse washes) that use the next 30 or so sliders, about 5 or 6 "house lights" of sliders, and then a few random source 4s as over head lights that I hang in places I need to down spot or back light. The Colorsource washes I rent take up about 6 sliders per string and I usually rent 2 strings worth so I use up almost all of 64 faders..... is there a way to assign a fader to multiple fixtures and control them separately that I don't know about?

As far as LED light boxes - you got I want to make boxes with frosted material and led strip lighting inside... I realize I'd need a dmx decoder for that but I assume they will take up multiple channels like the LED washes I rent and in the way I use my board now, I wouldn't be able to control them.


Also you asked about dimmers - ( this isn't my expertise) we have 4 leprechaun vx-2400 series ii dimmers in our rack. When I add the additional color source lights or down spots (source 4s) we use 1 or 2 Leviton D4DMX-MD5 4-Channel

Thanks so much

 

[RonHebbard]

Hi Bill,

Thanks for getting back to me so fast. Please excuse my Noob-ness... lighting is something relatively new to me and although I really enjoy it I don't know a lot yet.

As for what we are controlling - we have about 12 source 4 (non LED) cans on the side wall trees they take up the first 12 sliders/faders , 3 VERY antiquated Lights bars of red white and blue incandescent (working on getting them replaced in the future with LED Colorsourse washes) that use the next 30 or so sliders, about 5 or 6 "house lights" of sliders, and then a few random over head lights that I hang in places I need to down spot or back light. The Colorsource washes I rent take up about 6 sliders per string and I usually rent 2 strings worth so I use up almost all of 64 faders..... is there a way to assign a fader to multiple fixtures and control them separately that I don't know about?

As far as LED light boxes - you got I want to make boxes with frosted material and led strip lighting inside... I realize I'd need a dmx decoder for that but I assume they will take up multiple channels like the LED washes I rent and in the way I use my board now, I wouldn't be able to control them.

Thanks so much

@DannyDepac Quoting you and asking for further clarification: "3 VERY antiquated Lights bars of red white and blue incandescents which use the next 30 or so sliders" Pardon me but HUH?? Are you saying you have 3 strips of red, white and blue incandescents which require ~10 dimmers per strip??? How many individual red, or white, or blue incandescent lamps are controlled by any one of your control sliders??? Something definitely sounds EXTREMELY UNORTHODOX here. Do please elaborate.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[MRW Lights]

It sounds like there's been hybrid of the *ahem* "old" analog single slider single circuit layout applied to your console. If I'm not mistaken those consoles have individual channel faders, plus a bank of submasters, numbers vary depending on console size. You can't change the individual channels, but you could at the very least move your LED/Moving lights out of the fader bank and then make submasters to correspond to the elements that you need. In all honesty that console is not helping you with intelligent fixtures. It's really intended for single control circuit fixtures.

I would suggest getting comfortable with they keypad and cueing and moving away from the faders for your intelligent fixtures. I think you'll find easier and faster control....

then talk to the powers that be especially before getting any additional intelligent equipment and get a different console if you're going to continue the LED and intelligent fixture route.

 

[DannyDepac]

@DannyDepac Quoting you and asking for further clarification: "3 VERY antiquated Lights bars of red white and blue incandescents which use the next 30 or so sliders" Pardon me but HUH?? Are you saying you have 3 strips of red, white and blue incandescents which require ~10 dimmers per strip??? How many individual red, or white, or blue incandescent lamps are controlled by any one of your control sliders??? Something definitely sounds EXTREMELY UNORTHODOX here. Do please elaborate.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

Hi Ron

thanks for responding.... I hope I said this right - our 3 light bars (border lights) are about 38-42ish feet long. Each slider controls about 7 or 8 on each bar of the same color, each one spread out from each other... does seem weird. I didn't do the set up, just inherited it like that.

 

[DannyDepac]

It sounds like there's been hybrid of the *ahem* "old" analog single slider single circuit layout applied to your console. If I'm not mistaken those consoles have individual channel faders, plus a bank of submasters, numbers vary depending on console size. You can't change the individual channels, but you could at the very least move your LED/Moving lights out of the fader bank and then make submasters to correspond to the elements that you need. In all honesty that console is not helping you with intelligent fixtures. It's really intended for single control circuit fixtures.

I would suggest getting comfortable with they keypad and cueing and moving away from the faders for your intelligent fixtures. I think you'll find easier and faster control....

then talk to the powers that be especially before getting any additional intelligent equipment and get a different console if you're going to continue the LED and intelligent fixture route.

I appreciate that help - there are about 16 sliders below that currently have no effect on the lighting ... i'm guessing those are the sub masters. How would I move the LEDs to the submasters?

 

[RonHebbard]

Hi Ron

thanks for responding.... I hope I said this right - our 3 light bars (border lights) are about 38-42ish feet long. Each slider controls about 7 or 8 on each bar of the same color, each one spread out from each other... does seem weird. I didn't do the set up, just inherited it like that.

@DannyDepac What you're saying implies that each group of lamps is controlled by its own dimmer; from what you're posting this HAS to be true.
At that point, it should be possible to electronically soft-patch all of the red lamps in one strip to a single control channel (slider). Doing so would reduce your slider count to 1 slider per color per strip, or 9 sliders in total giving you full stage width red on one slider and likewise full stage width white and blue.

If that's not to your liking, flexibility wise, alternately you should be able re soft patch the approximately 30 dimmers to any lesser number of control sliders in any manner you wish, for another example:
- All of the red lamps on the SR 1/3rd of each of your three strips giving you all of SR red on one control slider at the expense of being able to control the three strips individually.
- Similarly, all of the white lamps on the SR 1/3rd of all three strips to one control channel (slider).
- Likewise with your blue lamps.
This too would reduce your control slider count to 9 with all SR red on a channel, and likewise all SR white and all SR blue at the expense of being able to control DS separately from mid stage, separately from US. Three channels for SR, three more for centre stage and three more for SL.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

I believe and think you need to understand that the sliders are not the only way to control lights. You can record cues levels set for up to at least 1024 channels using the keys.

 

[MRW Lights]

I appreciate that help - there are about 16 sliders below that currently have no effect on the lighting ... i'm guessing those are the sub masters. How would I move the LEDs to the submasters?

You can record a submaster to be a collection of "any number of channels with any parameter value" now... that being said... You'll want to look at how to set them up and what you want them to do. You would likely be better off with intensity submasters and presets for colors and effects. That way if you run up [submaster] [1] select those channels and put them in [preset] [5]. You have control of a group of intensities and control of the color/effect separately and not on a submaster/fader. While you have pages and pages available only having 16 submasters won't give you a lot of flexibility and it will be easy to get lost in the pages with more than a couple of fixtures.

I would go easy on the intelligent and LED stuff for the time being. Put all of your red light bulbs on a submaster, all blue, all white, all front light, all side light, a general wash, an in 1 wash for in front of a curtain, and house lights on your submasters. That's half of your submasters gone already, but it will keep you from chasing individual faders around your board. This plus @RonHebbard and @BillConnerFASTC 's advice you'll be headed down at least a new path instead of stuck in the roundabout.

 

[DannyDepac]

I believe and think you need to understand that the sliders are not the only way to control lights. You can record cues levels set for up to at least 1024 channels using the keys.

OK Thats what I was kind of inquiring about - I can only use faders for 64 channels but record with the key pad as I already do but other fixtures... I would just need more dimmers for them or in the case of the LED's which don't need a dimmer, just assign their channel to an empty channel on my board like "65-71" and it should be controllable with the keypad ! That is excellent! I appreciate that help so much!

 

[DannyDepac]

@DannyDepac What you're saying implies that each group of lamps is controlled by its own dimmer; from what you're posting this HAS to be true.
At that point, it should be possible to electronically soft-patch all of the red lamps in one strip to a single control channel (slider). Doing so would reduce your slider count to 1 slider per color per strip, or 9 sliders in total giving you full stage width red on one slider and likewise full stage width white and blue.

If that's not to your liking, flexibility wise, alternately you should be able re soft patch the approximately 30 dimmers to any lesser number of control sliders in any manner you wish, for another example:
- All of the red lamps on the SR 1/3rd of each of your three strips giving you all of SR red on one control slider at the expense of being able to control the three strips individually.
- Similarly, all of the white lamps on the SR 1/3rd of all three strips to one control channel (slider).
- Likewise with your blue lamps.
This too would reduce your control slider count to 9 with all SR red on a channel, and likewise all SR white and all SR blue at the expense of being able to control DS separately from mid stage, separately from US. Three channels for SR, three more for centre stage and three more for SL.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

Ron I appreciate this so much... soft patching is done in the board software I assume? I will do some research. I don't need to mess with the actual dimmer racks then for this correct ?

 

[RonHebbard]

Ron I appreciate this so much... soft patching is done in the board software I assume? I will do some research. I don't need to mess with the actual dimmer racks then for this, correct ?

@DannyDepac Yes. From this far away, and from what you've posted, it sounds as if dimmers are electronically soft-patched 1 to 1 to each of the control channels (sliders) of your console. IF this is true, you should be able to re-soft patch the dimmers to control channel sliders in any manner you prefer.

Bear in mind, the last Strand console I physically operated was an LP90; I lived with an LP90 for more than two years in a 750 seat theatre up here north of Donald's walls. In 1999 I used an LP90 for a couple of months programming LX Q's in Las Vegas for Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum; we used an LP90 to create all of the cues for incandescent lights and a High End Systems console to program the wiggle light cues, once we had all the cues recorded in their respective consoles, we down loaded all the cues into 7 universes of Alcorn McBride's DMX recorder / players and locked all of the Alcorn McBride gear together via SMPTE code to enable all two floors of Tussaud's lighting, sound, video, flown drops, water pool and fountain plus their robotic Elvis to operate at the push of a single button on their building's overall building control system: One button first thing every morning to run all systems in test mode to check all systems for burn outs and proper operation prior to opening, a second button to exit test mode, turn off the work lights, and place all systems in performance mode and a third button to put all systems to sleep overnight with only a few work lights remaining lit for the benefit of their night watchman.

Bottom LIne: I'm long retired and haven't programmed a lighting console for two decades but I'd put money on your being able to soft patch your way to something far better than you're currently working with.
If possible, call in a favor from someone local to you with a few years experience with your console; four hours ought to be more than enough time to get you well on your way to sorted.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

OK Thats what I was kind of inquiring about - I can only use faders for 64 channels but record with the key pad as I already do but other fixtures... I would just need more dimmers for them or in the case of the LED's which don't need a dimmer, just assign their channel to an empty channel on my board like "65-71" and it should be controllable with the keypad ! That is excellent! I appreciate that help so much!

And, realizing you may never have a need and time to do it, patch each attribute of each LED fixture to a separate channel. Then, for instance, you can record all the red channels in a submaster (slider) so you can bring all the red up, and then adjust a few individual fixtures, and record that as a cue or into another submaster.

I don't know if there are videos on how to operate this console or not, and I don't know where you can get a tutorial or live tutoring for this console, but I feel you would find it worthwhile.

 

[RonHebbard]

And, realizing you may never have a need and time to do it, patch each attribute of each LED fixture to a separate channel. Then, for instance, you can record all the red channels in a submaster (slider) so you can bring all the red up, and then adjust a few individual fixtures, and record that as a cue or into another submaster.

I don't know if there are videos on how to operate this console or not, and I don't know where you can get a tutorial or live tutoring for this console, but I feel you would find it worthwhile.

Calling @Ron Foley and Where's Bobby Harrell (Sp?) when we need him?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[derekleffew]

and Where's Bobby Harrell (Sp?) when we need him?

He's @bharrell, or [email protected] .

The most basic Preset Palette II seems to have 1024 channels.

I'm not sure that's true. https://www.controlbooth.com/threads/strand-being-stupid-driving-away-loyal-customers.40987
1024 DMX output s does not mean, necessarily, 1024 control channel s.
.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

I'm not sure that's true. https://www.controlbooth.com/threads/strand-being-stupid-driving-away-loyal-customers.40987
1024 DMX output s does not mean, necessarily, 1024 control channel s.

You may be right. Re-reading the spec sheet it may be that the base unit is 2 universes (which they call channels) but only 100 control channels. And they use the term "channels of control" just to further confuse this channel thing. I never specified this series of consoles so know little, but I presume you can patch up to 1024 DMX addresses to any of the 100 control channels, of which 64 can be patched to a slider? Does that seem more the case? And can you patch at level? And this is the old Horizon software at the core, isn't it.

Danny would be well served with a new console like a Cognito I think. But in the meantime, some instruction would help.