Controlling Gobo Rotators Through Ion

[Thomas Johnston]

Hi Folks,

We have 3 or 4 Gobo Rotators, the have their own power supply and than are controlled through DMX as per usual. I was wondering if it was possible to control the speed they rotate at through a fader on our Ion. We recently bought our Ion and I am not sure how and if this was possible. Again they are wired in through DMX, but I have no clue how to do this. Or potentially even through a DMX controller

Best Regards and Thanks In Advance

 

[jacobjz]

You want to double patch the fixture. Patch the light once to the dimmer, then select the channel again and patch it to the DMX address of the rotator. The Ion will automatically split up the channel into P1 and P2. Select the spinner, P2, and hit "type," find the manufacturer and model of the rotator and select it in the fixture library. Now when you go back into Live, when you select the channel, you will have not only the intensity channel to play with but also the gobo controls.

As for controlling it via submaster fader, Ion doesn't really like you to do this. There are work-arounds for sure, but I can't think of any that don't require you to make your own fixture profile or something like that. I suppose you could just patch the address that controls the rotating function (check the manual) and put that on a sub.

 

[SteveB]

I think you can do a selective record of the parameter of the rotation speed.

I've never worked with rotators on my Ion, but if you do as Jacob instructed above, the rotation speed will probably end up in Form and and on an encooder. If you set the rotation speed as high as possible, then do a selective record - "Ch., xx, Enter", then press the minus (-) key, then press and hold Shift while pressing the Custom (intensity), Color and Position keys, then "Record, Sub, xx, enter".

What you are basically doing with the Minus and shift keys is filtering out intensity, color and position, and only grabbing the form attribute, which in this case is the rotation speed and dumping that on the sub.

EDIT: But I admit I like the FB suggestions which is to make it it's own channel and just dump it to a sub.

 

[sdauditorium]

Another option is to record a few different speeds on a Beam Palette and then access them via DS. Especially easy if you have the touchscreens but also pretty straightforward with mouse if not. Also, "Record Only" is another option if you just want to record only certain parameters (like beam) without intensity. If the channel(s) you're recording doesn't have any color parameters (scrollers or the like) then no worries about that.

 

[de27192]

I'm not an ETC guy but does it not have a 'temp' feature (Temp on MA; Mode 2 on Avo, etc) where a fader not only adjusts dimmer but all the attributes within the playback as you pull it up and down?

Then you could record the movement channel only, at 100%, and record it to the fader. Then the fader should act as a speed control because all lower values are slower. (That assumes the personality goes 0-128 as Stop-Full speed. If it includes a change in direction you will have to account for that in programming it).

Maybe an ETC programmer can answer what the ETC equivalent of MA's Temp is.

 

[sdauditorium]

By default, subs are set as proportional, so they affect both intensity parameters and non-intensity parameters as recorded to the sub. Lowering the sub brings channels on that sub to their previous levels.