Cyc backdrop lights- New

H

hamlett22

Member
Hi
I am looking for new 'cyc' lights (backdrop lights) and could use some advice on where to look. I do want LED and I do want a range of control to give me pretty much any color anyone might want on stage for theatre productions. I do rent backdrops for some shows and I do use our white 'sky' drop for standard school events.

My requirements are...
1) we have an ETC ethernet system (ETC Element console). My nodes are 11 years old so I am assuming I would need the latest E-Net node model to use with any recent LED backdrop lights. Could you point me to an ETC node model number?

2) My backdrop is: 44'w x 24'h. The hang position of the LED cyc lights are 4' down of the backdrop and I can trim that height to anything. Based on this info. can you recommend a particular brand and model to accommodate this throw & cover the backdrop? Would I need a bottom row as well ir could I go from 22'-ish to the floor?

3) I would like something decently priced. Some of ETCs options are incredibly spendy.

Thank you for your input.
Chad
 
I'm also looking for something to replace floor cycs that will be somewhat as punchy as typical floor cycs but not $3k apiece. There's so many strip light options out there and having used ColorBlaze, some elations and chauvet pro etc, none are stellar.
Colorblaze is probably my fav, but tons of inter-led shadowing and scalloping.
 
When did this ship? It looks amazing.
Have to find something better than their graphs to figure out how well they perform.
 
We are really, really happy with our Chroma-Q ColorForce II unit’s. The cyc lense option does a good job and the colors and punch are remarkable. At the cyc height you mention I doubt you would need a ground row. I find the color engine as good as what I see from the ETC Lustre II and D60’s we use. You could do 6x72” strips at about $4600 per, so $28000 ?. Factor in the need to run clean non-dimmed power, so maybe some relays of using ETc Sensors, plus power disco. You can run 2 strips on a 20 amp circuit.

You can use Net 2 gear, so no need to replace your current nodes. We set up our units to run on RGBA with 54 addresses per strip, gives us reasonable control and can some nice sweep color effects.
 
First, Regardless of what you are interested in, get demos in your theater first! You just don't know what they are like until you see it in your space.

So, yes I have a set of 7 Chauvet Ovation Batten B2805-FC's, @JohnD just linked to my review just after I got them. My cyc is 50' x 22' (both only about 44' x 20' is visible) After about a year and a half of use I remain incredibly happy with them. There are several products that have been released since I got them, but I have yet to see one that I think is better. The build quality is outstanding. Beautiful RGBAL color and AMAZINGLY Bright. I rarely bring them up over about 30% in a show. For moody or night scenes, it's not unusual to have them down around 5%! Seriously 5% is a very useful level with these things. I recently discovered the beauty of using them on my rear black traveler. It results in these gorgeous deep colors, like it's a real velour curtain of that color. I once overheard two teens from another school standing less than 10' from the rear traveler... "Hey look at that, they have a purple curtain"... "Of course they do that's the school color." Nope, it's black.

Using them for silhouette is amazing too, crank them up around 60-70% on the cyc and you have gorgeous silhouettes. Anything over about 80% is uncomfortably bright. This came in handy last year when we did Beauty and the Beast. I needed to distract and confused the audience while the beast transformed. No problem. A few lights in the house combined with 100% bright pulsing from the cyc lights and you couldn't see anything on stage. Full cyc Audience blinder!

The only negative is they can get just slightly steppy at the very end if you do like a 30 second fade with no other lights on. In a normal 3-5 second fade with other lights on as well, I never see it.

If you have any technical questions or need help getting a demo start a private message with my buddy @Ford from Chauvet, he will get you in contact with someone who can get

I'm sure someone from ETC will stop in tomorrow and tell you what Node model you need or if you need one.
 
BillConnerFASTC said:
If your node outputs DMX, I dont see any issue. Or do you need another because of device count, distance, or another universe?
Click to expand...
True. DMX is DMX. The bigger question is how many devices/universes/channels you have available in the Element. How many DMX channels do you have available in the universe used near where you want to put these fixtures? Depending on what fixture you buy and what mode they are set in, you can use up a LOT of DMX channels on these devices. My Chauvet Cycs can use between 3 channels of DMX and 135 per fixture, depending on how many features you want control of and how high of quality you want the control to be.

That said the Element shouldn't have any problem handling any of these lights as long as you don't have a ton of other LED lights or Movers already eating up DMX channels in your system.
 
alich said:
CF72s, even firstgen, would be great for your needs.
Click to expand...
True Chroma-Q Color Force 72 is an excellent product. I compared the first generation ones to the Chauvet's when I was shopping 2 years ago. After careful comparison, I decided the Chauvet was a better product for a lot less money so that's what I bought.

The Second generation Color Force 72 is a significant improvement and probably is a better fixture than the Chauvet BF2805, but they are also double the cost of the Chauvet. They are a nice fixture, but no where near worth paying double for.
 
I have a very similar cyc to you 46x20, being lit from 4 feet down stage. After looking at some of the batten options and the CS cyc we wound up going with CS Spots and Cyc adapters. I really wanted to go with the CS Cyc but found that they did not have enough punch to reach the bottom of the cyc. I really wanted to make the Ovation B-2805FC work but when the pricing came back at more than 25% more for the battens and still needing a large number of other fixtures for my space I made the call to go the CS route.
 
The CS profile and cyc adapter is a great combination in the high teens and over 20' range. The CS cyc starts to loose it around 17-18' from top. If you can do top and bottom , or even just bottom where the competition with front light is worse, 20 or more feet is fine. The Series 2 with cyc adapter also looks even more fantastic.

I don't think LED has improved anything more than in the cyc lighting area. Maybe house lights just because of relamping access - but miss the quartz red shift and low end dimming perfection.
 
gafftaper said:
True. DMX is DMX. The bigger question is how many devices/universes/channels you have available in the Element. How many DMX channels do you have available in the universe used near where you want to put these fixtures? Depending on what fixture you buy and what mode they are set in, you can use up a LOT of DMX channels on these devices. My Chauvet Cycs can use between 3 channels of DMX and 135 per fixture, depending on how many features you want control of and how high of quality you want the control to be.

That said the Element shouldn't have any problem handling any of these lights as long as you don't have a ton of other LED lights or Movers already eating up DMX channels in your system.
Click to expand...
Hello

My element has two universes. I assume I can upgrade and add more. I have used up one universe with my current stock of instruments and need to dig into the 2nd one. But, I realized that my nodes are so old (11 years) that none of them can transmit to a 2nd universe. I was told I need Net 3 nodes (I have a combo of Net 1s and 2s). Is that true? ETC has them. B&H and other websites list these ETC nodes as either an 'output' or 'input' device. ETC website does not mention that. Does it matter? Perhaps they are programmable to go either way?

In any case, I am leaning towards 7 Chauvet Ovation B-2805F strips and 16 Chauvet Ovation F-915FC Fresnals. These instruments will indeed eat an entire universe by themselves. So the question is, can I program these instruments to 'talk to' a 2nd (second) universe on my system and not the first one? I assume I would daisy chain the Neutrik power connectors one to the other and eventually to a non-dim circuit and daisy chain DMX connectors to a DMX node. I assume I would patch the non-dim circuit on my Element to 'instrument type profile' on the B-2805F strips and have all the control I need. How does my 2nd universe on the element discern the DMX instruments programmed between 1-512. I don't see an option to program a 2nd universe on the Chauvet manuals. Anyone have any experience with that?

Last question- have you used wireless DMX node transmitters with success? I ask b/c it would be very nice to raise and lower a batten without having to worry about raising and lowering a DMX cable with it.

Snowing in Shanghai. Loving winter.
Chad
 
hamlett22 said:
Hello

My element has two universes. I assume I can upgrade and add more. I have used up one universe with my current stock of instruments and need to dig into the 2nd one. But, I realized that my nodes are so old (11 years) that none of them can transmit to a 2nd universe. I was told I need Net 3 nodes (I have a combo of Net 1s and 2s). Is that true? ETC has them. B&H and other websites list these ETC nodes as either an 'output' or 'input' device. ETC website does not mention that. Does it matter? Perhaps they are programmable to go either way?

In any case, I am leaning towards 7 Chauvet Ovation B-2805F strips and 16 Chauvet Ovation F-915FC Fresnals. These instruments will indeed eat an entire universe by themselves. So the question is, can I program these instruments to 'talk to' a 2nd (second) universe on my system and not the first one? I assume I would daisy chain the Neutrik power connectors one to the other and eventually to a non-dim circuit and daisy chain DMX connectors to a DMX node. I assume I would patch the non-dim circuit on my Element to 'instrument type profile' on the B-2805F strips and have all the control I need. How does my 2nd universe on the element discern the DMX instruments programmed between 1-512. I don't see an option to program a 2nd universe on the Chauvet manuals. Anyone have any experience with that?

Last question- have you used wireless DMX node transmitters with success? I ask b/c it would be very nice to raise and lower a batten without having to worry about raising and lowering a DMX cable with it.

Snowing in Shanghai. Loving winter.
Chad
Click to expand...

The Element transmits data to all universes at once
The node is programmed to extract one specific universe from the total DMX stream. It doesn't listen to any of the other universes,just the one you set it to.

Let's say you upgrade to four universes. The node is set to universe 4. It ignores the other 512 x 3 = 1536 channels. It only know about universe 4 and thinks in terms of its own 512 channels. At the dmx fixture, you set it to channel 1-512. Let's say you want it on channel 100. From the board's point of view, the device is on universe four, channel 100 or 512 +512+512+100=1636. But in the rig, the node is set to channel 4 and the fixture is 100.

One other note, if you break up any LED strip light into LOTS of individual cells you get tons of control, but that means you have far more "devices" to program. So you may not want to go crazy with your cell count. I experimented and decided the most practical use of my B2805-fc's was to set them up in 2 cell mode. With 7 fixtures that means I'm adjusting fourteen 3' "fixtures" in every cue. Yeah I could set it to 10 cell mode, and have lots more control but that means 70 "fixtures" to program settings for in every cue. I don't have time for that! With the diffusion inserted, I find the spread in 2 cell mode to be about perfect. Running in 2 cell mode also means you don't need as many DMX channels.

Wireless DMX is a bit expensive, but a great option if you have the money. RC4 wireless is an advertiser here on CB and they make excellent gear.

Also power... @Ford if I remember right you can power three B2805-fc's off of one 15 amp 110 volt circuit, BUT you can not daisy chain power for three fixtures. You can only power one additional in a chain.

@hamlett22 are you on 110 or 220 volt power?
 
Last edited:
hamlett22 said:
my nodes are so old (11 years) that none of them can transmit to a 2nd universe. I was told I need Net 3 nodes (I have a combo of Net 1s and 2s). Is that true? ETC has them. B&H and other websites list these ETC nodes as either an 'output' or 'input' device. ETC website does not mention that. Does it matter? Perhaps they are programmable to go either way?
Click to expand...
Have a look at this. Makes your Net2 nodes sACN compatible and bi-directional and RDMable with Pathscape.
 
Rob said:
Have a look at this. Makes your Net2 nodes sACN compatible and bi-directional and RDMable with Pathscape.
Click to expand...

@hamlett22 are you saying that your nodes can not be programmed to access more than two universes? Or are you saying that there is only one port to plug into.

@Rob Do you know if his Net2 nodes can only be programmed to access different universes? Or are you saying that they can't now but the upgrade allow his Net2 nodes to access whatever universe he programs?

Thanks
 
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You can leave what you have and just use the second DMX port on the element. Use the ColorSource wireless DMX gear - transmitter and one or more recievers. A simple quick fix.

I'm surprised you need so many circuits. I've gotten use to a single circuit for all LEDs on a cycle. Or two if top and bottom.
 
Do you know if his Net2 nodes can only be programmed to access different universes.
Click to expand...
I'm sure you can configure a Net2 gateway to receive any Net2 xDMX universe. I can't remember what the name of the s/w was. I don't think Concert allows you to configure them. That is why ETC is encouraging people to drop them and go with new NET3 gateways that do sACN and RDM via their consoles. If you use our retro kit on a Net2 gateway, you gain 3-year warranty on the brain/ethernet bits, ShowNet, Art-Net, sACN, IGMP, RDM with Pathscape and slot by slot patching (vs. full universes) and all other features of Pathport like crossfade on signal change and hold last level etc.
 
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