adamalltogether
Member
Hi All,
First post here but I've been doing much reading over the past couple of weeks to try and learn more about DMX and lighting control.
I'm in charge of an facility containing a "4D Cinema" (3D visuals. lighting and environmental effects) rides and other attractions.
The lighting side of my theater is becoming a bit of nightmare, and with my background (mech. engineer, Canadian - no big words, eh?) I'm a bit stumped by the whole DMX side of things...
http://youtu.be/cco8q7stJVE
Normal operation during a show is LED PARS off, with moving lights, spots and effects timed with the 3D visuals. LED PARS are used in conjunction with the Source4's for a pre-show, while the guests are entering and exiting.
This YT video demonstrates one of the recurring issues we have been facing. The installation is quite new (< 5 months), designed and spec'd by a German company in conjunction with a US, west coast based co. and installed by local contractors. Not much help in terms of on-site support, so myself and my tech have been working overtime to learn as much as we can to solve this.
Here's my DMX chain, as best as I can determine from the documentation and the brief training supplied:
Show Control computer (running visuals --> Alcorn McBride Lightcue (reading SMPTE) --> 3 Pathway eDIN splitters (using thru ports: 1-->2 for environmental effects, #3 for Lighting) and a Smartpack dimmer. The LED Pars are Chauvet Par38's (x37, addressed in pairs on DMX), using 3-pin XLR connectors (not sure if the cable is DMX or audio at the moment), moving lights are Source4 (x4), with a couple of spots and a strobe. Environmental effects in the chain are fans (for wind) (x4) and Snowmaster snow machines(x4).
Until this week, the "disco mode" shown in the YT link would pop up and disappear at random. Power cycling the entire system (racks and show control) would solve the issue for a time, then it would manifest again, not always as bad as shown in the link. Then, nothing - everything operating fine for weeks at a time and only going full disco when the site is jammed with people and shutting down causes many complaints from guests.
Now our Alcorn has stopped responding and the lights are all down. I'm working with the show company on the west-coast of the US to solve this issue at the moment.
My thoughts are:
- the LED PARS seem to be on the cheap side, based on my research. The theater can get quite humid due to the rain effect (nozzles in the ceiling providing mist) and the cheapo lights might not be suited to this environment
- the cabling between lights seems suspect, not sure if it's proper DMX spec.
- The splitters we have contain a termination switch, 2nd and 3rd are on. The last LED fixture in the chain (with the highest DMX address) is not terminated at the fixture, I've made a couple to see if it helps.
- all of our effects and lights are supposed to be on the same universe, or so I am told by the people who managed the install. I am doubtful of this claim though, as it seems based on our splitter set up that the effects (on 1 and 2) are still functioning as normal and are not affected by the Alcorn Lightcue malfunction.
- The Alcorn unit dumping it's brain may also have caused some of our issues, as it may have been on the outs for sometime or some of the cues are corrupt?
- this is a 364 day a year operation, so our small team of techs and myself don't have the time or energy to devote whole days tearing everything down, but it looks like we might be in for a week or two of all nighters...
From my reading here there are seem to be a lot of knowledgeable people, and many of the DMX related issues also seem to be in line with some of the issues we are facing.
Any questions or thoughts would be greatly appreciated, as we're trying to learn on the fly!
Thanks for reading!!
(TL;DR - 4D cinema, DMX issues out the wazoo, Tech Manager learning as he goes and possibly in over his head.)
Cheers,
Adam
First post here but I've been doing much reading over the past couple of weeks to try and learn more about DMX and lighting control.
I'm in charge of an facility containing a "4D Cinema" (3D visuals. lighting and environmental effects) rides and other attractions.
The lighting side of my theater is becoming a bit of nightmare, and with my background (mech. engineer, Canadian - no big words, eh?) I'm a bit stumped by the whole DMX side of things...
http://youtu.be/cco8q7stJVE
Normal operation during a show is LED PARS off, with moving lights, spots and effects timed with the 3D visuals. LED PARS are used in conjunction with the Source4's for a pre-show, while the guests are entering and exiting.
This YT video demonstrates one of the recurring issues we have been facing. The installation is quite new (< 5 months), designed and spec'd by a German company in conjunction with a US, west coast based co. and installed by local contractors. Not much help in terms of on-site support, so myself and my tech have been working overtime to learn as much as we can to solve this.
Here's my DMX chain, as best as I can determine from the documentation and the brief training supplied:
Show Control computer (running visuals --> Alcorn McBride Lightcue (reading SMPTE) --> 3 Pathway eDIN splitters (using thru ports: 1-->2 for environmental effects, #3 for Lighting) and a Smartpack dimmer. The LED Pars are Chauvet Par38's (x37, addressed in pairs on DMX), using 3-pin XLR connectors (not sure if the cable is DMX or audio at the moment), moving lights are Source4 (x4), with a couple of spots and a strobe. Environmental effects in the chain are fans (for wind) (x4) and Snowmaster snow machines(x4).
Until this week, the "disco mode" shown in the YT link would pop up and disappear at random. Power cycling the entire system (racks and show control) would solve the issue for a time, then it would manifest again, not always as bad as shown in the link. Then, nothing - everything operating fine for weeks at a time and only going full disco when the site is jammed with people and shutting down causes many complaints from guests.
Now our Alcorn has stopped responding and the lights are all down. I'm working with the show company on the west-coast of the US to solve this issue at the moment.
My thoughts are:
- the LED PARS seem to be on the cheap side, based on my research. The theater can get quite humid due to the rain effect (nozzles in the ceiling providing mist) and the cheapo lights might not be suited to this environment
- the cabling between lights seems suspect, not sure if it's proper DMX spec.
- The splitters we have contain a termination switch, 2nd and 3rd are on. The last LED fixture in the chain (with the highest DMX address) is not terminated at the fixture, I've made a couple to see if it helps.
- all of our effects and lights are supposed to be on the same universe, or so I am told by the people who managed the install. I am doubtful of this claim though, as it seems based on our splitter set up that the effects (on 1 and 2) are still functioning as normal and are not affected by the Alcorn Lightcue malfunction.
- The Alcorn unit dumping it's brain may also have caused some of our issues, as it may have been on the outs for sometime or some of the cues are corrupt?
- this is a 364 day a year operation, so our small team of techs and myself don't have the time or energy to devote whole days tearing everything down, but it looks like we might be in for a week or two of all nighters...
From my reading here there are seem to be a lot of knowledgeable people, and many of the DMX related issues also seem to be in line with some of the issues we are facing.
Any questions or thoughts would be greatly appreciated, as we're trying to learn on the fly!
Thanks for reading!!
(TL;DR - 4D cinema, DMX issues out the wazoo, Tech Manager learning as he goes and possibly in over his head.)
Cheers,
Adam
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