Heckle

Member
Hey everybody, so we've been experiencing this problem for years now, we're finally looking at solving it. We have a Electronics Diversified mark vii dimmer rack which also includes our house lights, they use the same dimmers as our other lights. However there is a special input for house light control it looks like a vga cable but wider. We just bought a brand new light board a strand neo. We would like to be able to control house lights from our board, it's mostly an inconvience, especially in a show when an audience member turns on the house lights in a blackout. I've been to other spaces where house lights are built into the dmx universe. Would it be at all possible to maybe use a second dmx universe and use that to control house lights. We really want to do this but we don't know how to go from a dmx signal to whatever this other connector type is, could we control it with a light board? Thanks so much in advance!!
Thank you,
Heckle
 

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That 15 pin D-sub connector is for analog backup. EDI consoles at the time had an analog output that could be used in an emergency situation to turn on specific lights. One would turn a keyswitch and the first ten faders on the board would work as analog submasters. From the manual:

Analog Backup Operation The (optional) analog backup matrix board is used only in controller units purchased with analog backup capability. It is usually set up during system installation, using small jumpers in the patch matrix to cause pre-determined lights to be controlled by the analog back-up function, available in EDI control consoles. There are no active components or adjustments on this board. If your dimming system is supplied with an emergency analog backup pin matrix and the CPU (internal software) fails in the control console, you may turn a keyswitch that activates the backup power supply. (Refer to the control console user's manual). The power supply will cause the console's 10 submasters (or first 10 sliders) to output to a 0 - +10 VDC signal to the backup pin matrix. Pin matrices are mounted on a circuit card in groups of 60 x 10 or 120 x 10. from one backup card, up to 120 dimmers can be assigned to any of the 10 submasters. For systems with more than 120 dimmers, multiple cards may be used.

There should be back at the dimmer rack a panel that looks like an EQ, with pins or sliders in a matrix numbered 1 to 10. That unit is how one would setup which dimmers would respond to which submaster. From the connector side, the Pinout is Pin 1 > Sub 1 ..... Pin 10> Sub 10 and Pin 15>Ground.

It doesn't help your current situation, since that system won't work with your current board, but it is good to know regardless. Incidentally, the dimmers should also respond to DMX, so you should be able to control the house lights from the console as long as you have the correct dimmer number for them. It doesn't stop someone from hitting a wallstation and turning on lights, since I don't believe those systems had a lockout, but it will give you some control of them.
 
Some EDI systems also had a small backup board that will engage when DMX was not present, it was a small wall mounted stage 10 channel panel with a master , you may or may not have this panel. You would use the matrix to set this up also. If I remember correctly the house light dimmers are not controllable via DMX, they are on a separate data bus slots in the rack dedicated for analog house light control signals which are analog from what I remember. The original EDI house light control on the EDI lighting board did have house light lockout, you can take the control out of the board (assuming you have one) and remount in a new case as it was a self contained module. You may be able to use the houselights on DMX but you would need a DMX - Analog converted plugged into the house light port.
 
Take the dmx 1 from your board and plug it into the 5 pin dmx. Run a dimmer check. This should locate the dimmer adresses for your house fixture. This should be in your both as well. It usually is the next adress above your electrics and floor pocks.
You have a slider in the booth with a take control. Similar panel back stage. Some have a stage manager panel with sliders and record button.
The HHR is for hand held remote.
A copy of the manual is here.
You should have control of house.
 

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