Yeah, we've gotten here by the past few generations of techies being rather incompetent (highschool 4 year rotations and such). And it's just now that we're really recovering and knowing what on earth we're doing. So last year was the first year we through intelligent fixtures into the mix. We started with 2, and then this year we upped the game and got some LEDs as well as some icues. And next year we'll be getting a bunch of LEDs and even more moving things. So the
system is really set up JUST for
conventional dimming. So we don't
really have an inadequate control
system, it just isn't always easy to setup/use.
NOTE: we use
dimmer sticks, rather than a central
dimmer rack.
And for backstage we've found a way to make things better (previous wiring didn't include sends back into the loop, so
DMX ports down the
line were pretty [completely] useless). We can fix that problem by running more
DMX, but we really don't have the
DMX for all of that (it'll end up being like 500-750 ft of extra
DMX). I'd much rather have a series of single lines out to the dimmers without needing returns (could be done via
ethernet or
DMX splitting). And after looking into some things,
ethernet is going to be cheaper than
DMX splitting; that is if we don't get the top of the
line ethernet distribution, which should work just fine(I say with a grand 0 experience), especially for controlling only the 30ish addresses backstage.
And we have been dealing with ridiculous
DMX cabling, the problem is it's always changing. So we always have to redo SO MUCH.
Ok, her's the thing, your situation is not that different than many other high schools, colleges, and even professional theatres. In the world of lighting, if you are a technician, hinging, striking and stringing cable is what you do. For me, I have shows come down on a Saturday night, we
strike everything on
Sunday, and hang it all up again on Monday for the next show. That is a couple hundred instruments, accessories, moving lights, cable, the works. Figuring out how to cable efficiently and usefully takes up a good portion of my time, and that is even with a networked distribution
system for data.
You say that your school is investing in more moving lights, LEDs, and various accessories, yet you don't have the money to update the control infrastructure. That doesn't make sense. If you don't have a simple, easy way to get control data to the devices you currently own, than you shouldn't be buying more, you should be updating the infrastructure. You don't need more devices that you can't control, that is illogical. The money that you would put towards that gear is better spent solving the issue at
hand.
Given that we don't know a whole lot about the space you work in, it is hard to make good suggestions as to what you really need. However, even with a networked
system, you will still have nodes/gateways that convert the
network data to
DMX, and from each
node you will have to run
DMX to your devices. So all you are doing is eliminating a couple long
DMX runs in favor of
Cat5/6 runs, but when it comes down to it, you still need to link every ML,
LED, and accessory with regular
DMX or
scroller cable. You say that you are looking at buying "a whole pipe" of LEDs (I have not idea how many that is), but even with a
network distribution
system you still need at least one piece of
DMX cable for every
LED you add to your
system.
Or look at it this way, before I upgrade the lighting
system in my
theatre to an
ETC system, we had to run hard
DMX for everything. At the time, we ran three universes, so I had three
DMX lines that ran from the booth to backstage. One ran to the dimmers, one ran to a splitter, and the third went to
house light control. THe one that went to the splitter allowed me to drive devices on the
stage level and also sent a
line to another splitter on the
grid. From the
grid splitter I could
send DMX to any
batten in the
theatre (until I ran out of outputs on the splitter). Since all my dimming and distribution lived on SL, if I needed
DMX on SR, I hard to run hundreds of feet of cable around the
theatre.
With my new
network system, I have
cat5 drops all over the
theatre which allow me to
plug in gateways where I need them. It eliminates the super long cable runs from SL to SR and from the
grid to the battens, but each one of those runs was replaced by new cable of a different type. Now instead of dropping a
DMX line from the
grid, I
drop a heavy duty
cat5 line which cost almost as much as the same length
DMX cable. Attach a gateway and then string
DMX along the pipe. So, I replaced 2
DMX splitters that probably together cost $1k or less with multiple gateways that cost at least $1K each. In terms of the time required to set it up for each show... probably about the same. It just makes getting data where i need it a
bit simpler.
As far as hardware goes, the products made by companies like Pathway and
ETC are not making hardware for "much grander applications" than yours, they make products designed to do what you need them to do and to do it reliably. There are other options out there, but if you just buy stuff online from places that happen to have good prices, you may not get the best gear, and you probably won't get good support if you get any support at all. If you buy a known product from a reliable
theatre supplier (even the big national suppliers like
BMI Supply) at least there will be someone you can
call if you have problems. Buying from the big name manufacturers, while it costs more, will basically guarantee you support for the life of the product. That is part of what you are paying for, but it is totally worth it. The other reason to use known brands is that it is a lot easier to get a replacement at the 11th hour when you have a problem before a show on a Saturday night. Odds are really high that if you chose to go with
ETC gear (for example) and you had a failure, there is someone in town who could loan or rent you what you need. If you pick something up online that is not something that your local supplier carries or services, you are dead in the water if something goes wrong.
The truth of the matter is, if the project is worth doing, it is worth doing right. As I said before, if you cut corners, you will end up paying for it eventually. It may not be you, it may be someone who comes after you. You say that you are dealing with issues that were left to you by previous students, but why would you want to possibly leave issues for future students to overcome.
It is certainly fun to be on the bleeding
edge of technology, but it costs a lot to get there and stay there. I work for the largest
regional theatre in the state of Utah, I probably have a budget that makes yours look like pennies, but I own a grand total of zero
LED fixtures. I would love to have them and they would "allow us to do things standard fixtures just couldn't." But I can't afford them. Certainly not in a useful quantity. I would much prefer to have devices like SeaChangers rather than color scrollers, but scrollers cost 1/3 of what a
SeaChanger costs, so that is what I have. Those scrollers though, not cheap, no-name units. They are ones from a manufacturer who I know will support them if I have issues. It is more important to me to have functional, servicable, and supported equipment than it is to have the newest and flashiest. The only reason that I have the full new
console, control and distribution
system that I have is because we had a very generous donor who saw that it would be silly to do the upgrade only part way. He saw that it made more sense to put in a full
system rather than cut corners to fit in the original budget.
You have to understand that I am not not saying all this to scare you away or make you not do the project. I am all for getting good technology into schools so that you can learn how to use it. There are just too many theatres out there who cut corners and cobble together systems and then have issues that are next to impossible to solve. Most of those people end up seeking help here on
ControlBooth. If the
system is set up correctly and purchased and planned with a reputable dealer and manufacturer, they will know exactly how the
system was designed to work, so when someone
call with a question they can just pull of your file and help. If you cobble it together yourself, there will be no one to
call once you graduate.
Yes, that does have the potential to go rather wrong. But it's something that is extremely convenient to have. So the answer might be that during shows we just unplug cable connecting our
network to anything else.
It looks like most of the stuff
pathway connectivity makes is meant for much grander applications, converting
ethernet to many universes of
DMX. We're just not big enough to need that.
As for running cables in
conduit, we don't have the time, money, or qualified people to do that. If we could, I'd love to. But it really isn't going to happen. And I hardly think ANYONE will walk sideways on the
rail on the
catwalk (it'd be worth replacing the cable if they did). Our school really places emphasis on sports (even though we're trash at most of them), so we don't get the budget or attention to be able to go to that
level.
And I'm totally down with spending money to get excellent systems, but in order to do that you have to
have the money to spend. And I'm not willing to spend a massive chunk of my budget on something that isn't necessary. I live by the buy stuff that allow us to do more/new things. I won't get a cheapsy noname brand of stuff, but I dont need top of the
line super expensive when something in between will work just fine. Like next year we'll be getting an entire pipe worth of
LED pars. Those allow us to do things standard fixtures just couldnt.
And besides, we're not planning on upgrading the entire rig to use
artnet, just backstage (the least important part). So if there's a little risk of failure, I can deal with that risk in order to not break the bank.
By saying that you are "not willing to spend a massive chunk of my budget on something that isn't necessary" you imply that this
network upgrade you propose is not necessary. However you make it sound like you are at a
point where it really is necessary. If you have grown beyond the capabilities of the
current infrastructure, which is what you seem to be saying, then it is time to upgrade that and not just buy new flashy toys.
As for star
topology, can't you just connect another
switch to one of the outs of your first
switch? (yes I'm aware of all the reasons why you should NEVER do that, but you can)
Lets take a quick look at
network topology. If you
build a control
network you will be best served by setting up a central distribution
point and maybe some "sub-stations." Most people either put their central distribution in the booth or by the dimmers. Since you don't have a
dimmer room and you want to clean up your distribution on
stage, it would seem logical to find a space backstage to install your distribution rack. You will probably need a large
POE switch, a
UPS, and maybe a
Cat5/6 patch bay. From there you would pull
cat5/6 lines to wherever you need them, so the booth, various points around the
stage, to the
grid, to battens, to the middle of the ouse for a
tech table,
etc. That creates your star
topology.
Sure, if you ran one
line to the booth, but you needed to
plug in the
console and something else you could hook up another
switch. That is fine, there is no harm in that. If you ran one single
line to the
grid but needed to be able to
drop lines to multiple battens, you could by a
switch on the
grid (I do that at my
theatre, it is a sub-distribution
point). that is perfectly acceptable
network layout, and is still star
topology. Each
switch creates a new star.
Yeah, we've gotten here by the past few generations of techies being rather incompetent (highschool 4 year rotations and such). And it's just now that we're really recovering and knowing what on earth we're doing. So last year was the first year we through intelligent fixtures into the mix. We started with 2, and then this year we upped the game and got some LEDs as well as some icues. And next year we'll be getting a bunch of LEDs and even more moving things. So the
system is really set up JUST for
conventional dimming. So we don't
really have an inadequate control
system, it just isn't always easy to setup/use.
NOTE: we use
dimmer sticks, rather than a central
dimmer rack.
And for backstage we've found a way to make things better (previous wiring didn't include sends back into the loop, so
DMX ports down the
line were pretty [completely] useless). We can fix that problem by running more
DMX, but we really don't have the
DMX for all of that (it'll end up being like 500-750 ft of extra
DMX). I'd much rather have a series of single lines out to the dimmers without needing returns (could be done via
ethernet or
DMX splitting). And after looking into some things,
ethernet is going to be cheaper than
DMX splitting; that is if we don't get the top of the
line ethernet distribution, which should work just fine(I say with a grand 0 experience), especially for controlling only the 30ish addresses backstage.
And we have been dealing with ridiculous
DMX cabling, the problem is it's always changing. So we always have to redo SO MUCH.
With what you say here, it still sounds to me like a couple of
DMX splitters would solve your problems in a much cheaper and simpler way than a
network system. If you run two
DMX lines from the booth/
console position to the
stage you will have
full access to both universes of
DMX that you can use with your
console. Connect to a splitter and
send DMX to where you need it without looping from pipe to pipe. So you either get splitter big enough to
send as many runs as you need or a couple more splitters. Then you
daisy chain from device to device along the pipes. Simple, standard, and what most of us have been doing for years and still do today. For every
DMX controlled
fixture or
dimmer you have you will need at least one piece of
DMX cable no matter how you get the data from the board to the
batten.
Sorry, I know that I have gone on for a long time, but learning how to do a project like the one you propose is just as important, if not more important than learning how to
play with
LED fixtures and moving lights. I have said it may times, if it is worth doing, it is worth doing right. So please don't think that that I am belittling you or your ideas and goals. I want to see you get a functional
system that you are happy with and fits the needs of your space. I am just trying to look at it from a
practical perspective.
