ETC Express 250 and ETC Desire Lustr+

[oakwoodtechie]

I'm not able to use my Grand MA for the dance show coming up, due to multiple shows going on in different spaces and only having one board. So I did the logical thing and rented a second board. All that was available to me at this time was an Express 250. I have everything working and I am about to start setting groups, but I was thinking it may be easier for me to create a custom patch so I can call up the lights i need a little faster. Am I thinking about this the right way? The last time I used an Express was back in High School almost 20 years ago. And I certainly never did custom patches or had LEDs to play with. I'm looking for some advice on how best to orgainize myself. I'm already prepared to make an extensive magic sheet for all my groups. It's not that time consuming, but I wonder if there is some other methodology I should be using.

If I go the Group route, then I would be making a group for each color (7) and one for power.

I feel like I'm in the dark ages, but I'm quickly remembering how things were back when this was my regular board.

 

[Amiers]

Make a custom personality with the PE editor. If you were lucky enough to get a board with encoders you could go that route.

With the custom PE you can just s8 > Fixture Number > and do it that way.

 

[oakwoodtechie]

I see that. How come there is nothing about Fixtures in the manual?

 

[DavidNorth]

I see that. How come there is nothing about Fixtures in the manual?

There is in this one. http://www.etcconnect.com/workarea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=10737461005 Was this the version you were using? There are a lot of older copies out there that may not have that info as the fixture features were added in v3.x code, IIRC.

David

 

[jglodeklights]

Doing a custom patch may be the easiest route as you can do things like patch the lights to more sensible channels for viewing them on screen. As to whether you want to patch them as fixtures is an entirely other story. Fixtures will automatically arrange the channels on screen, and then you can create Focus Points for different color mixes. You will need to be aware that the channels will be LTP and thus can be captured into Background Cues. This is helpful because it means that if values track you can Fade them in time as other cues run without stomping on their timing. It does mean that they can be captured in a background cue and in order to clear them you'll need to do a Background Override. On the other hand, if you prefer to group channels by color they bring up, you can patch as regular channels and in Setup set those channels to LTP to enable background fades. To build preset color mixes you can record the channel levels into groups and just bring up those groups to Full.

 

[Amiers]

There is in this one. http://www.etcconnect.com/workarea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=10737461005 Was this the version you were using? There are a lot of older copies out there that may not have that info as the fixture features were added in v3.x code, IIRC.

David

If the manual came with the board I wouldn't be surprised if it had the original manual with it. Hopefully the board has been updated throughout the years. I am also curious as to what version your running. I would assume since the manual is older it doesn't have the encoder wheels and just the track pad. Which at that point you are just setting up the personality to make it look a bit cleaner on the screen. You will still have to ch xx @ xx/x enter + rinse and repeat with the addition channels.

Hopefully you are just using them all as a wash then it makes it quite easy as you can just stack the DMX addy.

 

[lwinters630]

Here is a LED 6 Chanel personality you must down load it and change the extension to .prs instead of .doc otherwise it would not open up right. You can use a personality editor to edit it into an 8 channel. Once that is done copy it to your floppy disk. Open your set up and select 15 then 1 for personality set up S1 from disk. Now it will appear on the list, remember the number. Now go to 2 fixture patch and patch it as a fixture.

I like to build macros to select multiple LED fixtures IE top of cyc. or you can select one fixture at a time s8.
After you select the fixture{s} a box will pop up. Use the arrows to go through the colors and intensity and other functions and your tac pad to increase or decrease the value.

It is possible to make groups but it is harder to lower values once recorded in a cue, that is why fixtures work better.

I hope this helps.

 

[derekleffew]

I would assume since the manual is older it doesn't have the encoder wheels and just the track pad.

Not sure what you mean by this. NO Express has ever had encoders, just the trackpad. Expression 3 has two wheels (Level and Rate) and 5 encoders, plus the ability for pan/tilt on a mouse/trackball. An "encocder wing" was available for the Expression 2x, essentially turning it into an Expression 3:
http://www.soundbroker.com/dynImage/?listingPicid=46347 .

I see that. How come there is nothing about Fixtures in the manual?

I was going to suggest the Moving Light Supplement to Expression V3.0.pdf, but @DavidNorth's link is better, especially if you have an Express and not an Expression.