Is there a keyboard equivalent for park and unpark on the ion

[jtweigandt]

Got a panic call from a relative newbie last night. We have a macro to power up and park ch 512 which controls all our relays for the LED lights.
Trouble is.. if you fail to execute the inverse macro at the end of the night (not sure if a show save is necessary) that unparks and shuts down the power then the board wakes up next time with 512 parked.
Fire off the macro.. it unparks and the fun begins if you're not watching. Power is baked in to some cues.. other cues take it back out, and the led's go flashie flashie or don't come on at all.

We had storms last night, so not sure whether he forgot to execute the unpark the night before, or the power possibly rebooted the board before the show. It is on a ups, which I will test for function today.

I arrived diagnosed the park issue and we were off and running in 5..

But since park is a "toggle" is there a keyboard command for park and or unpark so the macro could be explicit and not state dependant.

I have the magic sheet set up so that it shows the level and park status of 512 at a glance.. but he missed that.. and not sure in a state of panic he would have gotten the sequence right to clear, power and park.

Always something.. though Rent didn't look too bad for 15 min or so under the worklights.

 

[sk8rsdad]

There isn't a park/unpark keyboard macro command but the macro could explicitly set the level to zero instead. So 512 is always parked, either at full or zero.

In my venue the dimmer rack is configured to hold the last look for 3 minutes instead of forever. Powering down the console stops DMX to the dimmer rack. After 3 minutes the relays power off. Powering up the console restores power once the park buffer reloads. No operator effort is required.

Edited to add:
Unpark = [At][Enter]

[Learn]99[Enter]
[Shift+Clear]
[Park][Park]
512[At][Enter]

Change the macro mode to Background

 

[jtweigandt]

I went in and figured out a workaround. If you just hit the park button without any channel designated, then it will unpark all channels every time. So I modified the macro to issue the all channel unpark command first. So now no matter what state the board was left in I can set 512 to full and then Park it. Any brown out, reboot, forgetfulness, or pfat fingers event, or somesuch,now macro one will power up the LEDs no matter what the previous state. So from here on I’ll be working with a lot more safety in case of operator error or other disaster. I also put a brand new UPS on the main board, and moved the old one down the line to back up our com system down at stage level, because they also had an untimely reboot of those computers during a short brown out. We were part of that weather system that collapsed the roof in Belvidere last night. I can hardly wait for the new legislation to mandate inspection of ancient theaters but since were 1903 timber frame structure with all beams visible. I feel pretty good about the place.

 

[Crisp image]

The standard keyboard shortcut for park is ALT K for those using nomad. It is a useful skill to know keyboard shortcuts just in case.
Regards
Geoff

 

[JChenault]

If I understand you, there is an easier solution than parking the dimmer on ( assuming that when the console is active you want DMXv address to be at full

patch address 512 to some out of the way channel say 512)
set the curve on 512 to 909 ( hot patch)
whenever the board is on it outputs full.

i think that solves your issue

 

[danTt]

If I understand you, there is an easier solution than parking the dimmer on ( assuming that when the console is active you want DMXv address to be at full

patch address 512 to some out of the way channel say 512)
set the curve on 512 to 909 ( hot patch)
whenever the board is on it outputs full.

i think that solves your issue

I'm a big advocate of an inverted curve rather then hot patch. It is quite handy to be able to reset a relay by setting it to full for a few seconds

 

[Malabaristo]

I'm confused why your current park macro is acting like a toggle... are you doing something other than [chan] 512 [at][full][park][enter]? Running that again should have no effect if the channel is already parked at full.

Also, why not assign your unpark macro to be the shutdown macro so it happens automatically?

 

[jtweigandt]

Mal... the problem was that the original macro parked 512.. but if you didn't run the unpark before shutting down.. the next session the board would wake up parked, and then 512@full is ignored and hitting park..unparks 512 which is still on, until you run a cue in which it's not.. and the whole LED hang winks out. the macro would toggle off 512's park instead of putting at full and parking.

I solved it when I finally figured out that hitting [clear] [park] then [enter] ( no channel assignment) will unpark everything that's parked, or do nothing if nothing is parked . gets me out of the "toggle" dilemma.

So running clear park enter enter then 512@100 park enter will clear any "left behinds" and avoids toggling off inadvertantly. Might be better to have auto startup macro and shutdown macro as suggested, but as so often is the case, my mastery of the board is moments of brilliance between chasms of ignorance. I can figure shutdown out when I have the time I guess.

 

[Malabaristo]

Mal... the problem was that the original macro parked 512.. but if you didn't run the unpark before shutting down.. the next session the board would wake up parked, and then 512@full is ignored and hitting park..unparks 512 which is still on, until you run a cue in which it's not.. and the whole LED hang winks out. the macro would toggle off 512's park instead of putting at full and parking.

I'm still confused about how you got this behavior. Unless you're doing it as two commands.... was it 512 [at] [full] [enter] [park] [enter] ? I just tried it in Nomad and saw the toggle behavior with that but not when it's done in a single command like: 512 [at] [full] [park] [enter]

Note the extra diamond in the first one indicating a terminated command. With it you get the toggle, without it has no effect if the channel is already at full.


Shutdown macro is right below startup macro in the system settings :