Lightwright auto dimmer assignment

[eqrunner]

I am having a big issue with LightWright 5 Auto assigning Dimmer channels.

Gig: Has 18 separate trusses through out a big tent. Every trusses socco runs back to 1 single dimmer beach. the beach has 1x96ch Dimmer racks, and 1x48ch dimmer rack.

When I tell LW5 to auto assign dimmers to everything. It want to take soccos and split them across 2 separate dimmer racks.
Ex: Dimmer RACK1 DMX:1-96, RACK2 DMX 97-192.
Socco V-1 is assigned to dimmer ch 95, V-2 is 96, V-3 is 98, V-4 is 127, and V-5 is 102.

How do I keep it from doing this? I can't have split socco's.

Also, how do I get LightWright to leave me spare circuits on each truss. I can double and tipple things, but no way to tell it to try and leave me a spare on each truss.

Urgent help is needed. Show loads in on Monday.

 

[SteveB]

I'm not sure I'm getting the picture. You have 18 dimmer beaches, one per truss ?, or one total beach with 144 ("the beach has 1x96ch Dimmer racks, and 1x48ch dimmer rack") dimmers ?, or 2x96 racks and a 48 ?.

In any event, if LW5 is not smart enough to understand that a multi cannot split between racks, I'd do it manually.

Sort by position, in the dimmer column select a range of fixtures in multiples of 6, Press "1, +, Enter" to range assign 1 thru 6.

Repeat for the next fixture group.

When you want a spare, skip a dimmer for the next starting number.

 

[mstaylor]

I'm not understanding your problem. Do you have multible types of fixtures on each truss or is everything the same. How many socos to each truss? You only have 144 channels, spend an hour and decide where everything needs to go. Maybe more information on what you are doing would help.

 

[xander]

Your post is kind of confusing, but if I understand it correctly, you can't do what you want to do. I have LW4, so it is possible that in 5 it got a lot smarter, but as far as I know the "auto assign dimmer" function simply goes down the channel list and takes any instrument with a value in the watts column and assigns a dimmer that has the capacity to manage it. It goes in numerical order and doesn't care about your mults or spares. Personally, if you are in a one-off situation where time is of concern during load in, I would figure it out manually. Wont take too long. Otherwise, if I have time, I just plug the hard patch in where it is convenient and write it in the LW as I go.

-Tim

 

[eqrunner]

Sorry I am a bit confusing in my explanation.

Let me shorten my situation down.
Setup:
You have 3 trusses with 6 x S4 lekos each. 18 total fixtures. 3 Socco runs (Labeled A, B and C).
2 x 12 channel Sensor Dimmer racks.

You set up patching on the truss 1 to 1. (Truss 1, Unit# 101 = Socco A1 , 102=A2 etc, Truss 2 Unit #201=B1, )

You Tell LW5 to Auto Dimmer Patch, but leave 4 channels free per rack

It assigns numbers to all (Socco Circuit = Dimmer Chan)
Dimmer Rack#1 A1=1. A2=2, A3=3, A4=4. A5=5, A6=6, B1=7, B2=8
Dimmer Rack#2 B3=13, B4=14, B5=16, B6=17. C1=18, C2=19, C3=20, C4=21, C5=22, C6=23

As you see, what happens is it splits Socco B across both dimmer racks. This is what I can't have.
From what every one is saying, LW5 doesn't seam to understand how to keep soccos together. When I tell it, it has 2 x 12 ch Dimmer. LW5 seams to just see it as one big block of 24 total dimmer channels. and can patch how ever it wants.

 

[eqrunner]

Your post is kind of confusing, but if I understand it correctly, you can't do what you want to do. I have LW4, so it is possible that in 5 it got a lot smarter, but as far as I know the "auto assign dimmer" function simply goes down the channel list and takes any instrument with a value in the watts column and assigns a dimmer that has the capacity to manage it. It goes in numerical order and doesn't care about your mults or spares. Personally, if you are in a one-off situation where time is of concern during load in, I would figure it out manually. Wont take too long. Otherwise, if I have time, I just plug the hard patch in where it is convenient and write it in the LW as I go.

-Tim

Yea, that's what I figured. And no, it's not a one-off. This show I am M.E.'ing runs for 2 months. and has 400 fixtures, stretched over 18 trusses. Using 60 socco runs, and two 96ch and a 48 chan Dimmer racks on Two 400A services. Looks like it will be a long night for me.
I was tentitive of using the auto feature. and glad I have reviewed it, since its been a month since I first circuited it and made the shop order.

 

[Footer]

Yea, that's what I figured. And no, it's not a one-off. This show I am M.E.'ing runs for 2 months. and has 400 fixtures, stretched over 18 trusses. Using 60 socco runs, and two 96ch and a 48 chan Dimmer racks on Two 400A services. Looks like it will be a long night for me.
I was tentitive of using the auto feature. and glad I have reviewed it, since its been a month since I first circuited it and made the shop order.

Ya, its its going in for that long, whats an hour of paperwork? Just use the error checking features and be done with it. Its only 240 dimmers, you have spent more time troubleshooting this feature then it would have taken you to do it manually in the first place.

 

[eqrunner]

Ya, its its going in for that long, whats an hour of paperwork? Just use the error checking features and be done with it. Its only 240 dimmers, you have spent more time troubleshooting this feature then it would have taken you to do it manually in the first place.

Yup, right after I originally posted this. I deleted all circuits and started again from scratch. Its faster me doing it myself than try and get LW5 to do something it can't do.

 

[icewolf08]

First of all, let me just say I never use this auto dimmer feature of Lightwright. For that matter I don't use any "auto" features of Lightwright or Vectorworks because they never really work the way you want them to, it is inevitable.

That being said, how does lightwright know what units are on what multi? How does it know that unit #101=A1 and that multi A has only 6 circuits? Unless there is a way to specify all that information (which there may be and I just don't know about it as I never use it) then it is inevitable that using auto dimmer assign will leave you not quite satisfied.

 

[derekleffew]

I don't use LightWright often and don't have LW5, but I'm thinking it might not split a multi across racks if you:
Define the dimmer racks properly, and
Use the nomenclature [R1]A, [R2]B, etc. as mult labels.

eqrunner, ask the question at http://www.mckernon.com/cgi-bin/BugRep2/lwbugrep2.cgi and let us know McKernon's reply. If it doesn't currently do this, it sounds like something John would want to add.

OR, as we learned in this thread, you can use a break-in (or pin-patch jumper) to put a multi-cable into more than one rack.

 

[mstaylor]

What you may be able to do is decide which socos are going to which dimmer rack and assign from there. I don't use LW so this may not be possible.

 

[johnmcsoft]

Lightwright doesn't have any way of knowing which multis go to which dimmer racks. In fact, there isn't any way of telling it which circuit names are actually multis and not some other label. I've never forced a particular format on circuit names (and I suspect people would have my hide if I did), so there isn't currently any automatic way for LW to know the difference between a multicable and a circuit name entry such as "Deck".

One of the endless questions when designing LW is how much detail to require users to enter vs. leaving it free-form. Maybe LW6 could have you specify how each circuit name is in the "real world". If that happens, then auto dimmer assigning could take that into account.

OTOH, relatively few people trust auto dimmer assigning (or any other automated process) enough to let it do much more than figure out the minimum nuber of dimmers the show needs. After that, they clear the dimmer column and assign dimmers themselves based on how they like to set up their racks. Using Plus ("+") editing on the worksheet can make the process relatively quick, particularly if you put appropriate entries into the DMX Qty column in Instrument Type Maintenance.

If you have any suggestions for LW6, now's the time to speak up - fill out the Bug Report/Question form on my web site and I'll add them to the wish list.

- John McKernon

 

[xander]

Lightwright doesn't have any way of knowing which multis go to which dimmer racks. In fact, there isn't any way of telling it which circuit names are actually multis and not some other label. I've never forced a particular format on circuit names (and I suspect people would have my hide if I did), so there isn't currently any automatic way for LW to know the difference between a multicable and a circuit name entry such as "Deck".

One of the endless questions when designing LW is how much detail to require users to enter vs. leaving it free-form. Maybe LW6 could have you specify how each circuit name is in the "real world". If that happens, then auto dimmer assigning could take that into account.

OTOH, relatively few people trust auto dimmer assigning (or any other automated process) enough to let it do much more than figure out the minimum nuber of dimmers the show needs. After that, they clear the dimmer column and assign dimmers themselves based on how they like to set up their racks. Using Plus ("+") editing on the worksheet can make the process relatively quick, particularly if you put appropriate entries into the DMX Qty column in Instrument Type Maintenance.

If you have any suggestions for LW6, now's the time to speak up - fill out the Bug Report/Question form on my web site and I'll add them to the wish list.

- John McKernon

Welcome to the Booth, John!

 

[jglodeklights]

I like LW's free form nature, but do feel as though being able to tell the program "Don't split this circuit name over different racks" would be a useful feature.

 

[johnmcsoft]

I like LW's free form nature, but do feel as though being able to tell the program "Don't split this circuit name over different racks" would be a useful feature.

It's now on the wish list for LW6, but that's still years away...