Moving Light Flashes On During AutoMark On Element

[chrispo86]

I just finished up a performance of Rumors and had something interesting happen that I still can't quite figure out. We have two Martin SmartMACs that we're using on an ETC Element. There are three instances when a car is heard coming up the driveway, and when that happens, we use one of the MACs to pan across the set to get the "headlights coming through the window." It's a series of I think 3 cues on follows. During these cues, the second MAC moves to it's position for it's next cue via the AutoMark feature (the intensity is off).

Problem is, as it starts it's move to it's next position, it flashes on for a second then back off. My initial thought was a termination issue, but I'm deterred from that line of thinking as it only shows up on the third occurance of these cues (I should mention, we created the set of cues for the first occurance then copied them for the other two occurances in the show). The first two times this does not happen. I held down the Data button on the console to show the actual values while running the cue sequence and the console shows the intensity at 0 the entire time. I did manage to figure out that the light flashes on as soon as it begins it's AutoMark sequence (the intensity parameter on the console changes to "MK", though as I said, holding the Data button shows 0 the entire time).

I've tried everything I can think of aside from re-creating the cues. Show's over now, so it doesn't really matter, but it's still bugging me, I'm curious as to why this was happening. Any ideas? I'm getting a copy of the show file that I can post hopefully later today.

Thanks!

 

[millamber]

You note that the intensity stays at 0 the whole time, but what about the strobe? As I recall, the SmartMAC doesn't have an actual dimmer shutter, it only uses the strobe shutter for dimming control, but they still have 2 DMX channels in the profile. My bet is on that particular cue, you have the shutter set to "open" and the dimmer set to 0, so when the fixture sees a move instruction it executes the shutter open part before the dimmer closed part, hence the quick flash of light.

 

[chrispo86]

Interesting idea, I hadn't thought of that one. I'll have to take a look. Thanks.

 

[chrispo86]

So I finally had a chance to sit down and look at the show file. Unfortunately the shutter doesn't appear to be the culprit. In fact, all intensities for that fixture remain the same throughout the whole sequence of cues.

I've attached the show file. It's cues 29, 30, and 30.1. The problem occurs as soon as it hits 30.1. The fixture is channel 39.

View attachment rumors_2010-11-03_16-19-45.zip

 

[mstaylor]

I couldn't get the link to work.

 

[HansH]

I'll pop it into a console at work tomorrow and see if I find anything odd.

I downloaded it okay -- I clicked on the second half of the attachment (attachment 4008, or rumors...).

 

[chrispo86]

I downloaded it okay -- I clicked on the second half of the attachment (attachment 4008, or rumors...).

Yupp, don't know what happened there. I fixed the post so only the one link shows up.

And thanks for taking a look!

 

[HansH]

While we don't have the Mac fixtures to test with, I did see that the Effect Macro attribute for channel 39 changed in that cue -- it marked at 255 (starting at 0). I would imagine that has something to do with it, but again, I don't know the fixture. Channel 38 did the same thing, but it had to wait for the light to go to zero for it to auto-mark.

Otherwise, intensity and shutter strobe checked out. We looked at the fade several times, and couldn't see any other appreciable change in the output. Then again, we were just looking at the values of 2 universes. Moving lights can have their quirks at times too.

 

[chrispo86]

That's interesting, I see what you're talking about. I'll have to play around with that next time I'm in the theater. Thanks!