Patching On A 300

[adude23]

Hi guys I've got four LED par cans rigged up on the second universe of DMX going into my strand 300.
Now how do i go about patching these?
Are they the same as movers which use fixture profiles?
or do they patch automatically?

(by the way each unit uses 6 channels of DMX each and I've got four and want them to start on channel 1 on the second universe)

If someone could talk me through step by step I'd be really grateful
thanks guys!!
~Adude~

 

[icewolf08]

Ok, so if you have experience writing fixture profiles, that is the easiest way to patch them, if you don't you can patch output by output, but that can be annoying. As I don't know what fixtures you have, I can't write a profile for you, but I certainly would be happy to show you how or whip one up for you quickly. I would just need to know what fixtures you are using and what each DMX channel does on each.

As Charc said, you want to address the fixtures so the first one is 1, the second could be 7, and so on.

Give us a little more info on the fixtures you are using, and we will be of more help.

 

[adude23]

Erm they are made by prolight and are a 6 channel fixture:
1= Red 2=Green 3=Blue 4=Strobe 5= audio syncing 6=Pre made colour macro's

I don't mind spending the time to patch them in if it's a time thing that your worried about i just want to be able to do it nice and simply,
Thanks guys
~Adude~

 

[icewolf08]

My question now is, is there an overall intensity channel or does the strobe channel double as a dimmer? For now, i am going to assume that the strobe channel doubles as the intensity so here is how you would patch: If you have addressed your first fixture as 1 then here is how it would work and you want the fixtures to be channels 101-104

1) Press [PATCH] to get to the patch screen
2) Since we are assuming that the strobe channel doubles as intensity we can patch that to the channel you want so: 2.4[@]101[*] The 2.4 stands for universe 2 output 4. You may need to do some simple math to figure out where the second fixture goes, but it would be 2.19[@]102[*]
3) Then you would patch each attribute to the correct attribute channel or the closes equivalent. for red: 2.1[@]101.14[*]
4) Green: 2.2[@]101.15[*]
5) Blue: 2.3[@]101.16[*]
6) Audio: 2.5[@]101.80[*] this one you may not need to patch at all and I just picked the "auto pilot" attribute number as it seems to fit best.
7) Macros: 2.6[@]101.87[*]

Then rinse and repeat for the other fixtures. If you next fixture is addressed as 7 then you would be working with 2.7-2.12 and so on.

 

[adude23]

Nope the strobe does not double up as an intensity which is slightly annoying
I looked at them today and the channels are as follows:
1 = Red
2 = Green
3 = Blue
4 = Colour picker (This may be useful to have instead of an intensity channel i don't know any thoughts?)
5 = Strobe and speed of Macros on channel 6
6 = Macros (slow fade and there's some chases i think)

Hope this helps
thanks for your help already i think I'm half way there jsut need you to confirm things with those channels i have put in this post
thanks
~adude~

 

[icewolf08]

What is the color picker channel supposed to do?

Without an intensity channel, you may find that patching everything as attributes could get frustrating. You would have to patch a dummy output into the intensity to get it to work. It may be easier to just patch each DMX channel into it's own channel on the board and control it that way.

 

[adude23]

Colour picker - If you put channel 6 on a fader and start moving the fader up it will scroll through different colours but it's not an effect it's just static, a bit like putting a scroller on a fader basically the same thing.
I was wondering if i put this channel on four faders - one for each light- When setting up cues etc. could easily get the pars too go to a colour i like and then they'd fade in/out when i ran the cues etc. what do you think?
cheers
~Adude~

 

[icewolf08]

Well, the interweb ate my post. Point was that you can't use color effect channel to call for a color because when you run a cue, it will fade through all the other colors. It sounds like the best way for you to do this is to patch each attribute to it's own channel and just control them individually.

 

[adude23]

Oh right yea i get you now exactly like movers if you don't set there atts the cue before because the channel is just fading up and not the specific colour. ..
So your saying to do like you said and just set red blue and green to individual faders and do that for all four pars
I don't mind eating up subs for this as everything else i'm using is conventional these pars are just to go under some staging upstage to wash the dance floor

So to finalize what i need to do is patch in red green and blue + macros and the strobe function for all four lights ad then set the RGB of all four to different faders?
thanks again for the help guys
~Ash~

 

[icewolf08]

Yes, but don't patch anything as channel attributes. Just patch everything to it's on channel. So for example: patch fixture 1 red to channel 201, green to 202, blue to 203, and so on. This will make your life much easier.

 

[adude23]

Right so this is how i'm going to patch them (i'm only doing RGB a an example i'll add strobe etc. in)

FIXTURE 1
DMX adress = 1
R=2.1@90
G=2.2@91
B=2.3@92

FIXTURE 2
DMX adress = 7
R=2.7@93
G=2.8@94
B=2.9@95

FIXTURE 3
DMX adress = 13
R=2.13@96
G=2.14@97
B=2.15@98

FIXTURE 4
DMX adress = 19
R=2.19@99
G=2.20@100
B=2.21@101

Have i got it? Hopefully I have and is starting to sound easy once you get use to it (I'm not that use to working with a lot of intelligent gear am only usually working with conventionals)

Thanks
~adude~

 

[icewolf08]

That looks good to me.

 

[adude23]

Thanks so much for your help mate,
I feel so stupid asking for this kind of help but hey i guess that's what CB is all about and we all have to learn at some point
so thanks mate i'll try this out tomorrow and tell you how it goes
thanks again
~adude~