So I've just started working at another theater in our school district and they've got some interesting issues. They have their own student stage crew, but they lost their adviser this year due to budget cuts so now my fellow crew members and I are getting called in to handle the tech for their rental events.
Here's the problem. Their theater has three sensor racks with CEM (not +) modules installed. It's a fairly typical theater with two sets of tree lights on each of the side walls in the house, an AP, and three electrics above the stage. There are also numerous floor dimmers backstage. In addition to the stage lighting circuits, both the incandescent house lights and mercury vapor lights are on dimmers. Their primary lighting position is in a very nice, very spacious upstairs tech booth in the back of the theater.
Two of their Sensor racks are located underneath the stage in a basement, and their third rack is located 2 stories beneath the light booth in a basement. The first 40 circuits (which are all downstage of the proscenium) go to the rack underneath the light booth, with the rest of their dimmers going to the racks underneath the stage. The two stage dimmer racks control all of the lights upstage of the procinium, the one beneath the light booth controls the 40 stage lighting circuits that are downstage of the proscenium as well as all of the incandescent house lights and mercury vapor lights.
So here's where the drama comes in: I'm told that a couple of years ago their dimmer racks were knocked out by some kind of lighting storm. A technician from the company who originally installed their Sensor racks came in and half-way fixed everything, but that company has since gone out of business. The first 40 dimmers on the Sensor rack underneath the lighting booth were originally assigned to dimmers 1-40, with the house light dimmers (that occupy the same rack) assigned to much later channels, not sure of the exact number but something above 160. That left the first rack underneath the stage starting with 41 and the second rack starting with 137.
The technician who reset their dimmers got the dimmers under the stage configured correctly but failed epically with the rack under the light booth. He left this rack assigned to start with dimmer 1, which means that the first 40 dimmers were fine, but until this afternoon about half of the circuits on their 1st electric (dimmers 41-50ish) would also raise houselights. Out of the 36 that were originally installed across each electric, their crew has been operating for the past 2 years with about 6-12 dimmers on their first electric, not knowing what the problem was or how to fix it.
Today I came in and, after running several dimmer checks, figured out the problem. I gave their 3rd dimmer rack a starting dimmer number of 201 which immediately solved the problem. However, despite my best attempts I cannot find a way to get the first 40 dimmers to respond to DMX 1-40 and the rest to respond to a different range. It seems to me that this should be possible because that was how their theater was configured before the lightning storm and they never had problems. Anybody know how to do this? For right now I just told them to remember that circuits 1-40 are now dimmers 201-240 (with the stage lights resuming with 41 afterwords.) However, it would be great if we could get it back working the way its supposed to be.
Does anyone know if its possible to run two different sets of dimmer addresses off of one CEM, and if so, how? Thanks in advance.
Here's the problem. Their theater has three sensor racks with CEM (not +) modules installed. It's a fairly typical theater with two sets of tree lights on each of the side walls in the house, an AP, and three electrics above the stage. There are also numerous floor dimmers backstage. In addition to the stage lighting circuits, both the incandescent house lights and mercury vapor lights are on dimmers. Their primary lighting position is in a very nice, very spacious upstairs tech booth in the back of the theater.
Two of their Sensor racks are located underneath the stage in a basement, and their third rack is located 2 stories beneath the light booth in a basement. The first 40 circuits (which are all downstage of the proscenium) go to the rack underneath the light booth, with the rest of their dimmers going to the racks underneath the stage. The two stage dimmer racks control all of the lights upstage of the procinium, the one beneath the light booth controls the 40 stage lighting circuits that are downstage of the proscenium as well as all of the incandescent house lights and mercury vapor lights.
So here's where the drama comes in: I'm told that a couple of years ago their dimmer racks were knocked out by some kind of lighting storm. A technician from the company who originally installed their Sensor racks came in and half-way fixed everything, but that company has since gone out of business. The first 40 dimmers on the Sensor rack underneath the lighting booth were originally assigned to dimmers 1-40, with the house light dimmers (that occupy the same rack) assigned to much later channels, not sure of the exact number but something above 160. That left the first rack underneath the stage starting with 41 and the second rack starting with 137.
The technician who reset their dimmers got the dimmers under the stage configured correctly but failed epically with the rack under the light booth. He left this rack assigned to start with dimmer 1, which means that the first 40 dimmers were fine, but until this afternoon about half of the circuits on their 1st electric (dimmers 41-50ish) would also raise houselights. Out of the 36 that were originally installed across each electric, their crew has been operating for the past 2 years with about 6-12 dimmers on their first electric, not knowing what the problem was or how to fix it.
Today I came in and, after running several dimmer checks, figured out the problem. I gave their 3rd dimmer rack a starting dimmer number of 201 which immediately solved the problem. However, despite my best attempts I cannot find a way to get the first 40 dimmers to respond to DMX 1-40 and the rest to respond to a different range. It seems to me that this should be possible because that was how their theater was configured before the lightning storm and they never had problems. Anybody know how to do this? For right now I just told them to remember that circuits 1-40 are now dimmers 201-240 (with the stage lights resuming with 41 afterwords.) However, it would be great if we could get it back working the way its supposed to be.
Does anyone know if its possible to run two different sets of dimmer addresses off of one CEM, and if so, how? Thanks in advance.
