Some nooby dimmer questions.

[shiben]

I was re reading your post about using a DMX mover as a follow spot, you would be much better served getting a Source 4 with an iris and a barrel with the correct degree for your space. Mount some handles on it, and voila, follow spot. No need to mess with complicated movers and very not-bright instruments.

 

[derekleffew]

...A suggestion. Go into your theatre. Look at every place you have a fixture plugged into a circuit. There should be some kind of label on the circuit - typically a number. Make a chart showing where each circuit is, and what it's number is. Count how many different circuits you have found. That is the number of dimmers you have available. Save this chart for future reference. ...

Even better, make a "map" showing the circuit/dimmer locations, see attached. See also the thread http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/lighting/10703-1-1-patch-do-you-use.html.

 

[kiwitechgirl]

Well, we were aware that it would be sort of hard to use them as a follow spot.
But we where thinking we would rent a cheap one and see how hard it would be to move it manually with encoder wheels or like the Expression 3 we had, had 5 wheels on the side for moving lights. If not, we were thinking of getting a tiny light board with a joystick to control them. But we are still thinking about all this.

I can tell you right here and now how difficult it is to follow someone with encoder wheels or a joystick: **** near impossible. If you run them in coarse mode then you don't have enough fine control, and if you run them in fine mode you can't move the light quickly enough. Plus you just don't have enough control and will never be able to stay on the person 100% of the time - a followspot has a much better chance. Did it never occur to you that if there was a reliable method of using a mover as a followspot that it would be used on big shows? If you go to a Broadway show, what do you see - a followspot. If you go to the Metripolitan Opera, what do you see - a followspot. If you go to a West End show, what do you see - a followspot. If you go to the Royal Opera in London, what do you see - a followspot. Seeing a pattern here?! If you want a followspot effect, get a followspot. It doesn't have to be a big expensive one - get a Source 4 or Selecon Pacific, bolt a spigot to the yoke and put it on a stand, and get an iris and a single dimmer for it. That way you can use it as a followspot and when you don't need one, it can be used as a normal profile lantern in your rig.

But doesnt a Haze machine fog stay on the ground like dry ice? And fog machiens go everywere? So I haze machine should be fine.

Nope. Haze is a very fine mist which fills the space - you can't see it very clearly unless there's a light beam shining through it - what it does is shows up the light beams and makes it look pretty. A fog machine produces a cloud of smoke which is much thicker and doesn't spread so much throughout the space. A dry ice machine or low fogger produces fog which rolls along the ground.

 

[Les]

Thanks for explaining everything. So we can control 96 fixtures individually correct? With 48 dimmers. Good to know ^^'

Actually, your dimmer rack probably has 48 modules, but each module houses 2 dimmers. These dimmers are individually controllable, but you cannot have individual control over 96 fixtures using 48 dimmers unless you have ETC's dimmer doubling. You don't have that. Again, you can control 96 instruments with 48 "2x" modules but not with 48 individual dimmers, which would be a rack of 24 modules (about the size of a 'mini-fridge').

Seems like I read earlier that you have a Status 24/48. Isn't that the one with a small LCD screen and 3 rows of 24 sliders? If so, scrap the idea of using any intelligent gear. This board has no encoder wheels and I'll bet that you would have to patch every light's attributes (could be 6,8,16,32, etc) into a "channel" on the board. Seeing that you only have 48 channels to patch into, having pretty much any moving light connected to the system would eat up a good portion of your faders. If you have something other than the Status (like if you have the Innovator), my conclusion is incorrect. I used a Status back in my old community theatre (renovated in 1995, the board has since been replaced), and though I never attempted to control intelligent gear on it, this is not a mission I would embark on unless they have done some serious updates which I somehow doubt.

Sorry if this came off as being harsh. I'm just trying to be as "matter-of-fact" as possible. I know that we've all got to start somewhere and posting your questions here is wayyy better than fumbling around with a 'mystery system' and possibly getting hurt in the process.

 

[renegadeblack]

Let me suggest something to you so that you can play around a little bit being as that seems to be what you want to do, and hey, is healthy to have a little bit of wanting to do it yourself.

I am assuming that this is the rack that you have, if so, you have the same as I:

http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/ibcG...=pGtSGPdUJQNhqbRn351ckA&label=IBE&appName=IBE

I was going to suggest that you backup your console, but after taking a look at exactly what console you have, I noticed that you won't be able to do that.

I'm not sure if its something that you can do, but I would suggest setting up a chase that goes from channel 1 to 96. Give it maybe a 1 or 2 second pause on each channel. If you can't setup a chase, just have someone on the board bumping the channels to full on the board manually.

After you have set this up, if you go back to your dimmer rack, you will notice that there are 3 LEDs on each module. There is one in the middle indicating that that there is power/data going into the module. The one above that and below that show that there is a load on the dimmer. If you start at the top of the rack, you will see the first module, that module controls dimmer 1 and 2. The first LED indicates a load on dimmer 1. The second LED indicates that there is power/data on this first module. The third LED will indicate a load on dimmer 2.

If you need it, here's a diagram:

_____ Module 1
LED1: Load Dimmer 1
LED2: Power/Data Module 1
LED3: Load Dimmer 2
_____ Module 2
LED1: Load Dimmer 3
LED2: Power/Data Module 2
LED3: Load Dimmer 4
_____ Module 3
LED1: Load Dimmer 5
LED2: Power/Data Module 3
LED3: Load Dimmer 6

Does that help?

So, you have your chase running (or your drone operating the board). If you watch the 1st and 3rd LEDs on each module, they should be chasing down to the bottom of the rack. Being as you have a board with 48 faders, you may only be able to conveniently do the first half of the rack. This should hopefully give you a better understanding of how dimmers correspond to what you have on your board. That is after all, assuming that you have a 1:1 patch going on. If you don't then all bets are off. However, doing this will help you figure out how your patch is laid out.

Also, if you look at all of your electrics, you should see how high the numbers go up to. This would assumedly be 96, and if not, your house lights might take up the higher numbers on your racks, but its most often the first dimmers in your rack. While looking at all of these numbers, you might notice that they have A or B after them, or that there are multiple spots on your electrics that have the same number. This means that both of those "outlets" are hard wired into the same dimmer. You might also not see anything like that.

In a simple and perfect world, you would be able to turn up channel 1 on your console, have the LED for dimmer 1 turn on, and whatever dimmer 1 is wired to turn on. With that example, that would probably correspond to some one of your houselights. Try turning up lets say channel 20 on your console, check to see that the LED on your rack that corresponds to dimmer 20 on your rack turns on, and whatever is plugged into the "outlet" labeled 20 should turn on. You can do this also with whatever channnel/dimmer/"outlet" combination you desire. If these don't all correspond together, then you most likely aren't in a 1:1 patch on your console, or, your dimmers aren't wired corresponding to dimmer number.

Hope that all helps and makes sense!

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

Yes, that is the rack we have.

Thank you everyone for explaining everything : )



I ahve opened up the rack while lights were running and saw different LEDs going ona nd off but it was a little confusing, because only a few lights were on and it didnt seem to corrospond, but I know I get it.

Yes, we have 48 modules, with a guess, 2 Dimmers each. Okay, so now that I udnerstand, we can have about 50 more lighting fixtures, I will get cracking on that.

As for hte moving heads, we will re-think it and get a follor spot.


And yes, the Status can do chases. I never use chases though in shows, I like more hands on feel : P So I will setup a chase like that and take a look at the dimmer rack. (I can onyl guess it is quite colorful during a show xD)



Les, yes that is the Status. But I was talking of joysticks and encoder wheeles for when we get a new light board.



I finaly rememberd why I though DMX addresses needed to be spaced out 14 channels, it was an approximate number I read somewhere that will cut down on interference with other fixtures. I dont know if this is true or not.


I thought only 48 were controlable because someone had said that even though each of my 48 dimmer modules in my rack have two dimmers in them, the will act as one thing and go to the same itnensity. But now that you guys have cleared it up, I relise that the 48 modules I see in my rack arent actually dimmers, but a case containing two indivudally contorlled dimmers.






I have never tried it myself, but I dont really see why controlling a moving head manualy with two faders would be so hard. One for paning, one for tilt. Would definetly take some getting used to though.

I will consider make a follow spot with something like a source 4. I can kind of see it getting really hot though? Heh, follow spot stands cost jsut as much as the light itself : P.






Im very sorry if I have confusing you with my wrong terms. When I say Channels, I ment this-

I have a "cheat sheet" with fixture addresses on it. It is setup like this-

Channel 01 : Spotlight 1
Channel 02 : Spotlight 2
Channel 03 : Spotlight 3

etc. etc. etc.

And so if I type in "01" on my board, thne enter, it will call up, FOH Spot 1. And I can control it with the control section on the board, or do things like, park it, release it seperatly from a list of parks, or asighn the light to a submaster.

Does anyone know what I am talking about? What the correct term would be?


Now on this paper, after going from 01-16 for the spots, it will jump to like. 32, and be like, "Halogen Back Right" or something. And I was jsut wondering why it was setup like this. Why not just continue on being 01-512.
Doesnt really mater. Was just a question of why : )
Although I think we will be going over some wiring things with the Leviton guy comming in. We're going to disconnect everything, un-plug all the dimmers and fixtures, and jsut re-wire everything just so I, and my prosesors (Is that a word?) now how everything is setup. And will good experience for my going into college for the field.

 

[mstaylor]

Successors is the word you are looking for.

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

Aha : D


Now, what would be the reason that our "successors" are spaced so much?

 

[Les]

To touch one one thing you brought up, yes a Source Four on a stick would get hot, but they make a special handle for that.

Also, sounds like you are understanding your dimmers much better now.

I have never heard of interference caused moving lights being placed too close to each other. Doesn't sound plausible to me at all. Whoever told you that is full of you know what! lol

 

[derekleffew]

...I have never heard of interference caused moving lights being placed too close to each other. Doesn't sound plausible to me at all. Whoever told you that is full of you know what! lol

He meant "addressed too closely," not placed. Each brand and model of moving light takes a different number of channels. If the ranges overlap between fixtures, unexpected and undesirable results will occur. For example, changing the color on fixture#1 might change the pan on fixture#2.

 

[JChenault]

YChannels, I ment this-

I have a "cheat sheet" with fixture addresses on it. It is setup like this-

Channel 01 : Spotlight 1
Channel 02 : Spotlight 2
Channel 03 : Spotlight 3

etc. etc. etc.

And so if I type in "01" on my board, thne enter, it will call up, FOH Spot 1. And I can control it with the control section on the board, or do things like, park it, release it seperatly from a list of parks, or asighn the light to a submaster.

Does anyone know what I am talking about? What the correct term would be?


Now on this paper, after going from 01-16 for the spots, it will jump to like. 32, and be like, "Halogen Back Right" or something. And I was jsut wondering why it was setup like this. Why not just continue on being 01-512.
Doesnt really mater. Was just a question of why : )
Although I think we will be going over some wiring things with the Leviton guy comming in. We're going to disconnect everything, un-plug all the dimmers and fixtures, and jsut re-wire everything just so I, and my prosesors (Is that a word?) now how everything is setup. And will good experience for my going into college for the field.

These ARE called channels - because you are talking about what the console presents to the operator, not what dimmer numbers you are controlling. Your 'Spotlight number 1' can be plugged into any dimmer number. It might be dimmer 1, it might be dimmer 27. The console has been set up to patch channel 1 with the dimmer that is controling your spot #1.

Now that I understand that we are talking about channels, not DMX addresses - I can answer the original question ( but you may not find it satisfying).

It's set up that way because whoever set up the patch for your console thought it was a good idea to do it that way. As to why they thought that - I have no idea. One guess is that the system may be set to a 1:1 patch ( where channel 1 controls DMX address 1, etc) and there is just nothing plugged into dimmers 17 thru 31.

This is another reason why you want to make a circuit lay out ( or a map per Derekleffew's post) for your space. This will show you how many dimmers you have available and where the circuits for each one are. I can't tell from your post if any of the dimmers in the rack are used for houselight control or not. It does not matter how many dimmers you have in the rack, but how many of them have circuits you can plug fixtures into.

Have fun.

John

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

Thanks : )

Yeah, I guess 14 was just the best number to go by.

As for the channel numbers, I have looked at the sheet many times trying to think of things, intervals of random number's and just cant come up with anything : P

And yes, I have realized that each row of houselights takes up one dimmer. And so when we assign a sub master for "House lights" we actually have 11 dimmers activate with that sub master. Or, like we did this year, House facing, and House Away.



Thank you everyone for all your help. I have learned A LOT in the short time being on this forum. Now that I know I can actually have 50 more standard fixtures not 5, Lets get some lights : D

 

[derekleffew]

...Now that I know I can actually have 50 more standard fixtures not 5, Lets get some lights : D

Not so fast there, cowboy. Just because there are 96 dimmers in the rack doesn't mean that all 96 are wired to usable outlets. So far you've told us that 1-16 are in the FOH, and the houselights take 11 more (I suspect they are dimmers 86 thru 96). There are most likely between 12 and 24 dimmers on each of your three electrics. Any other place lighting circuits might be? Do you have any plug boxes or floor pockets? Obviously, if you can't find an outlet, you can't use that dimmer, and it's most likely not wired. (On the map I attached above, I never could find outlets for two dimmers, and had to assume they were unwired.)

Disproving another of your misconceptions: you can put more than one light on a dimmer, by using a two-fer or three-way. (Or if a dimmer has multiple outlets--the same number appears more than once on a connector strip.) Attention must be paid to not overload the dimmer.
As your dimmers are probably 2400 watts each, you could put:
2x 1000W fixtures
3x 750W fixtures
4x 575W fixtures
4x 500 W fixtures
on a single dimmer, provided you didn't require individual control of each light.

I'll second or third the recommendation for you to read a good textbook on stage lighting. Learning lighting via the internet may get you answers to your immediate questions, but reading a clear, chronological account of lighting design and control systems will yield a more complete and thorough understanding.

 

[gafftaper]

Ok, let's try this. I'm still confused about how many dimmers you have. Count how many circuit breakers you have. Each circuit breaker is a dimmer. As has been said you may not be able to use some as they aren't wired. Others may be wired to two or more outlets on the other end. You need to know the wattage so that you can properly decide the correct number of lighting instruments per dimmer.

As for DMX you've had some good answers but I think you aren't quite getting it yet so here's the explanation I gave my high school students. It's over simplified and not 100% accurate but it's close enough for your needs. The console is dumb. It has no idea if anyone is listening to it. It's sitting in the booth yelling out DMX information down the line, hoping that something is listening, but it has no idea if it is. This line can be one direct line that is daisy chained through the whole theater or it may be split into multiple lines. The console yells out the following information...
DMX address 1 and a number between 0 (0%) to 255 (100%)
Dmx address 2 and a number between 0-255
Dmx address 3 and a number between 0-255
Dmx address 4 and a number between 0-255
Dmx address 5 and a number between 0-255... all the way up to
Dmx address 512 and a number between 0-255... then it goes back to
DMX address 1 and a number between 0-255. It does the entire cycle up to 44 times per second.

On the other end you have dimmers, and a variety of DMX controlled devices (gobo rotators, color scrollers, DMX controlled fog machines, LED fixtures, and moving lights). Each of these devices has a place on them that you can set an address number between 1 and 512. This represents the starting number that the device is listening for. Let's say you have an I-Cue and you are setting it up in four channel mode. Channel one controls Pan Coarse, two pan Fine, three Tilt Coarse, four tilt Fine. Now you set the numbers on the I-cue to read 101. This tells the I-Cue "listen for information on dmx channels 101, 102, 103, and 104." The I-Cue sits, silently ignoring the information on all other DMX channels until it hears the information for 101-104. When it hears 103 at 127 it moves the tilt to the center position. Its up to YOU running the board to make sure you send proper information to the correct channel. This gets tricky on a big mover that requires 20-30 channels of data. Pan, tilt, gobo wheel one, gobo wheel two, iris, top shutter, bottom shutter, zoom, Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, dimmer, and so on... every feature (called a parameter) of the fixture is assigned a value. If a feature is unused, it is still sent a value, usually 0 but sometimes 127 or another "default" value.

The console is dumb. It doesn't know that DMX channel 137 is the speed and direction of the first gobo's rotation on the stage left mover. It only yells out the value you tell it to yell out hoping something will happen. It doesn't know if anything is listening and it doesn't know if anything has done what it instructed. This makes programming VERY difficult on a board not designed for movers. Just programing a moving light to move in a circle is NOT easy. Think about how many changes a single fixture makes in the course of a song during a major concert. Every change in position, color, iris, gobo... every change requires programming all values that the mover is listening for. Now Hog and grandMA have been making very user friendly consoles for years that try to do some of the thinking for you. This is why they are the most commonly used consoles in the concert world. With more movers coming into straight theater, ETC and Strand have added a lot of these features to their new consoles... but it still takes a lot of time to program. The first step is always telling the board, via the fixture personality, what fixtures are connected to it at what addresses, so one can say "Fixture#1 Pan at Stage Left," instead of "101 at 36%."



Oh and haze spreads out all over the room high and low, hanging in the air as long as possible... it's how you get those cool beam of light looks in concerts. You can chill a chemical fog to keep it somewhat low to the ground, but it will kick up when actors walk through it. But the only fog that actually hugs the ground and stays is dry ice (COs) or liquid nitrogen (LN2). Everything else is potentially a fire alarm problem.

 

[tjk]

I have never tried it myself, but I dont really see why controlling a moving head manualy with two faders would be so hard. One for paning, one for tilt. Would definetly take some getting used to though.

I once again like to come back to that point. As I had the same idea once, I can contribute some first hand experience here...

Of course it is possible to control pan/tilt of a movinghead with two faders. If you just want to move it to a point on stage and store its position. It's a pain, but it can be done.

But controlling it "live" is pretty much impossible, I'd say. Lets look at one of the more affordable movingheads. They usually only have 8 bit pan/tilt precision. That means the entire pan range of something like 540 degrees is devided into only 256 steps. Your smallest possible movement therefore is about 2 degrees. At a throw distance of only 30ft that already about 10in maximum precision.

But it's getting worse... Your faders are like 60mm, right? Well those 60mm hold the entire range of 256 possible values, so one value equals 0.23mm or less than 1/100 inch. You will never archive this precision with your fingers. And even if you got a 16 bit fixture... then there would be two faders for pan(fine) and pan(coarse). So you won't win anything here, as the coarse faders shows the same problems as the 8 bit fader and the fine fader covers a way to small range (the 10in mentioned above).

But we are not there, yet... If you move a fader slower than the motor of the movinghead moves, the light would "jump" instead of a smooth movement. That you won't have motorized iris or focus with a cheap fixture does not need to be mentioned, right?

So as a conclusion i'd say: A movinghead as a followspot: Don't even bother trying...

-Thorsten

 

[mstaylor]

What they have started doing in the concert side is taking a mover and using it as person operated followspot but retains the irs, shutter, color etc at the board. So the operator points and the LD does the rest.

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

Hello~

Derek,
So, When I open up my dimmer rack, the i-96 (My Retrevo - My Manuals). It is part of Colortran's i Series of dimmer racks, the biggest size int he series. So when I open it up, I see 48 modules I could remove, and on the bottom row there is a device I am guessing is the racks CPU, to engage the racks cooling system and engage the theatre cooling system. And on each of the 48 modules I see two switches/breakers on the far left of each module.

As for extra outlets, yes, there are many unused outlits along our fly bars.
I dont think there are any along the floor, non that I have seen.

So, can someone jsut clear this up? I have the i96 Dimmer rack with 48 indivudal modules, each with two breakers, does this meen I can control 96 lights individually, or only 48 individually?
Well, I guess I can only use whoever many outlits there are, besides the houslights, every socket is labled, in the foh bar there is 1-16, spotlights, a spot udner each number. And we have three fly bars with labled outlits. So if I loose my cheat sheet, or re-arange lights I just make up a new paper going by the numbers on the outlits.

I jsut realise,d we dont use twist-lock wires, all our lights have those big ectangle ones, Don't know the name.




How did you know our houslights were on the last dimmers? 0.0



Gafftaper,
Answered about the breakers at beggining of this post.

And thank you for explaining that



tjk (I played a MMO with someone of that username...)
Okay then, but do you know if the ETC Element has any good or very basic moving light contorls? I know its good for LED lights.


And yeah, we would lable everything, on our current board, the Leviton Status, There is a pretyt big gap between bump buttons and the next row of slider. And so we put down that yellow tape (Why cant I remember names...) and while I am programming the bard for anything I will wright it down on the tape. And on ETC Expression 3 we were borrowing everything was labled in the software on the board.

 

[gafftaper]

So yes it sounds like you have 96 dimmers.

Knowing the number of dimmers is nice but it's only half the critical information. So the second question is do the dimmers say their wattage rating on them anywhere? They are PROBABLY 2,400 watts (typically known as 2.4k's) but could be 1.2k's See above for what that means in terms of the number of fixtures you can control.

The third question is how many outlets do you have? The idea of mapping out your space would be very helpful to you at this point.

...and no you don't want to use a mover as a follow spot. I experimented with that when I was a poor high school drama teacher using an I-cue. I got it to work for very simple moves. The actor is stage left and moves to stage right on cue. It's a short walk and the actor has to follow the light. This is surprisingly hard for an actor to do. I wasted unbelievable amounts of time trying to get an actress to do this right. She was really skilled to. The problem is it's very hard for the actor to see the total circle of light around them and keep them self in the center as that light is moving... while they are acting on stage. We eventually got it right and used it for ONE simple move in a show. I never tried it again it's just too difficult.

 

[Les]

...So when I open it up, I see 48 modules I could remove, and on the bottom row there is a device I am guessing is the racks CPU, to engage the racks cooling system and engage the theatre cooling system. And on each of the 48 modules I see two switches/breakers on the far left of each module.

Each of those 2 breakers controls one of the dimmers within the module. So, yes you have a 96ch rack (96 dimmers), hence the name 'i96'. The module at the bottom is in fact the processing unit but it does way more than control the dimmer's cooling system, which is little more than a fan on top. It has nothing to do with the theatre's cooling (HVAC) system, which you seem to elude to. This processing unit is what is responsible for communicating with your light board. The board sends it DMX values and in your case this processor translates these values into lighting levels and sends the appropriate current to the dimmers. The dimmers send the power to your labeled outlets, which will correspond to the number of the dimmer module. It may or may not correspond to the channel number on your board, as this can be changed through soft patching. So assuming you have 48 modules in your rack (no "dummy" air flow modules), you should be able to plug an instrument in to any labeled circuit in your space and expect it to work. Take note of which dimmers control your houselights and put a piece of spike tape on them for future reference. These dimmer numbers will not be represented by a plug on stage. They should be dedicated to houselights and there will be no way to get any other use out of them.

I've mentioned a few times the "dimmer number". What I'm saying is, there should be a pair of numbers printed next to each module. This is the physical dimmer's number (not to be confused with channel number) and cannot be changed. You could switch around the modules all day long (with the proper supervision ) but the module in that particular spot will always control the same outlet(s). These dimmers will not be in numerical order as you would expect. They will be scattered seemingly randomly throughout the rack. This is for load balancing.
It would not be a bad idea to make a dimmer schedule, which will tell you which dimmers control which circuits on stage (ie. 1-16 FOH, 82-96 HOUSE, etc.). This guide will always stay the same unless you were to totally rewire the system. The only thing that can and will change is the patching (Dimmer 5 @ Channel 16, Dimmers 3,6,7,12 @ Channel 4, etc.).

I have also used the term "airflow module". This will look like a dimmer module but it will have no internal parts. It will simply be a space filler (ex: they couldn't afford to fill the rack with dimmers so they bought 10 airflow modules). The reason for this module is for safety. It will close any open gaps caused by missing modules, and it will keep the air circulation within the system correct. With a missing module, the air flow will be thrown off and this could lead to overheating of the rack. The best way to tell if you have airflow modules: Do all your dimmer modules have breakers? If yes, they are real dimmers. If there is simply a "blank" where the breakers should be, it is an airflow module. It doesn't sound like you have any of these, but you should check to make sure.

 

[MillburyAuditorium]

Okay, I will see if there is any empty modules, and as for the voltage, I would only assume it is in the manual for the rack I posted in my last post.
I will try to map out the room when I am there for a while next.

I only thought it might control the theatres cooling because say the room is pitch black and silent, dimmer rack is off and ac is off. If I turn on the houselights, first the theatres air conditioned roars to life, then the dimmers fans turn on then the lights turn on. Its always freezing in the theatre because if the dimmers are in use the AC is on and for 40 mintues after the dimmers are off.

Brrrr