So what you guys said made sense logically, but I have no idea as to how to set this up on the
console. Right now my
console is setup 1:1 (
dimmer 1 is
channel 1). My questions are:
1. I patch 3 channels (1
LED light) to one
dimmer, but how do I seperate the colors?
2. So I don't use the
DMX controls at all? Just dimmers?
3. Is it possible that I connect a
power strip to a
dimmer outlet and
plug a few lights into one
dimmer?
This is a side question, but the lighting technician who set up the
stage, told me that I could
call ETC with questions like these, and they're willing to help? Has anyone tried this? That lighting technician is attending an
ETC conferencer this whole week so he's not here to help me.
David
David,
Answers in reverse(ish) order:
You are always able to
call ETC with these type of questions. We do prefer that you
call during normal business hours (8-5 Central Time, M-F) with this type of informational question and reserve the after-hours calls for lighting emergencies. Our phone number is 800-688-4116. We get several hundred calls a week like this and you have a 1 in 9 chance of speaking to me!
3: That would depend on the
rating of the
power strip and the tolerance of that
fixture to dimmed
power. There are several threads on this topic. Search for Dimmed vs. Non-Dimmed
Power. My experience with most units of that type is that they prefer non-dimmed
power, so stick with either a
relay module or a wall
outlet.
1 and 2: In
Express,
DMX addresses are represented as "
dimmer" xx (where xx is the
address number). That means that when you patch
Dimmer 101 to
Channel 1, when you set
channel 1 to full,
DMX Address 101 will turn on to full.
So you would want to set your
fixture's start
address to something that is out of the way of your dimming racks. For this example I will assume you have 96 dimmers. If your last
dimmer number is 96, then you can
address your
fixture to start at 101 (I skipped some numbers to make it more logical and math easier). That means that
Address 101 will be red, 102 - green, and 103 - blue.
On the
console, you would patch each one of those addresses into a seperate
channel. For this example let's use 1-3. So you would patch "
dimmer" 101 to
channel 1 to make
channel fader 1 control Red on the first
fixture. "
dimmer" 102 to
channel 2 for green and "
dimmer" 103 to
channel 3 for blue.
If you want to control multiple fixtures with the same three faders (like a
cyc wash for example) you could either
address the
fixture to the same start
address, or you could patch the other addresses into the same
channel. An example of the latter would be
Fixture B having a start
address of 104. You would patch "
dimmer" 104 to
channel 1 for red, "
dimmer" 105 to
channel 2 for green and "
dimmer" 106 to
channel 3 for blue. Then when you bring up the
fader for
channel 1, both
fixture A and B red will turn on together.