(yet another) question about intelligent lighting

gabe

Member
So my high school just recieved a generous donation and, amoung other things, two Chauvet Insignias. Now my main board is an old analog system but we have a leprecon 612 and two dimmer packs. How would I go about connecting the two, I see that there are three pin dmx connectors on the lights? And also, if I were to get another board to control just these lights, would I need another dimmer pack or could I use my existing ones and just use the new board for the dmx control?

Thanks,
 
Gabe,

First, the Insignias really dont' want or need dimmers, they'll be happier with straight AC. If your board uses 5 pin connectors you can get an 5 to 3 pin adapter and simply jump the Insignias into the signal chain.
 
the 612 is not a dmx board... it will not control those movers... i would sudgest if you want a really inexspensive method of control, though not all that functional... go with an enntec DMX adapter... there are a few threads on this on this forum....
 
But the 3-pin signal isn't dmx. I looked on the Leprecon website, and it says that the 3-pin is multiplex, and you only have DMX on the board if it is a 5-pin connector. Go for one of the really low-cost AMDJ mover boards. Hey, it ain't perfect, but it'll work.
 
Gabe,

It really depends on how much:

1. Memory storage you need.
2. How much you want to spend.
3. How many features you must have.

DMX controllers start around $ 129.00 and go up from there. For example the Chauvet DMX 50 offers 240 scenes of memory and can control 12 fixtures groups and is available on the street for under $ 200.00 delivered. The Elation DMX Operator 192 offers memory stick storage of programming and can be had for under $ 300.00.
 
Well, I'm not too concerned about memory usage as these will not run an entire show we only have two fixtures for now but I'de like to leave room to upgrade, the only feature i really want is a joystick. My price range is about $300.
 
For $200, you can get a DMX Programmer. This seems to fit your bill perfectly. You can even store scenes on a 32MB CompactFlash card.
 
Yeah I was looking at that. But, the thought occurred to me, what if I sold the leprecon 612. How much could I get for it? Enough to buy another console to control 12 standard channels and a few intelligent ones?
 
Something to keep in mind is that the Chauvet Insgnia is a 5 channel fixture, so if you're running two of them that will immediately eat up 10 of your channels, which is a lot if you're running a 12 channel board, perhaps just another reason to look at getting a new board. On e-bay i saw a leprecon 612 with a buy-now price of bout $850, but i'm assuming thats brand new. either way I bet you could pick up a couple hundred bucks for it if you sell to the right people.

-dan
 
disc2slick said:
Something to keep in mind is that the Chauvet Insgnia is a 5 channel fixture, so if you're running two of them that will immediately eat up 10 of your channels, which is a lot if you're running a 12 channel board, perhaps just another reason to look at getting a new board. On e-bay i saw a leprecon 612 with a buy-now price of bout $850, but i'm assuming thats brand new. either way I bet you could pick up a couple hundred bucks for it if you sell to the right people.

-dan

but then the dimmers may be useless without a converter....
 
disc2slick said:
Something to keep in mind is that the Chauvet Insgnia is a 5 channel fixture, so if you're running two of them that will immediately eat up 10 of your channels, which is a lot if you're running a 12 channel board, perhaps just another reason to look at getting a new board. On e-bay i saw a leprecon 612 with a buy-now price of bout $850, but i'm assuming thats brand new. either way I bet you could pick up a couple hundred bucks for it if you sell to the right people.

-dan

This is only true if you want completely seperate control for each unit. You could save channels if you're okay with them being on the same color, gobo, etc.
 
While, I guess you could address both fixtures to use the same channels that wouldn't really work out, since they will have to have different pans and tilts, since they will be in different positions.

-dan
 
disc2slick said:
While, I guess you could address both fixtures to use the same channels that wouldn't really work out, since they will have to have different pans and tilts, since they will be in different positions.

-dan

The trick is to address each light differently (i.e., unit 1, unit 2) but then soft patch the colour/gobo/shutter for each light on to one channel for each, rather than individual ones. E.g.,

Ch1 – Gobo 1 & 2
Ch2 – Colour 1 & 2
Ch3 – Shutter 1 & 2
Ch4 – Pan 1
Ch5 – Pan 2
Ch6 – Tilt 1
Ch7 – Tilt 2

You might even choose to place tilt on the same channel and only control the pan individually. E.g.,

Ch1 – Gobo 1 & 2
Ch2 – Colour 1 & 2
Ch3 – Shutter 1 & 2
Ch4 – Tilt 1 & 2
Ch5 – Pan 1
Ch6 – Pan 2

Whilst it limits your use of colour / pattern variations between each unit or chasing between them (probably less important with only two units). It does free up some channels. Ok – you only save 3 or 4 in this instance but if you had several of these, this might be the only way to control them on a small desk.

If doing this in addition to using dimmers, my preference is to place your dimmers first as they will generally be patched 1:1 and in reality, you can patch at the dimmer anyhow. Then patch your intelligent lights in.

The reason I do this is it is a pain in the but to add your dimmers in afterwards as they expect to see Ch 1-12 or 13-24 etc and hitting them with Ch8 as the first channel on the dimmer means more soft patching in the board. In my opinion, the less soft patching you have to do the easier it is. Soft patching is often the main cause of boards and dimmers not reacting properly because it is easy to forget what you did between shows.
 
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