Hello all, just a bit of a technician question. I have just won a set of constella scanners and they comne with a commando lighting controller,
now I want tohave the 4 scanners running off the controller and also I have 8 colour changers (abstract ce 150 discharges) and 4 GVG 4 channel roller barrel scanners. I also have 2 non DMX 80mw green lasers, this is my full show now but I want to know

apart from the lasers can I run everything on the commando or is this only designed for the scanners. I understand a bit about DMX but as its not a bog standard controller, would it not work as the channels only correspond to the constellas

what I want is imagine a white slow sweep (which is one of the programs on the controller, but I also want the barrelsand colour changers to do something. now I know if I set them at the same channel they should do white (as long as the channel or open gobo is say on a certain channel to tell the colour changer to do the same)

as far as I know the constellas are 4 channel and my roller barrels are 4 channel but the amount of gobos differ etc. so if the constellas are on say gobo 15/19 what would the roller barrels be on as they only have 8 gobos? (hope that makes sense)

if I connnect it all up I can see it not working. I hope someoen can make sense of all what I have written and see if I am doing something wrong!!!

thanks

Unfortunately, unless someone here has intimate knowledge of both the controller and the lanterns involved, it's going to be hard to advise you directly.
This forum is predominantly a theatre based membership, though there are some DJ's/Light Jockeys around.
The problem is with DMX gear, is that very few lanterns have similar profiles to many others. You've already pointed at the fact that one set have more gobos than the other. I'd put money on there being very few similar types of gobo between the two. So the chance of using the controller to tell both lanterns to set gobo channel at 50 and getting the same pattern are pretty remote!

What you need to do is experiment and find out what the controller is capable of, how many fixtures it can cope with and how best to work it to get a good show. It may be, if it's restricted on channels, that you need to set the DMX address of two or more identical fixtures to the same channel, so they all react the same way at once.

But the best thing to do is play.

TD

I wont blow anything doing it will I? this im not sure of

I don't see how you could damage anything. So long as they all say DMX on the inputs then no problems.

If the controller is dedicated to one sort of fixture then it will be virtually impossible to control others effectively.

As others have pointed out, there are so many combinations (or not) of gobo's and effects in differing units, that it can be impossible to share channels between different models, let alone different makes!! If you do find that there are similar gobos in the same positions, then you're very lucky, and may get away with it.

However, that's assuming that the colour channel on the scan is also the colour channel on the colour changer! Channel numbers on different units can do different things also. I had two revisions of a unit, (the name escapes me at the moment), and on one unit, channel 1 was pan, and on the other, it was tilt. Interesting effects produced for the first 5 mins!

£0.02

would I need to in affect use the commando for the constellas and then get a seperate DMX controller for the rest of it, if so then really I can program the DMX controller to do what the commando would do anyways making it obsolete!

Yes.

You just need a general DMX desk instead of a dedicated controller.

And to add to this- before you ask "which desk" then have a look at the search function, where there are many topics discussing exactly that.

David

Just be careful about the DMX cable wiring. Have a look at each unit, and see how the DMX is wired on that particular unit - some are 2+ and some are 3+.

Good luck!

just had a look on constellas site and the commando is a pre programed controller for there range of lights, so as niclights said it wont do others unless by some random fluke they have the same profile.
but there are loads of cheep controllers that you can do what you want with all your DMX lights!!
Pete

what! I thought this was a general lighting/sound/smoke forum! not a stage one! anychance of it becoming a bit more 'exciting lighting' related?

*coughs*


*coughs*

So yes this is a stage forum, though this incorporates lighting/sound/smoke.

[edited for formatting]

yea ok proven wrong

Nope. This place is for Theatre and Related Arts.

@Trundle: If you've got something to make it exciting then post

sorry