kgallen

Isn’t that a bit like: ’Did we get any Sharpies?’ ’Nope’ ’Did we order any?’ ’Nope’

Would that be a slightly portly gentleman with a beard? 🤣

I’m a bit bemused. Why wouldn’t one just put in a terminator as part of the install in the first place? They cost what, a couple of quid each? I’m not sure I understand the general belligerence towards just doing the right thing in the first place. When I’m rigging I end with a terminator on each (actively split) branch, there and then. Done once. Why wouldn’t I? One problem I don’t have to deal with. Slightly rhetorical as I know we’ve discussed this topic ‘several’ times on the Forum over the years!

300m: You had the conviction there Tim that I wasn’t brave enough for on this forum of clever folk! When posting I was thinking, ‘Hmmm square wave at 250kHz: should I go to at least the 5th or 7th harmonic to consider the ‘max’ frequency to calculate the quarter wavelength?’. 😊

The resulting stub length on the transmission line within the fixture is a couple of centimetres, not long lengths of cable. Electrically, at DMX frequencies, this is a very different situation to making a passive split then hanging tens-of-meters of cable off each leg. Electrically, a DMX network is a transmission line, which has very specific electrical characteristic and behaviour. The tolerance to stubs and impedance mismatches causing reflections is a function of frequency. At DMX frequencies, short unterminated stubs like those inside the fixture can be tolerated whereas such stubs would be completely unacceptable at RF frequencies.

ESTA link: https://tsp.esta.org/tsp/working_groups/CP/docs/DMXoverCat5_P3.pdf (Link in my original post seemed to work on my phone when I added to the thread but doesn't work on a PC. Maybe the phone cached the pdf?. Fixed link here, can't edit my original post for some reason...)

Does the pinout here help? Claims to be ESTA. https://response-box.com/gear/2019/02/rs-232-DMX-engine-rj45-outputs/ Same from ETC: https://support.etcconnect.com/ETC/FAQ/DMX-512-Info Cat5: https://support.etcconnect.com/ETC/FAQ/DMX_Over_Cat5 ESTA:

Passive splitting is not the designed electrical topology of DMX which is designed to be a daisy chain. You will split the signal power two ways, so a 6dB drop in each leg. This means the signal amplitude will be halved in each so you will reduce significantly the noise guardband at each receiver possibly resulting in erroneous reception How would you terminate? You can’t terminate both passive branches because the parallel termination impedance would be wrong. This means you are guaranteed reflections from at least one leg. For short lengths and/or of a couple of lights it might work. But otherwise it’s the same answer as always: it will work until it doesn’t.

I’m concerned about amateur groups ‘run by accountants’. In my experience they don’t want to spend. Anything. Amateur groups aren’t run to make a surplus beyond being able to fund their near term production programme. This can mean they stockpile cash instead of investing it in their society. I’ve been there several times. ‘We have no money’ yet have 5 grand sat in a 0.01% bank account. My main group bought 4 channels of Sennheiser EWG2 new in 2006 at a cost of £400/channel. We use them for two or three productions a year. Where required I supplement these with 4 channels of my own made up from second hand sets made up from eBay purchases over time. However for this extra 4 we then need to buy a shared license at £70/pa. Hiring radio mics is not cheap. Our 4 channels would have cost us about 6 grand to hire over this time frame. Paul’s point about frequency changes is a good one to be noted. However this is why questions along the lines of the ones I listed above need to be answered. If you only need a few channels, say 4 to 8, then if you have a knowledgable sound guy in the group then over time you could put together 4 to 8 channels of second hand EW G2 (or similar) at a fraction of the cost of new. This is what I did. I expect the 4 channels in Ch70 around 865MHz should be safe. The 4 you can get in around 830MHz with a shared license I agree are at risk. But quality equipment can be procured on a budget given some basic skills in the group. If you ‘need’ 16 channels that is a whole different question. I would encourage amateur groups to invest wisely and advisedly into their equipment stock over time. Not leaving their hard earned cash to sit and rot in a bank account.

As an ‘amateur’ myself I do sound (and lighting) for a couple of local amateur theatre groups. Can you flesh out what you’re looking for and what skills you have in the group? As you’re a theatre group I suspect you’re asking about lavalier or headset radio mics. How many? What other equipment and skills do you have within the group? Do you have a person who looks after the sound? How skilled are they? Could they put together second hand equipment in a rack case and look after it? Do they have the skills and equipment to do simple soldering repairs? What size hall? What size cast? What age cast? What type of shows? (musicals, plays?) And firstly and more importantly do you *really* need them?

If of any use that looks like a P28 base - although since this is a 1kW lamp rather than 500W per the original Patt23 T1 lamp maybe I’m wrong?

Rule of thumb is to use quarter wavelength. speed (of light) = frequency x wavelength (c=f x lambda) For 865MHz: 3x10^8 = 865x10^6 x wavelength wavelength = 3x10^8 / 865x10^6 = 0.35m (35cm), hence 1/4 wavelength = 8.7cm => antenna length 8.7cm For 606MHz: wavelength = 3x10^8 / 606x10^6 = 50cm, hence 1/4 wavelength = 12.5cm

Jester are USB. Frog had floppy. Illusion probably did too as similar/earlier era.

@ianknight is yer man (Coventry) http://www.serviceguy.co.uk/ Here for Zero88 part numbers if you want to go it alone: https://www.zero88.com/control/elara And Keith at Zero88: keith.rogers@signify.com +44 1633 833101

From what I can glean from here: https://www.afr.com/...20211024-p592nm and here: https://www.audinate...or-xilinx-fpgas it's a Xilinx FPGA. In which case it will be a standard order part, not a custom chip. The integrating customer (Audinate in this case) will do the programming with the logic they require. If Xilinx have chosen to discontinue it then maybe it is one of their older parts or maybe other customers are getting priority on any shipments. The IP Core page suggests it's a part from the Spartan 6 family which have been around since 2015. There seem to be Xilinx forum Spartan 6 end-of-life discussions from 2020 so maybe Audinate are caught a bit short with Spartan6 supply issues at EOL and not having their Brooklyn III design ready yet...

If you're ever tempted to paint a gauze (or similar netting) then you need to use thinned flexible acrylic paint (ideally proper saturated scenic paint, like Rosco Supersat). If you use emulsion then you'll (a) block the holes (b) get a stiff gauze that can't be rolled and the paint will just crack and flake.

Do you per-chance have an X32-series (or X-Air) digital mixer? If so the built-in pitch shifter works very well for this. Last panto we did Jack and the Beanstalk and it worked exceptionally well for the giant - both for the normal deep boomy voice - and also to turn him into a squeaky mouse when we "killed" him at the end! ( OK the director didn't ask for that but we did it for fun on the last performance anyway :-D ) In addition to the pitch shift, you probably also want some reverb on it too (again, easily achieved on X32/X-Air). If I remember correctly I had the pitch shift as an insert and the reverb as a bus effect so I could control the level of reverb live from a DCA. The actor was speaking into a stand-mounted dynamic mic offstage - and was coached to play into the effect to optimise how it came across. If your child is on-stage, maybe with a radio mic lav/headset, maybe you won't have quite as much control.

Define ‘expensive’! Sennheiser EW I guess would be typical fodder. Plus custom ear molds. Plenty on here who can give better advice than me but this is a starter-for-10 as it’s been quiet up to now…

Seems OK for me on Chrome Version 94.0.4606.61 (Official Build) (64-bit) (Win10). I've been doing quite a few CPC orders recently and not noticed any problems (other than stock levels!).

I suspect Keith will know far more about the Strand products than the person "training" him (as in, I doubt that Strand was left with any "original" technical employees that know the faintest thing about their products).

Good point! But I think exactly the same happens with adults in my experience!

In a similar vein, if you are able to put in light at more interesting angles (back, 3/4 side etc), that are easier to rig and in "safer" (away from the audience) positions, then you might find you need far less front/face light than you thought, which means you could get away with a small number of Fresnels from the front at non-ideal heights and angles. Even consider putting your power PARs 3/4 backlight with strong gels in, then your other stand at front of house 180 degrees opposite (diagonal) to add a little face light. One at the opposite side front of house maybe from your tops riser would fill in gently on that opposite side. Being at a lower level but to the side and checked down will mitigate the "blinding the frontman" issue. Something like this (my ASCII art doesn't render - looks ok in the editor... so ignore the dots, pretend they are spaces!) PAR \\\\ ......... Band Fill / .. Crowd .. \\ Face Probably a bit more theatre than rock 'n' roll, but it might be an approach which reduces the challenge you're having with FOH height and angles. Kevin

I had a bit of a google and No.8 doesn't seem to come up much - often missing between 7 and 9 in the lists I found. One of the few places I found was this: https://www.theatrec...atalogue_64.pdf "Deep Salmon" But no RGB/HSV data though :-( Superficially, Lee 008 looks close but maybe not close enough for your requirements! Whether RGB can faithfully reproduce any of these gel colours is probably debateable! If you do get a swatch of No.8, you're probably better projecting this onto a white surface - ideally with a tungsten (not TH) lamp (because much of the "colour" of this "Deep Salmon" will come from the lamp colour temperature) and then trying to match by mixing with the RGB fixture that you expect to use in this application. You might find that an RGBA fixture helps you get closer (but I think your experience means you already know this!).

If this is for ETC source 4, then stocked by the main theatrical suppliers. Eg https://m.stage-electrics.co.uk/shop/sales/spares/product.aspx?code=517-3950 PAR is different to profile but both usually stocked. https://m.stage-electrics.co.uk/shop/sales/spares/etc

<user mildly panicing...> I hope Zero88 get to stay largely autonomous (although someone getting a solid grip of the software development process wouldn't be a bad thing). I'm not sure this Signify stuff makes me feel particularly comfortable at this point in time.