timsabre

The conventional way of doing this is to program the scenes/chases on the lighting controller and recall them by midi notes, because (unless you only have a very few lights) if you do what you suggest you are quickly going to end up with a whole load of notes all on top of each other - for one thing MIDI can only send one note at a time so there'll be a perceptible delay, and also it will be horrible to edit on cubase. For your LED par cans you have 3 or 4 parameters per light so you'd have to send a note for Red, par can 1, another for Green, par can 1.... This is how the MIDI to DMX converters work and it was OK when you had 12 channels of dimmers, but now if you have 12 LED pars you're controlling 48 channels of DMX and it isn't practical - I expect this is why MIDI-DMX converters have fallen out of favour. Also performing fades between scenes is pretty much impossible by direct MIDI commands due to the amount of notes you have to send. Personally I'd be looking at DMX controller software to do this since you don't need a live control surface to operate the show and that is the expensive bit. You could probably run the show with the DMX controller software on the same laptop as cubase, though for programming having 2 separate computers would probably be easier.

What lights have you got... and what aspect of the lighting are you wanting to control with your midi controller messages, over and above the note on-off for scenes? The big advantage that control software (and more expensive desks) have over the base level lighting controllers is ease of fixture control and programming using personalities. On the basic controllers you just have a bank of sliders to control each DMX channel of the lights, which is not so bad if you've just got RGB par cans but gets confusing quickly for anything more complicated than that. Most control software, and better desks, will let you set what type of fixture it is, then use a colour picker to set colour and separate controls to set position, gobo etc.

If the fixture is designed with DMX/electronics ground connected to mains earth/chassis then you should not change this. Some power supply modules have floating DC outputs which can result in quite a high voltage on the power supply DC ground relative to earth. This can blow up DMX interfaces if connected with the power turned on (and give you tingly feelings if you touch the DMX). So to get round this they link psu DC ground to mains earth (sometimes via a resistor, fuse or fusible resistor). Removing this link is unwise.

Um. I don't want to sound like an old fart but repairing high power mains electronics like this is a dangerous thing to try with limited experience and an internet forum. The chances of damaging yourself is quite high. If you feel you really must do this, you will need a variac (variable transformer) which allows you to ramp up the mains voltage from zero, this lets you track down problems before everything blows up. Also I'm not sure how your mains is wired but in the UK where our mains is earth-referenced we use an isolating transformer on the test board which reduces the risk of electric shock.

It's double sided rubbery tape on the ones I have seen. Often backed up by a bead of silicone. Something like this https://cpc.farnell.com/pro-power/adsft50x10/tape-double-sided-foam-50mm-x/dp/CB20013

They looked like this... Just a u shaped casting with a bolt closing the open side if I remember correctly (usually a lot less shiny than that...)

If you have some cast onstage for this sequence, I would do it as an acting gag with all of the cast looking towards the "bounce" points on the sound effects cues. Pan the sound effects to alternate sides. Think tennis audience following a ball type of thing. Use dafter sound effects as it goes on like cows mooing etc. Then you could use the normal sprung arrow trick for it to appear in the target at the end. I think that would get a better laugh than a possibly cheesy looking arrow on a string or other attempts to physically reproduce it.

Wow that's a blast from the past. According to google: Master disco has an option for you to regain control of your console even when someone changed your password for the coef masterdisco the password is 16-10-6-8

If no DMX but everything else works then 75176 would be your first bet. It is unusual for a micro to fail. Sometimes you can zap individual pins if something else fails and puts a big voltage into them. If one colour missing this is often an LED failure as the LEDs are wired in series strings. You can find a faulty one by bridging them out one at a time. Also the mosfets sometimes fail but they often fail shorted on which can kill the LEDs by overcurrent. Also the sense resistors (the big ones near the mosfets) sometimes go open circuit due to thermal stress but this is easy to detect with a meter.

Search Aliexpress for RGBWC COB and you will find plenty of examples, e.g. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004189042700.html (although the LED die arrangement on that is interesting with the whites in the middle and the colours widely spread in a ring round the outside. Good luck getting a well mixed colour out of it.)

If you can do 2 flashes from different directions that also helps sell the effect. I was doing "Little Shop of Horrors" earlier this year and the stage was almost entirely lit with LED pars, separately flashing 2 groups of them to full white with instant release (in Avo-speak) gave some reasonably convincing lightning on a darkened "nighttime blue" stage.

It was a known problem with them but they didn't all do it. Does that one have a timer function, can't remember, but if it does that's one way round the problem.

Yes it does some complicated energy usage calculations to detect fluid out which didn't always come out with the right answer at low output settings. Are you using the recommended fluid as that affects it. Otherwise could be lower output than expected due to blockage or pump spec. There's no calibration for the fluid detection.

If you google for "double drop" screen or "double motor" screen you will find some standard products of the double drop type where the screen casing drops down on cables e.g. https://www.sapphireav.com/Sapphire-Smart-Move-4m-43-Two-Motor-Electric-Projection-Screen-Approx-Case-Dimensions-L-4317mm-x-H-250mm-x-D-170mm_p_524.html

I don't think there is enough info to tell on the website, you need to know the focal length of the lens to know how wide the view is. I would say, I had some of the previous version of this camera and it had a really bad delay on the image - about half a second. This made it really difficult to operate the ptz, and also no good for imag. They may have fixed this in the newer version. With those cameras (which I think were 20x optical) you could get a head & shoulders shot from 30m but it wasn't the sharpest at that distance

You can select fixtures on the 31-60 handles by holding Avo button while you press the blue swop button, e.g. Avo+1 selects 31.

You won't find solderable HDMI panels because the connection needs really close tolerance for the HDMI signal to keep working.

Certainly sounds like interference but you need to work out whether it is affecting the monitor itself or the incoming sdi feed. Do you have a different type of monitor you could test in that location? Alternatively in this sort of problem I've had success by putting an SDI isolation transformer in line with the video cable but they are an expensive thing to try out when you don't know if it'll work.

No. As you say A is bad but all the others are fine. It isn't RF that's the problem, it's the chopped up mains waveform which comes out of a dimmer.

Why are you thinking this might be necessary? This is a bit of a departure from the original question which was about the venue equipment failing due to being plugged into dimmed power outlets. (these surge strips are a waste of money in my opinion anyway)

https://www.robe.cz/news/large-robospot-system-is-a-winner-at-eurovision-2018

Mp60 are not very bright. Chauvet ovation are nice but probably not worth the extra cost for your situation. I'm surprised you find the slight steps of 8 bit dimmer a problem - even if you went 16 bit you couldn't control it from a simple controller, you'd have to switch to 8 bit mode anyway. So I'd recommend getting more of what you already have.

I think I must work on events on a lower plane to you guys because having any type of food/catering provided is the exception rather than the rule.

It sounds to me like they are worried that you will plug their venue LED fixtures into a dimmed power outlet. So they are hoping that by banning any interaction with their hardwired power outlets and forcing use of separate extension cables, this (expensive) problem will not occur. If you want to bring in a dimmer pack that's your problem what you do with it as long as you don't mess with their fixture wiring. As Tony says above it sounds like your communication with the venue management is not very good - if you could improve that you might find other solutions.

They do have a valid point - it is true that powering LED fixtures off a dimmable power source can damage the electronics. So it sounds like they are trying to stop venue hirers messing with the venue's installed equipment and potentially plugging them into a dimmed power source. Although their solution to this sounds a bit clunky. In a venue with a permanent crew or used by experienced crew, a mix of dimmer and hard power outlets (or switchable dim/hard power) is often found but it relies heavily on the crew to use the right sort of power for the fixture and I've seen mistakes made and fixtures damaged even with experienced crew. What they should probably do is have some specified and clearly marked sockets on the rig for hirer's brought in equipment rather than using extension cables.