alistermorton

Chances are that, if it's RGB only, the yellows will be a bit iffy, too.

In case anyone's interested, we got exactly the behaviour we used to have (and wanted) by using a DMX merger set to backup mode, with the Ion as the primary and the Echo as the backup, as suggested by mnorwood.

We have half a dozen MP75s and I'd agree with that. They're useful in a tight squeeze, too, as they're physically not that much bigger than a minim.

Are you wanting to drive the five projectors with the same image or different images?

The short answer is "It depends". Firstly, the lamp in the fixture needs to be dimmable, so if the fixture uses a non replaceable LED and it's not specifically marked as dimmable, then the chances are you're snookered. If it is dimmable, then the type of dimmer comes into play. Most theatrical mains dimmers are leading edge thyristor or triac dimmers, with a minimum load requirement. Most line dimmable LEDs work best on trailing edge dimmers that have been designed for LEDs, and there are DMX controlable versions of these. What often happens with theatre dimmers is that as you dim up or down around 0 the LED will either flash or snap on or off - it won't dim smoothly. Sometimes even when the dimmer is completely off, there is enough leakage current to cause the LED to flash periodically. You also often find that the dimming curve is completely different to the curve with your tungsten lamps. So give it a try and see, but be prepared for it to be imperfect. E2A - Tim beat me to it ...

Would tinsel cable with crimps on the end work? That said, I'm not sure where you'd source tinsel cable either. Or failing that, a flexible PCB link?

The white tends to be a bit of a "blue" white, because subjectively it looks brighter and at this end of the market people want brightness rather than accuracy. I believe ADJ have an RGBL par with lime rather than white, which counterintuitively gets you a better white (and yellows, for that matter) which might be worth a look.

Having reread the section, it sort of does, but I'm still not sure it quite does what we want.

Thanks, Matt, that's interesting to know.

Tomo: If the system had a setting for go to this scene when DMX is initially detected, and a reciprocal go to this scene on loss of DMX, that would possibly be a workaround. Being able to lock out the out stations while DMX is present is a need, though. The way it used to work was on receipt of DMX go to what the DMX is asking for (and ignore any change in the out stations while DMX is present), on loss of DMX go to whatever the out stations that you've been ignoring are currently asking for. This meant you could come into a dark theatre, and go straight to the control box, switch on the houselights from there if you wanted, or switch on the desk and control houselights from there. If you subsequently pushed one of the houselights buttons on the outstations it wouldn't become active until the desk was powered down at the end of the show, so you could set the "fallback" level at any time before turning off the desk.

That's what I'd have thought, too, David, but it seems our (and many other's, it seems) requirement isn't covered by the way the system is intended to work. Which is annoying, given we demonstrated how the old system worked to the disti before we placed the order.

Polyurethane board is also stocked by the DIY sheds, which is more rigid, but it's also more expensive, and is (usually) foil clad, which may be a problem.

We have just replaced our incandescent houselights (note, NOT emergency lighting) with LED. We have an ETC Arc system with Echo DMX scene controller, echo contact output, 3 x 8 button out stations and a Bluetooth interface. The old system was based around a Strand outlook system and Act 6 digital. With this, the outstations could set preset lighting such as full, dim, in the round or off, etc, but as soon as the lighting desk came on, it took over, ignoring the outstations. Effectively, DMX has precedence, so as long as the desk was on, nobody could accidentally alter the houselights (except for the lighting operator) but when the desk was turned off it fell back to whatever was on the outstation again. The Echo system appears to be highest takes precedence, wherever it comes from, so if someone (perhaps accidentally) hits full on an outstation during a show, it overrides the desk and brings up the houselights. Clearly this is unacceptable. Does anyone know if it’s possible to set up/reprogram an Echo system to be DMX takes precedence and overrides the outstations. Seems such a common, obvious requirement we’re surprised it’s not one of the default profiles.

Back in 2012 we were working on a show which had a short run in Croydon before transferring to Minack. During the tech in Croydon the LD felt ill and took himself home, only to be carted off to King's cardiac unit. It was noted afterwards that had that happened at Minack, he might not have been with us now.

Well quite. Back in the 80s I got to visit the flight deck of a 747 mid Atlantic, but that's not relevant to airflight today. Times change.

Just as an aside, we have some elumen8 mp75 lanterns which are RGBW fresnels, about the size of a minim, and can be useful in tight corners. I wouldn't use them for FOH general cover, but they're somewhere around the brightness of a 300-500W fixture, depending on colour. Worth looking at as they're relatively cheap, too.

Those threaded inserts are so useful - we have a large stock of them.

If you're on facebook, there's an EOS group (ETC EOS family console programmers) where one of the members has built a multi-encoder add on (four encoders upwards), and has made the software available. Runs on an ESP32 series board.

What format is your video? Does it reliably play ok in media player?

That's a good point - a 2 pole 6 way switch might work rather well.

That's going to give you an interesting curve, if you're connecting to 80 ohm phones, whether you just put it in series or wire it as a divider like in an amp, the relative resistances are going to make for a gain control that will be very sensitive. 1k in series would give you approx 10:1 level change end to end, unless I've done my mental arithmetic wrongly.

Were they bought as a job lot? Could they have all suffered a spike that has taken out all the DMX transceivers at once?

Is this relevant, or of any help?

You can get a sequencer which will stagger the power up and power down sequence, which may go a long way to at least ameliorating the problem.

How well does it work?