Stuart91

13 hours ago, Ynot said:

How do you plan to secure the deck legs to the one below? Kee Klamp end sockets are good for this (but take care to ensure you don't screw thru the aluminium frame!)

https://stagedepot.co.uk/rigging-install-staging/staging/stage-accessories/global-truss-stage-deck-leg-bracket

These sort of brackets are available for Global deck. I've got a handful and they seem to work well. The big advantage is that they don't require any fixings into the surface of the deck. For the OP there's perhaps not the flexibility available with placement. 

If this pyramid is being built and de-rigged regularly (e.g. for a tour) I'd be trying to get something like this fabricated to reduce some of the hassle. It's overkill for a one-off though. 

What's happening on the deck once it's built into this pyramid?
 

A single actor is a very different proposition from a crowd of dancers...

If the overlap isn't crucial you may be easiest having each deck standing on four legs, then apply suitable bracing etc. to hold the whole lot together. 

A friend of mine managed to get some surprisingly effective results using clear shower curtains from Ikea. He fixed them together using clear parcel tape, and hung from a centenary wire to cover the entire width of a fairly large church building. 

I'd earlier assured him that it was never going to work and had to eat my words. 

The other thing I've seen is spandex stretched out to fill a space. Hung from a bar above and tensioned using stage weights at ground level. This was done for a dance event, so nobody was really caring about how the edges looked. It might be that you could conceal the edges with other parts of the set. 

We owned four of these for a while, I sold them into an installation during lockdown. 

One of the four came back to us recently, with a similar sounding problem to what you're experiencing. 

We ended up replacing the LED module itself, Prolight Concepts are the UK distributor and did have some spare parts on hand for them, although I got the impression that we were getting some of the last of the batch. 

Might be worth checking in with whoever you bought the lights from. If the lights were bought from new you'll still have some warranty cover, if they're second hand or ex-hire the seller will probably have dealer access to Prolight for whatever spares are available. 

One technique that we've sometimes used is storing a "backup" copy of the scene somewhere out of the way, possibly in multiple slots. 

From a troubleshooting perspective, if the customer is halfway competent they can be instructed to, say, load up Scene 99, and save it back over Scene 1 to get things back to normal. Might save you a trip out to site. 

16 minutes ago, J Pearce said:

but if you're after count ins, ends of pauses, and dynamics etc. then most flat screen TVs should be ok.

My lot have specifically said they struggled with count-ins, it's the down-beat at the start of a piece that is the biggest challenge. (Slow pieces seem to need more precision than faster ones, interestingly)

Funnily enough, I was asked yesterday about something similar. 

We've got a choir on stage, with a conductor standing on a small riser on the auditorium floor. The band surround the conductor on the floor, choir and soloists are on the stage which is approx 4ft high. 

The problem is that the choir can't all see the conductor, only the first few rows. One potential solution is to add risers for the choir, but that'll involve quite a lot of hardware and expense for a show that's already tight for budget. 

Raising the conductor might help, too, but much higher and they'll block sightlines for the audience. 

Some video relay seems like the obvious option, but they've experimented with modern digital kit without success - there's just too much latency. 

I've been asked about possibilities. I know composite / analog is the way to go. I'm not sure though if, for example, running a composite signal into a modern flatscreen TV will still be latency-free, or if there's inherent processing / upscaling involved. The choir are large enough that we'd need some decent sized screens and alas my 32" CRTs went into a skip some years ago...

2 hours ago, J Pearce said:

Ampman repaired my X32 Rack, but they don't currently list Behringer on their website - worth contacting them though.

I'm afraid I've had horrible service from Ampman recently. Still waiting on an amp module that we ordered (and paid for) in October and were promised within weeks. They were able to deliver half the order when threatened with a credit card chargeback. We're still waiting on the remainder. 

The parts themselves are in stock with the manufacturer, who won't sell direct to end users. Ampman seemingly can't be bothered organising it, but are quite content to sit on my money in the meantime. 

If all four RJ45 output ports are in use, chances are that the display is configured as four rows. That makes for a simpler layout.

You need to configure the controller, telling it how many receiver cards are connected to each physical ethernet port. 

If you can get behind the display you'll see that it's made up of tiles, with link cables (power and RJ45) between each. 

Each tile has a receiver card which translates the signal to drive the actual pixels. 

The order of the tiles also has to be correct or you can get some interesting results. 

AliExpress are adding VAT automatically these days, so £20 magically becomes £24 at checkout for non-VAT registered people. 

I've seen a very similar design with a (budget) brand name attached to it and they seemed fine. 

I was quite impressed when I got a demo of some fixtures with Lime emitters included. Bringing the lime up and down essentially shifts the white colour temp. 

This obviously depends on the quality of the other emitters, but for a mid-range brand it was really quite effective. 

(Was an ADJ moving light so not directly applicable OP's requirements here)

16 hours ago, truimalten said:

Has anyone ever successfully finagled/jerry-rigged, lets say improvised a top and bottom shutter cut on one of these? I was thinking of bringing my aluminium tape and tape of the front top and bottom.

My suspicion is that your "shutters" would be in the wrong part of the optical path, so you're not going to get a sharp edge. I'd be more worried about tape giving way, especially with the heat of the beam. (And would anything strong enough to hold come off cleanly, without leaving residue?)

Hippy's suggestion of gobos makes more sense to me. 

Fabory delivered on the Monday, and have actually taken the time to follow up on what would probably be a pretty small order for them. Overall I'm very impressed. 

The wing-screws themselves look identical to the ones I bought from Zoro previously, even down to the labels and packaging. 

4 hours ago, NW1 said:

Thanks, yes it’s not bad at all - just thinking about starting to move across slowly - it may well be a couple of fixtures ever 6-8m  depending on bookings etc. It’s certainly useable as it is. 

LEDs are most effective (compared to conventionals) when producing saturated colours. And the nature of optics + LED sources means that wash fixtures are cheaper than profiles or fresnels. 

Depending on what kind of shows/bookings you are getting, it may make sense to use LED for your colour wash and keep the conventionals for face light and specials. 

(I'm thinking things like dance shows or panto where a lot of colour is required - covering the whole stage with a blue wash can tie up an awful lot of fresnels)

On 3/15/2024 at 4:51 PM, J Pearce said:

 Install some CAT5 lines to any sensible mix position,

Whilst I don't disagree with this at all, some mixers are sticky about the particular flavour of cable. (Shielded vs unshielded is the most common, but who know what'll come up in future)

Many touring engineers won't trust in-house lines for this reason. Whilst installed lines will be great for your own use, it's helpful to have an easy route for cable runs. Things like hooks above doors can save a lot of time and gaff tape. (Whilst being safer in the event of a fire)

An update - 4 months on. 

I bought another batch of deck last week, which came with a load of joiners that have the stock knurled Allen-head bolts. 

Went to buy from Zoro again, and the price for the length required has gone up 8x compared to my previous order. They were looking for £13.99 per piece. 

Emailed to query if the "new" price was a glitch on their website, but no, apparently their supply price has increased by a similar proportion. Meanwhile 60mm or 80mm are the same price as before. 

So for this next batch I've gone to Fabory, who despite being based on the continent seem to be confident that they'll get the shipment to me by Monday or Tuesday next week. We will see... Their price was approx £1.30 per piece so far closer to what I was expecting to pay. 

X32 definitely makes sense for bands etc. but maybe factor in a smaller/simpler analogue mixer for events with basic requirements. 

I ended up running a school Christmas show from a ui16 (with some trepidation) and was quite impressed. No obvious glitches or dropouts and I managed to do everything I wanted with it. However other people are clearly having issues with it, and Soundcraft have been gutted by their corporate overlords. Behringer's support isn't exactly legendary either, but they have a far larger user base and look like they will continue to release new products going forwards. 

HTML5 was an interesting way of handling the control. I found it OK, but realistically it's not that much of a problem to install an app, and in a church situation may prevent random people accessing the console (unless you keep tight control of logins)

A relatively inexpensive (refurb?) tablet dedicated to running the app is probably the way to go. Tying up a laptop for desk control seems like overkill, and touch control makes the task much easier. 

I am perhaps showing my ignorance here, but would it be a possibility to use heatshield along with the acetate? (E.g. Lee 269)

I appreciate it might soften the focus, I've only ever seen it used on wash lights. 

I was in a church hall not long after some unruly teenagers had been throwing icing sugar around. Unfortunately someone had tried to mop it up. The resulting sticky mess was apparently almost impossible to shift. 

56 minutes ago, MixingWizard said:

Interesting, that was actually one of the reasons I was going for it - I assumed the texture would be grippier.

I suspect there's more grip than standard ply when they're dry, but less when they're wet. 

My stock of decks includes both, and I certainly prefer the standard ply. 

If you're largely indoors then it's far less of a problem. 

We've used Edding 751 and have been quite happy with them. 

They've tended to have been used more for marking drapes etc. since we use stickers for cables. But they seem to stay on just about anything. 

https://cpc.farnell.com/edding/015713/silver-1-2mm-marker/dp/OE01221

Hex is also quite slippery out of doors if that's an issue. 

As Tom says, the drawback with hex board is that it's much harder to touch up or repair afterwards. A gouge in standard ply can be filled, sanded and repainted. Which is a bit of a faff but certainly cheaper overall than fresh wood.