Fat Frog Desks

[Thirdtap]

'Lo

At work we have a couple of Fat Frog desks on our hire stock. Now I haven't had time to use them yet but I have had some feedback on them and people seem to have had problems with them. For your information they are flight cased and they will get bounced a little bit during transit to different venues. As far as I know they aren't currently hired with monitors which might be a problem but something we can change. They might get used for some moving lights but mainly operating generics.

 

I have had reports of them crashing and problems with operating. I don't know if this is a problem with the desk not travelling well or operators that could benefit from some basic training before they use them onsite.

 

so.. could I ask people how have they got on when using the desk? If you don't want to post please PM me

 

Ta Awfully

[oakwarden]

I own a Fat Frog, and whilst I understand that owning one and hiring them out is very different. Mine is flight cased, but as well as theatre use, dose a lot of outside work in the summer/autum and since I bought it about 18 months ago, has been trouble free :blink:

 

I do use mine with a monitor, it is possible to use it without, but it is certainly easier with one. I guess that as I have used it a lot now and gained the experience, I could use it without the monitor, but for a first time user it could be a bit tricky if going for anything else other than generics. :blink:

 

A couple of ideas:

 

How about producing a quick reference sheet - a laminated sheet with the key tasks, so it can be referred to quikley without leafing through the manual.

 

And some standard set ups - eg a couple of Mac's or Colour changers etc that have standard shows set up on disc (without cues) so you can quickly load into the desk and you know that it's all set up when it leaves you.

 

Simon

[steven]

I have used a fat frog a few times and would agree that a monitor deffinately helps. Esspesially due to what I feel is an annoying arrangement of the up down + and - buttons, I have often found myself pressing the wrong one, and although you can see that hou have pressed the wrong button by looking at the LCD it is far more obvious on the monitor.

 

Never had the desk crash on me but during one show had a little fun with the positon and colour libraries as the names kept clearing so did not know which position or colour was which, also one dissapeared completely.

[Matt]

I have used a fat frog for movers, though I did not use a monitor with it. though as yousaid the reason why it crashes, or crashed about a million time during the show in my case, could be the operator, after the first show, I decided to refer to the operating manual, and with a whole days worth of practise b4 the next show, I actuall managed to get it to work without crashing, though I still couldnt get the frog to work with the movers, they just refused to work with it... was using 2 mac250+ if that helps diagnose it.

[Stu]

It could be a dodgy software release? Thirdtap, have you tried updating to the latest software, or doing a reset? This may help.

 

A couple of Zero 88 staff lurk/post on here, so they might be able to e-mail you and help you out.

 

Cool sig by the way!

 

Stu

[Graham NZ]

Hi

 

We do indeed lurk on this site.

 

If you think there is any problem with your desk then please contact us and we will be happy to service it.

 

That said it does sound as if you may be having some trouble with operators not knowing the desk.

 

If you would like to arrange a training day for potential customers we will be happy to provide you with support in the form of a trainer to do this.

 

To anyone out there who is interested we do provide regular training days both at our factory or at dealers or customers venues. If we can be of any help on this front please let me know.

 

Cheers

 

Graham

Zero 88 Brand Manager

[Thirdtap]

Fank you very much I thought that the reports were a little too kinda 'user error' based. As mentioned I haven't had a chance to use one yet. Quick ref list sounds very good might use some of the ideas posted on other forums here for that.

 

Zero thanks very much I will try and arrange a training day at some point, once things get a little quieter.

[gareth]

Moderation, 1/10/03, 19:45 - off-topic post removed with author's permission

[Matt]

although me experience with it was a bit dodgy, I still would like some form of trainging with them, you never know, they could come up somewhere in your career, I mean you can never know too much about these things can you?

[Angelic]

though I still couldnt get the frog to work with the movers, they just refused to work with it... was using 2 mac250+ if that helps diagnose it.

The first mover I used on my Fat Frog was a Mac250, and IIRC it wouldn't work because I needed to reverse the phases on my DMX line. If you've not done this then try it - it should work.

 

Apart from that, had mine around a year/18 months now, and it's a cracking desk. I use both generics and movers, scans and disco stuff too if I'm feeling naughty! Wonderful bits of kit, very intuitive, never *touches wood* crashed, always use a monitor - they make the system run soooo much better!

[gareth]

The first mover I used on my Fat Frog was a Mac250, and IIRC it wouldn't work because I needed to reverse the phases on my DMX line.  If you've not done this then try it - it should work.

In that case, I think there must have been something wrong with your mux line in the first place ...

 

Martin used to employ phase-reversed DMX, way back in the mists of time. But I'm almost 100% certain that this was knocked on the head well before the Mac250/300 came on the scene. I've certainly never encountered a Mac250 with reversed phases on its DMX input (and I've encountered quite a lot of Mac250's over the years!). So if you had to swap the phases to get your Mac250 working, it's pretty likely that they were wrong in the first place.

[oakwarden]

I support that, I've never had to reverse the phases on a MAC 250, just plug and go! I did however, pick up an old imagescan the other day which I do need to reverse the connections on. Have made up a short lead, but on balance it would be better to swap the wires on the rear of the socket, because the lead will only become an object of desire to the "move it and hide it Pixies" which live in my workshop.

[andpuds]

We bought a frog desk about 15 months ago, mainly for theatre based work, but we've hauled it round a few venues as well. We've (touch wood) never had a problem with them. Thanks to a stffing debacle we had to learn operations from the manual, and barring slight confusion over programming the memories we found it very easy to get to a point where a show could be easily run from the desk.

 

The only problem we have ever encountered is user error, or where the user was undertrained on a certain aspect, the desk has been more than fine. :D

[Angelic]

The first mover I used on my Fat Frog was a Mac250, and IIRC it wouldn't work because I needed to reverse the phases on my DMX line.  If you've not done this then try it - it should work.

In that case, I think there must have been something wrong with your mux line in the first place ...

 

Martin used to employ phase-reversed DMX, way back in the mists of time. But I'm almost 100% certain that this was knocked on the head well before the Mac250/300 came on the scene. I've certainly never encountered a Mac250 with reversed phases on its DMX input (and I've encountered quite a lot of Mac250's over the years!). So if you had to swap the phases to get your Mac250 working, it's pretty likely that they were wrong in the first place.

Hmmm *strokes chin*

 

I may be speaking out of my rear end then.......

 

*checks specs*

 

yup!

 

It may have been a problem I had with the internal library fixture file then, because I seem to remember having problems getting it working - it could have been that I selected a different mode on the desk in regards to the mode set on the fixture.

 

*goes away confused!*

 

I still stand by my original statement though - not one problem, and mine sometimes gets quite a beating.

[Potassium Neuf]

The MAC 250 like the majority of Martin moving light fixtures operate in a number of different modes which use different numbers of DMX channels.

 

It is essential that the fixture assignment on the desk matches the mode that the actual fixture is set to, otherwise you may find that certain channels cannot be controlled or do different things to what you expect

 

The fixture type stored on the Frog desks for the Martin MAC 250, 300, 500 and 600 is Mode 4, since that provides the most functions on the fixtures themselves (16 bit pan and tilt and the extra control channels).