Martin 218 control by Frog

[Nicktaylor]

I have just got four of these units. As far as I know they are Mk 1 . Having plugged up the Martin protocol box and set DMX addresses I have control of sorts. The manual is fairly spartan and goes into the way of setting up and adjusting the units rather than what can be achieved.

 

My main question is I cannot find out if the gobos should be able to rotate. The spec says 18 rotatable gobos, but I cannot get them to at all! If I install the fixture as a Mk 2 scan then the correct control windows come up, but dont seem to do anything! Actually I wonder if the problem is at the Martin converter box, rather than the scanners.

 

Any ideas?

[peter]

I presume you're patching the fixture using the Pro 218 profiles in the main Zero88 fixture library. There are three modes which the MarkII fixtures can operate in - assigned using the Mode1, Mode2 or Mode3 profiles on the Frog.

 

If you're using MarkI (and it seems like you are, as the MarkII fixtures have DMX on-board) then you'll require another DMX profile for the Frog range. I have uploaded this to the Zero88 support forum for you, here.

 

It doesn't appear like the gobos can rotate.

[Nicktaylor]

I was just about to post on the Zero 88 forum so you beat me to it! I cant believe there are so may gobos that only really work if they rotate!

 

Thanks

 

Nick

[Jamtastic3]

The 218 does not have rotating gobos - think about it as well: 18 rotating gobos in a small fixture like that would be highly unbelievable. They are definitely static gobos. It is probably referring to the rotation of the whole gobo wheel. The 218 is similar to the 812 as in it has a colour wheel and a gobo wheel and that's it. The 518 however has 5 rotating gobos plus prism and filter effects.

[Nicktaylor]

If you install the fixture for the mark 2 or 3 then you get the rotation speed as a wheel control. As to the size. My Tas Mini Ultrascans are not a huge amount bigger and they have the rotating gobos.

 

Thanks for the answer though. To be honest I cant see the point of some of the gobo images if they dont rotate

[sparkyweb]

silly thought. How much control do you have if you use the martin interface box. Surely you can't control the 218 via the fixture part of the frog, as the box is a martin - DMX adapter. I could be wrong but I always thought you would have to just control the 218 as individual channels using the faders.

Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

[tokm]

silly thought. How much control do you have if you use the martin interface box. Surely you can't control the 218 via the fixture part of the frog, as the box is a martin - DMX adapter. I could be wrong but I always thought you would have to just control the 218 as individual channels using the faders.

Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

 

Hi Mark,

 

From what Ive seen in the past the martin protocol box is basically a demux.. it converts DMX signals into martin protocol. So whatever desk your running the scans off, sends out commands for each unit, the box then picks up the DMX commands and converts them to martin speak.

 

Its basically the same as a vl smart repeater.. just converts one form of data to another.

 

I have seen other desks have the 218 fixture profile on them, so can't just be a zero88 thing. I suppose its just about matching up the DMX addresses on the desk and fixtures properly.

 

I thought you guys at Kave used to have some old 218s? Or are they the ones with inbuilt DMX?

 

Tom

[sparkyweb]

Hi Tom,

Yes thats why I wondered, we do have some 218 but I have never put them into the frog. They hardly go out anymore,

 

Mark