Controller for Acme Scimitar

[stevieboi]

Hi All

 

Im looking for a lighting controller that I can use to control my two acme scimitars as well as regular lights ie par cans. budget £150 to £200.

 

Any ideas?

 

thanks

[mumbles]

Something like this or this would seem to do the job. Alternatively, a computer DMX controller may be more suited to you're needs. To answer properly we would need to know what you'd want the desk to be able to do, but the above may be some help to get started.

 

Also, I don't know if you have dimmers for the pars, but if you don't then even a cheap dimmer is going to be taking up all of your budget.

[david.elsbury]

Check out the Lighting FAQ, which covers such oft-asked questions as "what desk should I buy".

 

[stevieboi]

Thanks for your replies

 

How does something like the scanmaster mentioned in mumbles post control regular lights like par cans etc - it seems to be a controller for intelligent lights only? I ideally want to be able to control 2 or more scanners and between 4 - 12 parcans etc from the same controller, with a budget of approx £200

 

Thanks

[mumbles]

How does something like the scanmaster mentioned in mumbles post control regular lights like par cans etc - it seems to be a controller for intelligent lights only? I ideally want to be able to control 2 or more scanners and between 4 - 12 parcans etc from the same controller, with a budget of approx £200

Each of the twelve fixture buttons on the LHS is a set of 16 channels, giving 192 in total. By addressing the scanners to 1, 17, and then 6 channels dimmers to 34 and 51 for example, and then buttons 1 and 2 give access to the scanners channels, and 3 and 4 the dimmers. Not particularly easy if you don't have a set of identical intels, as if you do you have 1 slider that does all pan etc for all of them. So, you can't busk pars straight form the channels if you want the intels from the channels as well, but you can store scenes chases for the intels and pars and then still can use the channels directly for the pars.

 

If you do go down this route, you'll find very quickly that you want so much more from a desk. My first intels desk was a version of the scanmaster, and served me well enough for a couple of years until I decided to have a look at pc control. This at first seemed like a great step up, but then when a few months later I got a job with a local firm, I learnt a proper intel desk and now can't look back. Overall, the scanmaster is obviously no pearl, or even fat frog, but for your budget is about the most you could get.

 

Good luck,

 

EDIT:A further thought is to get something like an enttec widget, and use a pc control software. If you're interested, many programs are free to download, so you can have a look and try it out first. If you do do this, my main piece of advice is look for a program that you can use the keyboard as an interface as opposed to just a mouse. Many programs have the oppurtunity of expanding to include a dedicated wing for programming/opping with sliders + user definable buttons, which could be added later when you had the budget.

[stevieboi]

thanks for the reply

 

unfortunately as this is for a church we dont have the budget for the likes of pearl / frog / strand etc.

 

Is there a manual available anywhere for the scanmaster?

 

If I addressed something like the showtec multidim to 34 (button 3) then would the first 4 faders then control those 4 channels?

 

also if I added another dimmer adressed to 41 (button 4) can I select multiple fixtures at the same time? ie fixture 3 +4 or fixture 1 +2?

 

thanks

[mumbles]

To start with I would like to apologise to all foir being a numpty who couldn't add up. Therefore, the channels should have read, button 3=33, and button 4=49.

 

thanks for the reply

 

unfortunately as this is for a church we dont have the budget for the likes of pearl / frog / strand etc.

No, always the way unfortunately.

 

Is there a manual available anywhere for the scanmaster?

I'll try to dig out pdf of the one for my old desk which should help.

 

If I addressed something like the showtec multidim to 34 (button 3) then would the first 4 faders then control those 4 channels?

 

also if I added another dimmer adressed to 41 (button 4) can I select multiple fixtures at the same time? ie fixture 3 +4 or fixture 1 +2?

 

thanks

Yes you can, but channel one of each dimmer would be the same, and so on. However, if you have the four channel dimmers, then addressing them to 33, and 37, then you have 8 channels all accessible on the one set of slider on fixture 3 button. Remember, if you more than 8 channels of dimmer, then you can program the scenes while you have seperate control over each of them, then just playbakc by scenes or, with scenes in chases