robes on a 520i

[Sam_Lowers]

hi all,

 

just looking for a bit of help.

 

I am lighting a concert show in college at the start of jan and through work and a lot of favours I am bringing in multiple robe fixtures:

575AT

250XT

250XT wash

 

what I need to know is will these all run smoothly?

 

I have heard somewhere that a strand 520i (which I will be using) cannot support fixture personalities above 16bit attributes but the 575 uses Control channels: 19, 21, 27 or 29

250XT Control channels: 16

 

the 250's should be ok shouldn't they?

 

I used a 575AT in a show at the start of the year and had a few issues with it on our strand - mainly the prism wouldn't work on all gobos (like it usually does) it would only work with the glass gobos.

 

if anyone has advice or any help it would be really good

 

cheers

sam

[JMC]

The problems you are descibing with the prisim is more likely a lamp limitation, than a problem with the desk. You'll probably find the prism is on the same wheel as the metal gobos on that particular lamp, therefor you're unable to use both at once.

 

You seem to be a little confused however.. 16bit attributes have nothing to do with the DMX footprint of the lamp, which I assume is what you are refering to when you're talking about control channels. These refer to the number of the DMX channels the lamp requires in total.

 

16bit simply means using 2 DMX channels for a single _feature_ of the lamp, allowing a greater number of possible steps, and more precise control of that feature. For example, pan and tilt are usually both 16 bit these days.

 

Anyway, as long as you have correctly written Fixture profiles for the desk, it'll work perfectly. The desk will deal with all the complexities, and leave you to roll the trackball around :huh:

 

Maybe someone else can make all of the above a little clearer, I'm running out the door at the moment...!

[gareth]

No idea what's going on with your prism, but it's odd - you should be able to put the prism into the beam regardless of whatever else is going on with the fixture.

 

JMC's explanation of the difference between 16-bit control of an attribute and the DMX protocol of a fixture, and your confusion of the two, is spot on. With the right fixture definition in the FIXTURE.LIB file on your 520, you'll be just fine running all of those Robe fixtures from the desk. Open up FIXTURE.LIB in the Notes editor on the desk (or in a text editor on a PC) and have a look at the notes at the beginning of the file - they explain how to modify an existing definition or create your own, and it's a pretty straightforward procedure once you get your head around it. Don't forget to have a fiddle with the ATCPAGE.LIB file, too - control of moving lights is much easier once you arrange the attributes onto the encoders in a way which makes more sense than the 'default' Strand arrangement!

[raar]

Hi,

 

The 575's have the possibilty to control the intensity as a 16bit (so two DMX control channels) but as I understood the intensity is the only parameter in a strand that can not be controlled as a 16bit parameter. You can set the spots to mode 2 or 4 in which these 16bit parameters are reduced to 8bit (so one DMX control channel) but you also use the 16bit on other parameters which is not so nice. The other thing is to make the Fine intensity an other attribute so that if you really need it you can control it, as Coarse intensity is most of the times enough.

 

Regards Arjen

[Sam_Lowers]

cheers all

 

things make a bit more sense now.

 

the onlything s that I know with all robe yoke heads that the prisim is a 3 faced lense that sits by the shutter so it cant of been the fact it was on the metal gobo wheel that stopped it working properly!

 

the weirdest thing is that on the same show I had a 575XT (very old) that was working perfectly and keeping up with the at happily (even the prisim worked):huh:

[JMC]

Oh yes.. sort out your ATC pages...

 

Make sure you arrange them in such a way that individual attributes always appear on a particular wheel. For example, if you have Focus on more page than one, try and get it so that it's always on the Blue (for example) encoder.

 

If you don't, you'll find yourself absent mindedly reaching over and grabbing the wheel Focus was on last time you touched it, and discover it's now Zoom or something stupid!

 

The best one I came across was CMY moving between the top three encoders and the bottom three... I'd grab cyan and it'd all go very red....! :huh:

[b1nuzz]

As far as the desk is concerned Sam, it holds all the full ROBE fixtures. they all work no problems at all. Any prob you had with the prism etc was (as said before) unlikely to be a desk issue. I know that because it was me that put the fixture.lib together for you to use.

 

All of the movers you are bringing in, are already in the library so no probs there, bring a disk with you if you have one just incase, just remember to back up first.

 

Slightly Off Topic, but have you got a distro for all these units?

Im not sure 2 13amp sockets are going to power it all. And they wont let you cross-phases to nick 13amp sockets on the other bars. Well they shouldnt let you anyway.

[johnhuson]

Slightly Off Topic, but have you got a distro for all these units?

Im not sure 2 13amp sockets are going to power it all. And they wont let you cross-phases to nick 13amp sockets on the other bars. Well they shouldnt let you anyway.

 

Curious about what you mean by this, if you mean having more than one phase of a three phase system on a bar, there is nothing wrong with this.

[JMC]

Educational establishments occassionaly enforce this as a way of reducing risks... However the downside is students come away thinking it's industry practice...

[blackbird]

I may be talking crap, but I was under some impression that it was either historically standard practice in most theatres, or that it used to be in the electrical regs, but is no longer?

[Big_L]

I may be talking crap, but I was under some impression that it was either historically standard practice in most theatres, or that it used to be in the electrical regs, but is no longer?

 

Some more discussion about that particular issue is here!

 

L

[b1nuzz]

QUOTE(b1nuzz @ 23 Dec 2006, 3:05 PM)

 

Slightly Off Topic, but have you got a distro for all these units?

Im not sure 2 13amp sockets are going to power it all. And they wont let you cross-phases to nick 13amp sockets on the other bars. Well they shouldnt let you anyway.

 

 

 

Curious about what you mean by this, if you mean having more than one phase of a three phase system on a bar, there is nothing wrong with this.

 

Educational establishments occassionaly enforce this as a way of reducing risks... However the downside is students come away thinking it's industry practice...

 

Correct! The college is supposed to enforce a phase split, where you are never able to touch more than one phase at a time. It is hardly ever stuck by though. There is cross-phasing going on all over the place with most shows.

 

I may be talking crap, but I was under some impression that it was either historically standard practice in most theatres, or that it used to be in the electrical regs, but is no longer?

 

Correct! In most theatres that I have been in, The Bristol Old Vic being one, are very insistant about cross phasing and wont allow you to do it.

[Ynot]

I may be talking crap, but I was under some impression that it was either historically standard practice in most theatres, or that it used to be in the electrical regs, but is no longer?

 

Correct! In most theatres that I have been in, The Bristol Old Vic being one, are very insistant about cross phasing and wont allow you to do it.

Let's put this one to be (again)!!

 

There is NO current legislation that dictates that in ANY situation phases cannot be mixed.

There is certainly no theatrical ruling that single lighting bars cannot share different phased outlets.

 

SOME theatres may have a POLICY that dates back to a previous IEE reg standard that DID try to spec phase separation, but that idea was scrapped some years ago due to total impracticality.

[Pete]

Obviously these places would prefer that you put all your lights on one phase?

 

Did an in in town recently,and production manager insisted I leave a phase free for AV and Sound.

 

I had 14kw of Ground Row on one phase, 14kw of M/L's and conventional fixtures on the other.

 

I wasn't there for the show but needless to say that they had a few problems!

[JMC]

That was probably nothing to do with phase separation, at least in relation to reasons we're discussing... More likely to try and ensure sound get a "clean" feed with no triplen harmonics etc from the LX dimmers (fizz bang crackle pop buzz). It's difficult enough to do in the west end without local problems contributing :(

 

PS. 14k on one phase isn't necessarily an issue mind -- I have 414k per phase available at the moment Luxury I tell ya!

 

Wouldnt like to attempt a full draw however... Leicester square would probably turn in to a big smoking crater, heh