moving heads,

[The Boogie Man]

:) Hi Troops,

 

Anyone who jumps between rooms on the forum may remember I started a topic about the power draw from pub and club ring mains. It lead to me deciding to run led instead of standard pars.

 

As I'm in the mind set of future proofing everything (within reason) I am thinking about some form of moving heads to add a touch of "show" instead of just " oh look we can see him now" :D So question: The electrical draw from mh's, is it mainly down to the wattage of the lamp or does the moving workings add a bit/lot?

 

Whilst I'm asking. The show stage, 3 sided ( back/side drops) 3m (ish) long each, giving a working stage of around 9-10m (30ft) square. Lit by either 4 led par 64's per corner or 8 per side behind front stacks. Enough?, overkill?

 

The moving heads would be to add effects and in future (using remote position sensing) could be for follow spot.

As I've heard that these can be a bit fragile, which moving light can give a good effect ( strobe/ pin dots etc), can back up the leds as a wash, could work as a spot light (coloured/white), is reliable and will make the tea afterwards (if there's one that can do all of the above, I can't see why it can't do that as well :o

[Tomo]

Most of the power draw is the lamp.

- The fixture will have an overall rating plate to tell you the actual draw.

 

However - discharge fixtures draw a LOT when striking, so never strike them simultaneously and leave a fair bit of headroom for the strike current.

[tokm]

The electrical draw from mh's, is it mainly down to the wattage of the lamp or does the moving workings add a bit/lot?

Most of the power draw of a moving head/mirror/most DMX fixtures will be the lamp.

 

Whilst I'm asking. The show stage, 3 sided ( back/side drops) 3m (ish) long each, giving a working stage of around 9-10m (30ft) square. Lit by either 4 led par 64's per corner or 8 per side behind front stacks. Enough?, overkill?

Not really over kill in my view. Unless your buying Thomas Pixel pars, I think the best advice is get as many LED pars as you can, their not known for their stupendous brightness.. I'd go with your 2nd suggestion, spread them out a little..

 

The moving heads would be to add effects and in future (using remote position sensing) could be for follow spot.

Remember, that doing such things are known to be tricky, even on the best of desks.. Avo's aren't to bad if you use the define stage tool.. But if your doing pubs/clubs, your best bets to use them moving around, changing colour, etc, rather than having them follow some one.

 

which moving light can give a good effect ( strobe/ pin dots etc), can back up the LEDs as a wash, could work as a spot light (coloured/white), is reliable and will make the tea afterwards

:D not sure about the tea bit, but your best bet would be to get a profile moving head that has variable focus and a frost filter so if you do need extra wash on stage, they don't look too out of place with a hard beam. The frost will help them blend in a bit better. If you get a wash/fresnel head, you won't get 'dot's' or gobo's. Thought you'll get most of the other features (apart from the tea making, as previously mentioned!)

 

Listing specific unit's is stupid as theirs millions to list, we don't know your budget, existing control desk, rigging facilities. So its a little hard to say..

 

HTH.

 

Tom

 

*edit - Dam, beaten to the 1st question by Tomo! Though he did answer it in a bit more detail)*

[niall]

However - discharge fixtures draw a LOT when striking, so never strike them simultaneously and leave a fair bit of headroom for the strike current.

 

 

turning on 32 VL2ks one morning, we blew the mains fuses for the building! (admittedly, we had forgotten that the kitchen was open so was running a full tilt too, but it was rather amusing) So yeh, be very wary of the extra draw!

[tokm]

 

 

However - discharge fixtures draw a LOT when striking, so never strike them simultaneously and leave a fair bit of headroom for the strike current.

 

 

turning on 32 VL2ks one morning, we blew the mains fuses for the building! (admittedly, we had forgotten that the kitchen was open so was running a full tilt too, but it was rather amusing) So yeh, be very wary of the extra draw!

I expect staggered lamp strikes would solve that issue..

 

(mentioned for posters who haven't heard of that idea before, not meant to sound condescending to you Niall!)

 

32 x VL2k's, nice rig, by anyones standard. Lucky git! :D

 

Tom

[niall]

we only had them for the week (cheap hire from Northern Light I believe). Whoever had turned the rig off the night before had just killed the main switch, so person comes in the following morning, flips main switch and kaboom!

 

So thats another lesson, don't use the mains switch to turn stuff off!

[The Boogie Man]

Cheers chaps,

 

The movers are for the future, but I like to think ahead. There should be enough variation in the led pars to be able to create the right mood for each song. The movers, smoke etc are for when there is several similar paced songs to give some variation.

The rigging is 4 lighting stands with 3 goal post cross bars forming a stage area.

The plan is looking like it will be eight led pars down each side with a couple of led pars on the floor on each side also. I like the idea of sorting out the general look with the leds and maybe hiring or borrowing different movers later to see which suits my style ( :) style? )

At present there are about 4 demo versions of software programs on my pc awaiting assessment. So I may go with pc/DMX control or maybe pre written scenes/chases in a stand alone desk. both will be triggered by midi foot control.

 

One other thing thats just sprang to mind. Does the control info have to daisy chain right round every light then terminate, or is it sent to left and right as an identical signal ( not sure I've put that the way I think I mean ) Can they run mirror image with one control input?

 

bty, what is a hazer? I heard it mentioned on here the other day.

[b1nuzz]

A hazer is like a smoke machine but alot less dense. Can normally kick out from cold (the better ones) and be left running thru a show. Gives good effect so you can see beams of light.

[Tomo]

Does the control info have to daisy chain right round every light then terminate

Yes.

 

DMX is a daisy chain - NEVER use a Y-cable. In theory you can have up to 31 physical devices in the same chain (regardless of addressing), but in practice 20 is a more reasonable limit.

If you want more, then you need a DMX splitter of some kind - it's a mains-powered box with a DMX IN and several DMX OUTs

That gives you another lot of chains, all of which have the same data.

DMX chains should be terminated - some devices do it automatically, but these tend to be the more expensive ones.

 

When it comes to DMX addressing:

DMX is simply the desk shouting "DMX 1 @ 100, DMX 2 @ 0, DMX 3 @ 90..." all the way up to "DMX 512 @ 0"

When you address a DMX device, you're telling it which DMX numbers to listen to.

It has no way of knowing what the other devices are listening to, and it doesn't care, so don't worry about addressing two identical devices the same.

Obviously if they both have the same address then they'll do exactly the same thing, but that's often useful if you have a small control desk.

 

MIDI is also a daisy chain, but MIDI OUT is different to MIDI THRU. MIDI THRU is a copy of what came in from the MIDI IN port, while MIDI OUT is the data that the box created, so daisy chaining MIDI devices goes MIDI OUT > MIDI IN - MIDI THRU > MIDI IN etc

No terminator is required because it's always done inside the box - although a lot of MIDI cables for PCs break the standard badly.

 

As far as control is concerned, you'll probably be better off with a standalone control desk that does the control than a laptop.

You get real faders, it's all in one box (so only power, DMX and MIDI cables to worry about), it's less likely to get stolen, and if you buy a good brand you get a helpful guy on the end of a phoneline, a good warranty and a tough unit that'll take a few knocks.

Laptops are rather fragile and stealable things unfortunately.

[dwh]

A lot of movers have an "Invert tilt" mode on them, which means that if you have two set to the same address, with one of them on "Invert pan", they'll respond identically, but mirror each other.

[The Boogie Man]

Cheers chaps, thats cleared the linking issue up.

Tomo, the reason for the laptop/lan box, idea is so the show can be pre programmed ( one man show, no desk operator ) so on stage the desk is doing nothing but taking up room. Although having said that, a physical desk means the light show is able to be used by others ( rented out ).

The jury is still out on which.

 

If I run 10 led pars per side set to the same addresses on the left and right, at 4 addresses per can thats 40 adds on a desk yes? A hazer/fogger has how many, 3-5? and say 4 movers/scanners, 8 adds each? ( halved for mirror image )

A physical desk would need to be moving light compatible and have at least 60+ addresses, yes/no?

[niall]

dunno about the Pars, but most Hazers/Smokers are one channel, and can be "dimmed". For the moving heads, it varies on what the light can do, for example a Martin Acrobat has 6, whereas a Highend Technobeam has 18! Also, if a light allows 16bit pan/tilt that adds an extra 2 channels on from the normal usuage (if you really need the extra definition)

[Ynot]

dunno about the Pars, but most Hazers/Smokers are one channel, and can be "dimmed".

Actually whilst smoke machines will normally be 1 channel, hazers tend to use 2 - one for haze output, the second for the fan speed. yes, both are normally controllable.

The reason for the extra fan is that whilst smokers just push out the desired level of smoke, haze needs to be dissipated differently - hence the fan helps to break up the particles. The best use of haze for 'invisibility' levels is low haze outpu, medium to high fan speed.

[five_pin_xlr]

Yes, correct with hazer!

 

I did a gig for a youth council, in spare time, and the hazer for a unique hazer DF-41, hazer and controlled it from my spark but the output it was giving wasnt enough, and then someone unplugged and coiled up the DMX line from that as it was in there way, so I just set it to 50fan 10haze and the room was filled within 2minutes.

 

So be careful you dont over haze the room, as you will get complaints possibly, like I did of "that smoke is causing my asthma, and hurts my chest."

When haze fluid cant as its water based, although oil based can, so watch out for that also.

 

R.E a lighting desk, look for one at www.gearsourceeurope.com or phone round rental firms to see if their selling any desks.

 

Preference for what you need I would go either avolites, jands or hog.

 

hth

[gareth]

I did a gig for a youth council, in spare time, and the hazer for a unique hazer DF-41, hazer and controlled it from my spark but the output it was giving wasnt enough, and then someone unplugged and coiled up the DMX line from that as it was in there way, so I just set it to 50fan 10haze and the room was filled within 2minutes.

Is it just me, or does that make no sense at all? Someone unplugged the DMX from your hazer, yet you still had control over it?