"The desk governs the mode"

[DanielArkley]

Was talking to a chap today who told me that with moving lights "the desk governs which mode you use, and the moving light knows nothing about it". This guy was claiming to be a pro. I have been doing LX for 3 years.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but surely you pick the mode the fixture runs in, which in turn governs how the desk must be set up?

 

Cheers.

[Shaun Foster]

Would be interesting to watch him programing a show

[Ketil B]

If you run two Mac 500 of an Elara it will

[tony]

thats going back a few years

but it was surprisingly effective

[Stu]

Well if you only had 12 channels left on a 520i or something similar to fit that last Mac 500 in, you might be forced to run it in Mode 1.

 

But the rest of the time you set the Mac to the mode you want, and then use the correct fixture profile for the desk to control it properly.

 

Simple really

 

Stu

[gareth]

Was talking to a chap today who told me that with moving lights "the desk governs which mode you use, and the moving light knows nothing about it".

I'm not quite sure what he was getting at. All I can imagine is that he was referring to whether or not a desk can handle 16-bit parameters on moving lights ...

 

In what context were these remarks made?

[Potassium Neuf]

In our fixture library which is used for the Frog Series and Illusion 500 desks, fixture personalities or profiles are usually provided for all modes that the fixtures can be set up in.

 

Many of the Martin fixtures typically have 4 modes with different combinations of 8/16 bit movement and additional control/speed channels.

 

You would normally set the fixture up in the mode you require and then assign the correct personality on the desk (mode 1, mode 2 etc.)

 

As mentioned above, unless you were running short of DMX channels, you would normally run the fixture in the mode that provided the most functions and 16 bit pan/tilt movement, unless you had specific reasons for not doing so.

[DanielArkley]

Was talking to a chap today who told me that with moving lights "the desk governs which mode you use, and the moving light knows nothing about it".

I'm not quite sure what he was getting at. All I can imagine is that he was referring to whether or not a desk can handle 16-bit parameters on moving lights ...

 

In what context were these remarks made?

He was refering to any situation where you were patching moving lights. The conversation went along the lines of:

 

Him: Do you know what modes are on Martin fixtures.

Me: Defines what features are available and therefore how many channels you use.

Him: No it doesn't. The desk defines what mode you run and it changes how the desk talks to the fixture.

[gareth]

He was refering to any situation where you were patching moving lights. The conversation went along the lines of:

 

Him: Do you know what modes are on Martin fixtures.

Me: Defines what features are available and therefore how many channels you use.

Him: No it doesn't. The desk defines what mode you run and it changes how the desk talks to the fixture.

It still sounds like he was talking through his a*se.

 

Taking the more common Martin fixtures as an example (although other kinds of fixture have different modes, too) ... you can select one of four modes in which to run the fixtures. The choice of mode determines whether or not you have access to speed control channels, and whether you run the fixture in 8-bit or 16-bit mode for pan and tilt. (Or, just to keep things interesting, on the Mac550 pan/tilt always runs 16-bit, but you can select 8-bit or 16-bit mode for things like colour wheels, focus, iris, etc.)

 

You select what mode the fixtures run in via the onboard menu. You then need to patch the desk accordingly, as the mode chosen determines the number of DMX channels needed to control the fixture.

 

So you define what mode the fixtures run in, not the desk. You then have to patch the desk accordingly.

[DanielArkley]

That's what I thought - we had some Mac 500s in school for Blood Brothers a few months back, which ran in Mode 3. I was pretty sure we had to patch the controller (we used ShowCAD Artist for control) to the lantern, and the lantern to what we needed. Mode 3 was fine for me, and they were set up like that anyway.

 

Thanks for comments all

[Potassium Neuf]

Spot on Gareth :(

 

And if you don't use the correct Mode for the fixture personality when assigning your fixtures on the desk, you may find that some parameters will work as expected and others cannot be controlled at all or do different things to what you expect

[DanielArkley]

I suppose the channels will do different things in different modes?

[Potassium Neuf]

I suppose the channels will do different things in different modes?

It all depends on the manufacturers and individual fixtures concerned - some add the extra functionality and 16 bit pan/tilt channels on at the end, leaving the majority of the functions on the same channels, others insert the extra pan/tilt fine channels at the beginning causing all the other functions to shift up by two channels

[Potassium Neuf]

I have also come across fixtures which have 8 bit pan and tilt modes and two different 16 bit pan/tilt modes ..

 

for example - in one mode the Pan is on channels 1/2 and the Tilt on channels 3/4 and in another mode the Pan is on channels 1/3 and the Tilt on channels 2/4

 

I was told a while ago that some desks can only handle and process 16 bit pan/tilt data if they are succesive DMX channels :(

[Tomo]

There are quite a few fixtures which have different 16-bit assignments, but usually by compressing things like shutter and dimmer into one channel and removing the more advanced features, like remote reset and lamp control.

 

Not seen one that lets you choose between 16bit arrangements, but sound very useful as I'm sure I recall hearing about at least one desk that can't handle lo and hi bytes when they aren't on successive channels.