Zero 88 fat frog

[Tecnical Bradders]

Hi

 

Just a quick question regarding the Zero 88 fat frog.

 

When applying the soft patch into the desk does the desk automatically detect how many circuit signals are present? Obviousaly it automatically has 48 circuits programmed into it but I am going to use a 60 circuit system then soft patch the circuits together to get the lighting down to 48 channels. What I am basically asking is does it automatically pick up on the fact 60 circuits are inserted into the desk or do I as the programmer need to tell the desk that is has 60 circuits?

 

Thanks

 

Brad

[pete LD]

Hi,

The desk will have no idea whats pluged in to it!. DMX doesnt send info back to the desk so you have to tell it whats connected and at what address.

HTH

Pete

[jason.fallon]

I think your best bet is to look up the part on soft patching in the manual. You'll need to tell the desk what channels you want it to control. you can assign multiple channels to one fader through the soft patch menu. A good idea would be to make a list of whats on each channel and then see what you can pair up, and do so via the soft patch on the desk.

[gherriott]

So a direct answer to your question is: no, the desk does not know what is connected to it. As yet there is no 'feedback' system where a fixture can send information to the desk. I say as yet, because there are plans/rumours that the full potential of 5 pin DMX cable will be put into place, but that is another story! So yes you as the programmer have to assign each circuit to a channel manually.

[Just Some Bloke]

Indeed, until RDM is implemented on everything (which it isn't, just yet) then nothing will be able to know what's connected to it.

 

The Fat Frog has 48 channels and you'll need to patch those channels so your choice of desk channels control whatever dimmer channels you want. So if dimmer channels 1, 13, 16 and 40 are all part of the blue wash and will only ever be used together, then you can patch them all to the same desk channel. If you patch them to desk channel 1 then bring up channel 1 on the desk and all those 4 dimmer channels will be made live. This means you could be running over 100 channels of dimmers off your 48 desk channels. 60 into 48 should be easy enough! Superuser - patch functions - manual patch is what you're after.

[Tomo]

As yet there is no 'feedback' system where a fixture can send information to the desk.

Nope - RDM has been published and a few manufacturers are implementing it in their newer products. It also uses pins 2 and 3 as most installs didn't and don't wire all five conductors.

 

However, Zero 88 and Cooper Controls haven't yet put RDM into any of their products.

They may be working on it for their newer products, but it's unlikely to be added to the Fat Frog as it is a lot of work.

 

So short answer - Your desk doesn't know (or care) which fixtures and or dimmers are plugged into it. You have to do this manually.

 

Even when RDM gets going properly this will still be true - the desk cannot possibly know that you want to control the blue lights on fader 1 and the red ones on fader 2, so you will still need to tell it.

[Keeper of the Keys]

As yet there is no 'feedback' system where a fixture can send information to the desk.

Wrong. RDM has been published and a few manufacturers are implementing it in their newer products. It also uses pins 2 and 3 as most installs didn't and don't wire all five conductors.

 

However, Zero 88 and Cooper Controls haven't yet put RDM into any of their products.

They may be working on it for their newer products, but it's unlikely to be added to the Fat Frog as it is a lot of work.

 

So short answer - Your desk doesn't know (or care) which fixtures and or dimmers are plugged into it. You have to do this manually.

 

Even when RDM gets going properly this will still be true - the desk cannot possibly know that you want to control the blue lights on fader 1 and the red ones on fader 2, so you will still need to tell it.

On their site they list both the Frog 2 and Leap Frog 48/96 as "RDM ready" I don't know if that also means the software is actually doing anything with RDM, but it does suggest that they are aware of and working on RDM....

 

I was about to say that it could maybe be rolled out on all frog series as software updates (they all share the same base right?), but I guess non-RDM hardware does not have a receiver on the DMX out as it used to be pretty one way...

[Tecnical Bradders]

Hi

 

I understand the whole principal of soft patching lights together via super user, manual patch etc. What I was trying to ask is whether the desk picked up on the fact that I was using 60 circuits. From what I have read it seems that the desk does not do this. So what seems is I have to tell the desk I am using 60 circuits. Reading both comments and the user manual I loosely understand.

 

I have produced patching shheets and worked 60 circuits down to 48 channels

 

The story is the theatre where the show is going to take place only has 48 circuits that go into the hard wired racks, then onto the control room using 5 pin DMX. To boost the system out I have brought in 2 touring racks beta pack 3 DMX only. I intend to run this round into the control room and plug them into the the second 5pin DMX on the back of the frog. As it stands now the frog knows it has 48 circuits when the touring racks in the desk does it pick up on the fact there is now 60 circuits - from what iv read no - I will need to assign the racks to the desk

 

I maybe complete;y wrong about what I an trying to say but somthing telling me that somthing has to be done for it to recognize that there are now 60 circuits and not 48 (trying to forward plan incase my thourght is true) please feel free to tell me if I am wrong though this is all new stuff to me adding extra racks onto an exsisting system.

 

Thanks for all your advice

 

Brad

 

 

 

 

I

[Tomo]

On their site they list both the Frog 2 and Leap Frog 48/96 as "RDM ready"

Yep - they've got the hardware in their newer consoles, and they probably will add RDM support to those consoles later.

 

The big issue is of course that RDM is useless in a console without it being in the fixture, and vice-versa!

 

A concurrent post has been automatically merged from this point on.

 

I have produced patching shheets and worked 60 circuits down to 48 channels

That's the difficult bit - good to see you sorted it out already.

I maybe complete;y wrong about what I an trying to say but somthing telling me that somthing has to be done for it to recognize that there are now 60 circuits and not 48

Read the bit in the manual about "Soft Patching".

What you want to do is assign multiple dimmer addresses to console channels, according the the patch sheet you've already made.

[Keeper of the Keys]

I maybe complete;y wrong about what I an trying to say but somthing telling me that somthing has to be done for it to recognize that there are now 60 circuits and not 48 (trying to forward plan incase my thourght is true) please feel free to tell me if I am wrong though this is all new stuff to me adding extra racks onto an exsisting system.

 

As far as I understand you were hoping to add another 12 separately controllable dimmer channels, this is afaik not possible on this desk, you have 48 separately controllable (dimmer) channels and you can also control 12 smart lights with it, so theoretically you could put the other 12 on an address for some smart lights and just adjust it's parameters to control the dimmers, this of course is a total hack and it would be pretty annoying to change on the fly.... (say set 2 century colors that take 6 parameters etc...)

 

Disclaimer: I have never done this myself and it is purely theoretical, try at your own risk.

[gherriott]

I maybe complete;y wrong about what I an trying to say but somthing telling me that somthing has to be done for it to recognize that there are now 60 circuits and not 48 (trying to forward plan incase my thourght is true) please feel free to tell me if I am wrong though this is all new stuff to me adding extra racks onto an exsisting system.

 

As far as I understand you were hoping to add another 12 separately controllable dimmer channels, this is afaik not possible on this desk, you have 48 separately controllable (dimmer) channels and you can also control 12 smart lights with it, so theoretically you could put the other 12 on an address for some smart lights and just adjust it's parameters to control the dimmers, this of course is a total hack and it would be pretty annoying to change on the fly.... (say set 2 century colors that take 6 parameters etc...)

 

Disclaimer: I have never done this myself and it is purely theoretical, try at your own risk.

 

Right I now understand what you are trying to do (I think!). The desk can only control 48 channels and you are in essence wanting to know if you can control 60? (Correct me if I am wrong). The simple answer is no, and I would advise that you do what you have done and control your 60 ways of dimming on 48 channels. This is done by assigning for example dimmer 1 and 52 to channel 1 and so on. As far as I am aware you can have upto 10 dimmers per channel, it might have changed in the latest software updates. If you are still wanting to try having 60 channels, then yes you can use the fixture buttons, and create a fixture that just uses the intensity attribute. This could get rather complicated though if you are not totally familiar with the desk.

 

I hope this helps slightly. If not then sling us another more specifc question and we will try and answer it!

 

Greg

[pete LD]

I have produced patching shheets and worked 60 circuits down to 48 channels

 

I maybe complete;y wrong about what I an trying to say but somthing telling me that somthing has to be done for it to recognize that there are now 60 circuits and not 48

 

The only thing you need to do is to soft patch the 60 dimmers in to the 48 channels, and you say you have worked that out so thats it!.

You will need to address your extra racks from 049 if thats what you mean, by doing that your alowing the desk to control them if you patch DMX 049 down to somthing below channel 48.

 

does your patch sheet look somthing like this,

 

desk channel------------ dimmer no.----------- function

1-------------------------- 5,7,52, 60------------blue pipe ends

2----------------------------6,8 51, 59-----------amber pipe ends

3------------------------------1,4 ----------------foh cold :unsure:

4 ------------------------------2,3----------------foh warm :biggrin:

5 ------------------------------ 57,58-------------back pink

 

If it does your on the rite track, If it dosent if you post what you have done then we can point you in the right direction!

[Tregilibob]

the fat frog that I use always thinks that it has 512 available, so you should be able to manual patch them in.

When you get into the manual patch, put in the first channel you want on there, I.e 1, then press insert and use up and down to select the next DMX number you want, i.e. press Insert then up once to get DMX 2, press insert again afterwards to get the third DMX number.

you have to "de-patch" the DMX numbers before you can put them into the channel you want, i.e. if 5 is already on channel 5, then you need to take it off there before you can add it to channel 2.

 

hope this helps.