DMX dimmer shutter

[chatterbox]

Hi,

 

Can anyone tell me who manufacturers a DMX addressable dimmer shutter. I know wybron do one, but is there anyone else.??

 

Or does anyone know of one available second hand?

 

Thanks,

[tom_the_LD]

This may seem daft, but what's the for? As there may be another way of doing it.

 

I assume it's for something non-dimmable, such as a UV tube or practical, but what effect are you trying to achieve?

[chatterbox]

Its for a clay paky light ( no model number anywhere on it) that we are using as a small follow spot.

 

It has various colours on a wheel, but no way of dimming.

 

It has push buttons on the back of the fixture for the colours and an iris control on the rear.

[dmoffat]

This may seem daft, but what's the for? As there may be another way of doing it.

 

I assume it's for something non-dimmable, such as a UV tube or practical, but what effect are you trying to achieve?

 

I have a similar requirement for our projector, as currently a small bit of card, on a gaffa hinge and along run of fishing wire, it all gets a little old after two years, and I'm looking for a more effective and ideally DMXable solution.

 

Cheers Guys

Dave Moffat

[Mr_Jules]

I've bought and used One of These

[paradoxism]

The projector shutter is fairly available from a number of manufacturers - just do a google search for DMX shutter and you'll get quite a few results.

 

For the followspot though you want a unit like the Wybron one with louvre shutters or better still an iris type - if it doesn't have to be DMX then you may be able to find an old followspot with a manual shutter on usedlighting or ebay that you could steal the mechanism from and adapt.

 

I've just been involved on upgrading two Altman Luminator followspots to run with MSD250 lamps and their manual dimmers are superb - would imagine any Altman followspot would have a similar mechanism you could 'borrow' depending on how mechanically minded you are. The key is to get the dimmer as far 'downbeam' as possible as a lot of low-end followspots have a single shutter near where the iris is and so you get the 'wipe-across' effect which isn't pretty!

 

If it has to be DMX then you could try converting a mechanical dimmer with servos and running that from DMX, otherwise the manufactured solutions all tend to be quite costly.

[gyro_gearloose]

For the followspot though you want a unit like the Wybron one with louvre shutters or better still an iris type

No you don't! Theres nothing wrong with using a flag shutter for a dimmer. The first followspots I used had a piece of black wrap in the first gel frame and it was possible to use it to fade the spot quite slowly if necessary, and you didn't get a wipe-across effect from it either. The easiest way of testing whether a projector shutter would work for you is to simply move a bit of card across the beam and see what happens! It'll either gradually dim the beam, or you'll see a wipe-across effect.