I need some expert advice

[obi wan kenobi]

I am doing an install soon which consists of 2x selecon acclaim zoom spots, 4x selecon acclaim fresnels, 4x LEDj alu zoom pars, 2x 3m 3way IWB, 1 zero88 betapack and 1 zero88 jester 12/24. Each bar will hold 2 resnels, 2 cans and 1 zoom spot, my question is this: is there any reson why I should include a 4way DMX booster? or should I continue the daisy chain of LED's straight back to the betapack?

 

 

on a side note, just to ensure my thoughts are on the right lines, with a 12/24 lighting desk and the above mentioned lights, it is not possible to control each unit independantly is is? (note the LEDs are 6 chnl units).

 

Cheers

 

Obi

[rossmck]

The only reason I'd use a DMX splitter in that situation is if it made the cable runs significantly easier - it's not necessary. However, personally I'd *start* the chain at the betapack that way if your LED fixtures fail for any reason you'll still have all your generics.

 

The only other consideration is I'm always a little more wary with budget LED kit (LEDj would worry me less than some of the unbranded ones though I guess) and would occasionally put a splitter in purely because if something nasty happens which sends a voltage down the DMX line a decent opto-isolated splitter will protect your dimmers and desk ... although generally this is a bigger issue where I'm occasionally using my (comparatively expensive) desks with budget kit I've never seen before :unsure:

 

To answer your side note - You have 6 channels of generics, and 4 pars which I'm assuming will use 4 channels each which totals 22 channels so you could possibly control them all independently on a 24 channel desk.

[Wol]

For something with such a short run and few fixtures, I'd personally not bother with a splitter. I'd agree with rossmck though and run DMX to the betapack,and then out to the LEDs. If the LEDs play up, you can unplug them from the chain and still have control over generics.

 

 

 

note the LEDs are 6 chnl units

4 pars which I'm assuming will use 4 channels each

 

As for the number of channels, youve got 30 channels if you need to use all 6 channels of the LEDs, so might have to double something up. Maybe sacrifice the virtual dimmer and the strobe channel so that you can have individual control of each of them?

[Tom Baldwin]

I would always include a splitter, even on such a simple install. They're not expensive, and they give you protection against losing your show if one device malfunctions. I've had too many problems in the past with fixtures (especially cheap ones) doing nasty things to the DMX line that they don't mind, but which other ones do.

Using a splitter has never caused me a problem. Not using one has done so on several occasions (until I got older and wiser!)

[Brian]

You're running to 3 seperate locations; include a splitter. It'll make wiring much easier and more reliable.

[obi wan kenobi]

Thanks everyone for the response, certainly given me something to think about. To Wol, how do you sacrifice channels of a pre set unit like the LEDj Alu zoom par? sorry for the question but I am still learning :unsure:

 

Thanks

[rossmck]

note the LEDs are 6 chnl units

4 pars which I'm assuming will use 4 channels each

As for the number of channels, youve got 30 channels if you need to use all 6 channels of the LEDs, so might have to double something up. Maybe sacrifice the virtual dimmer and the strobe channel so that you can have individual control of each of them?

 

Long day ... note to self: read the OP properly, not skim it ... sorry :)

[Wol]

Thanks everyone for the response, certainly given me something to think about. To Wol, how do you sacrifice channels of a pre set unit like the LEDj Alu zoom par? sorry for the question but I am still learning :unsure:

 

Thanks

 

No worries.

 

Youll be dealing with two different addresses: DMX channels, and desk channels. For DMX channels, there are 512 per universe (I'll call them dimmer numbers), and for desk channels, you're limited to 24 by your desk (I'll call those channel numbers)

 

So your fixtures will probably be addressed something like:

 

DIMMER Channel

1-6: betapack

7-12: led 1

13-18: led 2

19-24: led 3

25-30: led 4

 

On a normal desk, you could patch 32 channels on the desk to map to dimmer numbers 1 to 32 and thus have control of each attribute on each head. As your desk can only do 24 channels of control, you will need to repatch bits somewhere.

 

If you only want to control 4 of the 6 channels on the LED fixtures (R, G, B and zoom. Missing out strobe, and missing out virtual dimmer), you can patch it something like follows:

 

channels 1-6 on desk to dimmer 1-6

 

channel 7-9 on desk to dimmer 7-9 (RGB on head 1)

channel 10 on desk to dimmer 12 (zoom on head 1)

 

channel 11-13 on desk to dimmer 13-15 (RGB on head 2)

channel 14 on desk to dimmer 18 (zoom on head 2)

 

channel 15-17 on desk to dimmer 19-21 (RGB on head 3)

channel 18 on desk to dimmer 24 (zoom on head 3)

 

channel 19-21 on desk to dimmer 25-27 (RGB on head 4)

channel 22 on desk to dimmer 30 (zoom on head 4)

 

 

I'm also guessing you'll need to have the virtual dimmer at full, but you should be able to "park" those dimmer numbers (would be dimmers 10, 16, 22 and 28) at 100%.

 

Does that sort of explain what I meant / how you could do it?

[Russ83]

Unfortunately there is no way to park channels on the Jester so you would also have to patch the dimmer to a fader on the desk.

 

Example DMX setup:

Betapack - DMX001

LEDj 1 - DMX011

LEDj 2 - DMX021

LEDj 3 - DMX031

LEDj 4 - DMX041

 

You can then change the soft patch on the Jester to be:

Desk Channel: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . 9 . 10 . 11 12 13 14 . 15 16 17 18 . 19 20 21 22 . 23 . 24

DMX Channel : 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 14 11 12 13 . 24 21 22 23 . 34 31 32 33 . 44 41 42 43 . [spare]

 

When I'm dealing with only a handful of fixtures I always put channel 1 of the fixture to DMX##1, it just keeps the maths easier!

 

So on the desk you have your 6 generics and then the dimmer and RGB for each LEDj fixture. The channels for strobe and zoom are not patched so remain at zero.

 

Alternatively you could put all four LED dimmers onto one fader. If you are not sure about soft patching, the manual is here, you want page 29/30.

Hope that makes sense.

 

After thought...Sorry WOL if that is what you were meaning by park, I assumed you meant park as in what you would type on a desk with a command line interface.

[niclights]

To achieve the 'parked' dimmer channels on a Jester I think you would need to patch them to an auxiliary. It might then be possible to set the off value to 255 in order to make them permanently at 100%. If not then you could set the auxiliary to latch mode and make a point of turning it on at the start of a show.

 

Another option along similar lines is to group the colour components onto just three desk channels and keep the dimmers for individual intensity control. This restricts you to having all fixtures the same colour but would fit on the 24 faders, including strobe if you want.

 

/edit: Actually what I would probably do is keep individual control of dimmer and RGB but group strobe and zoom.

[Wol]

After thought...Sorry WOL if that is what you were meaning by park, I assumed you meant park as in what you would type on a desk with a command line interface.

 

I was talking about park in the sense where you go "park this channel" or "park this dimmer" at a value, rather than a CLI thing. Would have thought that the Z88 desks would have had this, but hey ho!

 

And I'll second niclights last comment. As you have 2 channels left at the end of the desk, you can make those 2 channels control some other things. e.g. you could make fader 23 control strobe for all of them (patch channel 23 to all 4 of the dimmer channels for strobe), and channel 24 to control all the zooms. Or you could control zoom on the front 2 LEDs from one fader, and zoom on the rear 2 LEDs with the other fader and not use strobe. Depends if you want to use the strobe feature on the device, or if you're happy with pressing flash buttons!

[obi wan kenobi]

Give yourselves a pat on the back, you guys are legends. many thanks

[Ynot]

Give yourselves a pat on the back, you guys are legends. many thanks

Not really - just trained and experienced technicians....

:unsure: