Building a system

[Rajchumberis]

Hey,

 

Can anyone forward me or explain to me how to build a basic lighting system (DMX).

 

For example: 1 simple 12 ch desk with 2 lighting packs controlling a few par56's and led lights.

 

I have some sort of 'know how' but think it would be best to just learn again to understand.

 

Anything would be great thanks.

[Ashley R]

Thats is a pritty general request.

 

What do you want this system to do? (FOH wash, Beam FX, bit of both etc.)

 

Example of a simple system, just pulled off the top of my head that would be fully complete and ready to go.

1x Zero 88 Jester 12/24

2x 4ch DMX Dimmer Packs

4x LED PAR 64's

8x PAR 56 Black MFL

14x 2m Black Piggyback Ext Lead

6x 5m Black Piggyback Ext Lead

4x 10m Black Piggyback Ext Lead

8x 2m 3Pin DMX Lead

4x 10m 3 Pin DMX Lead

1x 5PMale -> 3PFemale XLR adaptor

2x 10ft CLS Push Up stand

 

This rig would give you a bit of Colour wash, and a bit of OW wash. With room for expansion. Is this what you are looking for?

[GridGirl]

14x 2m Black Piggyback Ext Lead

6x 5m Black Piggyback Ext Lead

4x 10m Black Piggyback Ext Lead

 

No such thing as piggyback plugs in England - took me six months to get used to not having them, drove me mad!

 

OP, are you asking how to set a system up or what you should buy for a simple system? It reads to me like you're asking how to set a system up. Basically you output DMX from the desk into your dimmer packs. Lights which don't require hard power (ie parcans, fresnels etc) plug into the dimmer pack and get their power from that. Anything which requires undimmed power - moving lights, LEDs etc - gets plugged into its own power source (not a dimmer) and then only gets DMX from the desk. You can daisy-chain DMX (up to 32 fixtures) or use a splitter to create multiple DMX chains for easier cable runs.

[Rajchumberis]

Hi Ashley, that's great. I was more after how to build a lighting set up.

 

Hi Gridgirl, yes you have almost nailed it. I ge tha you can plug DMX leads in to LEDs, moving heads, lighting packs etc. It's the 'programming' on the mixing board that I don't know how to or create.

 

So for example I'm trying to create a stero light effect. RGB(red green and blue) on to stage but obviously have one set of RGB par cans plugged in a lighting pack and the same on the opposite end, how do I make the red's come on together.

 

I hope that this makes more sense?!?

[GridGirl]

LED parcans don't get plugged into a dimmer (what you're calling a lighting "pack") - they get DMX and then run off "hard" - undimmed - power. In terms of making them do what you want them to on the desk, that will depend on the desk and how you have patched the units to it. By dialing all your LED parcans to the same DMX address, all the red will be on one channel, all the blue another channel and so on. This is all good if you only want them to be the same colour at the same time, but if you want them to have the ability to be different, then each needs its own DMX address, meaning you have individual control over each colour of each lantern. If you tell us what desk you're using, we can probably be a bit more help!

[Ashley R]

 

No such thing as piggyback plugs in England - took me six months to get used to not having them, drove me mad!

 

 

I don't think I could live without Piggyback plugs! I cant imagine having to go back to power-boards, and double adapters (Or whatever the UK call these devices over there), I would probably go insane.

 

 

So for example I'm trying to create a stereo light effect. RGB(red green and blue) on to stage but obviously have one set of RGB par cans plugged in a lighting pack and the same on the opposite end, how do I make the red's come on together.

 

I hope that this makes more sense?!?

 

So you would have 1 set of 3 PAR cans on 1 T bar plugged into 1 dimmer pack, then another 3 PAR cans on a 2nd T bar plugged into a 2nd Dimmer pack, and you want to know how you can bring say both red ones up at the same time?

 

There is 2 ways you can do this.

#1: Double patch the DMX addresses, so both packs have DMX Addr 001, and then just make sure you plug the same colours into the same channels on the dimmer packs, then when you bring up fader 1, both Red Par cans will come on.

#2: The 2nd method is to individually address the Dimmer packs, and then bring up 2 faders on your console/ desk, your first pack (Usually the left one) set to DMX Addr 001, your 2nd pack set to DMX addr 005 (Im assumeing they are 4ch dimmers), Again make sure you plug in the same colours into the same channels in the dimmer pack. Now if you bring up faders 1 and 5 on your desk, then both red lights will come on.

 

I hope this makes sense and helps you.

[Rajchumberis]

Hey Ashley, yes that is what I was after. So it's the addressing that adds lights together. I've been a sound guy for nearly a decade and always tried to stay clear of lighting- but from this I should be able to link and pair dimmer packs together to make a show.

 

Next question would be how would you operative moving heads?! Surely you require an x and y axis?! Or is it simple than that?? Thanks again, really helpful.

[David Lee]

This is so open a question that the best bet would be true hands on experience, maybe somebody from the blueroom nearby will let you have a practice time permitting, or a local theatrical retailers have a demo room or intro courses. Their is plenty of info on this forum via the wiki and search facility but without hands on use it may lead to more questions.

 

Next question would be how would you operative moving heads?! Surely you require an x and y axis?! Or is it simple than that?? Thanks again, really helpful

 

Yep, you need a pan and tilt on movers plus any other attribute the light has e.g. gobo, colour, iris, shutter - each usually take a DMX channel. You ask for a "simple 12ch. " desk - now asking about moving lights moves it on a bit.

 

It's the 'programming' on the mixing board that I don't know how to or create.

 

Depends on the desk unfortunatley. Generally, theatre relies on a cue stack operated from a simple "go" button. All preprogrammed and rehearsed (incl. hopefully the performers!). Music can be rehearsed (big shows/ touring) or busked (operated on the fly). I don't think it is possible to teach creativity on a web site but obviously you can pick up tips to create the effect you want.

 

HTH

[Ashley R]

A moving head will use multiple channels. 1 channel per thing it can do usually.

So Pan is 1 channel, Tilt is another, colour wheel is another, Gobo's (Patterns) is another. So this would be a very simple 4ch DMX moving head.

 

So its not very complicated. Just have the user manual on hand to see what channel does what, and what DMX values correspond to what (e.g. White is usually 0, Red 25, Colour 'rainbow' 255 etc. etc.)

[pritch]

Hey Ashley, yes that is what I was after. So it's the addressing that adds lights together. I've been a sound guy for nearly a decade and always tried to stay clear of lighting- but from this I should be able to link and pair dimmer packs together to make a show.

 

Yes, that's about it.

 

So, what I could do is have two six channel dimmer packs, and set the start address on each to to '1'. This means that if I plug a red gelled lantern into Ch1 of each pack, and a green gelled lantern into Ch6 of each, when I bring up DMX 1 on my desk, both reds will come up, when I bring up DMX 6, both greens will come up.

 

We could get a bit clever here, and say "OK, but I only want three channels linked - I want the other three channels on each pack to be independent of each other". Easy enough - what we do is set one dimmer to have a start address of '1', and the other to have '4'.

 

What this then means is that:

 

Channels 1-3 on Dimmer 1 have DMX addresses 1-3

Channels 4-6 on Dimmer 1 and Channels 1-3 on Dimmer 2 have DMX addresses 4-6

Channels 4-6 on Dimmer 2 have DMX address 7-9

 

So, if I go back to my desk and raise DMX 1, a channel on Dimmer 1 will rise. If I bring up DMX 7, a channel on Dimmer 2 will rise. If I bring up DMX 7, a channel on both Dimmer 1 and Dimmer 2 will rise.

 

Now, this might seem a faff, and I guess it is. Depending on what desk you're using, you might not have to muck about with addressing like this at all. If your desk offers soft patching, then you can say to the desk "I want Channel 1 to cover DMX addresses 7 and 48", so that when you bring up Channel 1, it talks to the fixtures/dimmers on BOTH addresses.

 

 

Next question would be how would you operative moving heads?! Surely you require an x and y axis?! Or is it simple than that?? Thanks again, really helpful.

 

A moving head is, at a basic level, no different. Instead of the DMX addresses controlling brightness, they can control other things as well. Let's take a cheap and basic Chinese import, the PritchCo SoopaDMXMeister 42:

 

Channel 1: Pan

Channel 2: Tilt

Channel 3: Colour

Channel 4: Gobo

Channel 5: Dimmer

 

So, taking the Colour channel as an example, you might find that from 0-32, the SoopaDMXMeister 42 gives you open white. From 33-64, you get yellow, 65-96 you get red, and so on.

 

Now, some people have found that only having 256 steps for pan and tilt can cause issues, and that each increment of 1 on the DMX value means the light moves an awfully long way. The way this is done is to stick an extra channel in for each, giving Pan & Tilt, Coarse & Fine.

 

PritchCo have jumped on this bandwagon, and produced the SoopaDMXMeister 42a, which has the following channels:

 

Channel 1: Pan (Coarse)

Channel 2: Pan (Fine)

Channel 3: Tilt (Coarse)

Channel 4: Tilt (Fine)

Channel 5: Colour

Channel 6: Gobo

Channel 7: Dimmer

 

What this means is that instead of having only 256 discrete steps, the fixture now has 16,536 (256*256), with the Coarse value being used to get the head vaguely where it should be, and the fine being used to fettle it a bit.

 

Now, this is where the difference between desks designed for generic lighting, desks designed for specific intelligent lighting, and all-round moving light desks comes in.

 

If you've got a desk designed for generics, then you can, sort of, run movers from it. But you'll need to know what fader does which, and if you go to blackout then you'll find that not only will all your lights dim (as expected), but they'll reset to whatever position, colour and gobo is defined as 'zero'. When you fade back up from blackout, the lights will move and change colours/gobos as the brightness increases. There are ways around it, but none of them terribly elegant.

 

I'll mention briefly fixture-specific desks. PritchCo also produce the SoopaDMXCommander, which is designed specifically for the SoopaDMXMeister line. It'll control these fixtures just fine, because it knows vaguely what they are. However, if you plug in a fixture that's not one of the ones it supports, then you can pretty much forget about it. This sort of thing tends to go more into the DJ end of the market than theatre anyway.

 

Now there's the all-round desks. What I can do is to load a personality into the desk - this means that the desk knows which DMX channels do what - so for instance it will take the Pan & Tilt, and instead of them being controlled on a fader will move them to a wheel, joystick or trackpad. It also knows that Pan & Tilt, Colour & Gobo shouldn't go to zero when we go into a blackout.

 

e2a: You know you've written a long answer when two other people have replied in the time it took to write it all.

[pritch]

So, if I go back to my desk and raise DMX 1, a channel on Dimmer 1 will rise. If I bring up DMX 7, a channel on Dimmer 2 will rise. If I bring up DMX 7, a channel on both Dimmer 1 and Dimmer 2 will rise.

 

 

Ooops... too late to edit, so I'm replying to say that the second instance of DMX 7 should have been 4. Silly me.