Custom MagicQ PC design

[DanSteely]

Hi All,

 

I have acquired 20" touchscreen with a view to making a custom X86 custom PC MagicQ desk running XP. This would utilize a Chamsys PC Wing and would be made into an 18mm birch ply flightcase (in effect) with ball corners, butterfly catches, etc.

 

I remember finding a web page where people had made their own systems of this sort but now cannot find it anywhere.. Can anybody point me in the right direction?

 

I'm weighing up using conventional motherboard & PSU vs a newish laptop with a broken screen. Incorporating a small UPS is also an idea.

 

This is in a school situation and will not be toured or used professionally - but robustness and resilience is important.

 

Any thoughts on design would be most welcome...

 

Many thanks.

[ceecrb1]

From (indirect) experience, the best advice I can give is keep a very good eye on weight.

One I know of is even a heavy 2 man lift...

 

Maybe thats ok for an instalation etc but if you need to move it around your school (eg store it where it isnt used) it can become too heavy to move alone quite quickly..

[david.elsbury]

Old laptop with no screen is ideal, if the battery is OK you have your UPS inbuilt, and the weight is far less than a conventional UPS with SLA battery. I have done this idea - old laptop - and happy as with it. (just racked it into a 2u flight case with cables coming out) and used an ipod touch to VNC in. I used Lightfactory for my setup.

 

2c

David

 

You could also consider running linux, not so much from a point of view that "linux is better than windows" but it might stop your students from installing games, getting on the internet, getting viruses, etc etc etc and ruining the PC requiring a rebuild.

[DanSteely]

Hi Both,

 

Weight is a real issue and I'm aiming for it to be lighter than a flightcased LS9-16.

 

I briefly investigated using a Raspberry PI but soon found out that it could not run an OS that could host MQ - According to Chamsys.

Sub micro form factor X86 PC's was my next port of call but these are still very expensive. The dual core laptop with a wrecked screen looks useful in this scenario - the benefit of a purpose designed battery will possibly avoid a UPS - but wont be able to power the screen in case of mains power outage. (a situation that has never occurred in 4 years)

 

One problem I currently have with laptop+PC-Wing setup is USB connection dropouts. i.e. loose USB connection leading to a frozen wing requiring a re connection and re-power up of the wing. With the new setup connections, it will be, in effect, hard wired.

 

One thought of the PC side was to run off a solid state hard drive in the form of a 32Gb USB memory stick. A small install of XP would fit no problem and a Linux distro would take even less room. Any thoughts on this?

 

... I've just found this superb PC Wing custom build on YouTube..

[Richard P-W]

You'll struggle to boot XP from a USB stick - I'm not saying it can't be done but it's quite tricky. A solid-state drive would also be many times faster.

 

It always amuses me that people want full UPS support in a lighting console. With no mains, what lights will be on?

So long as the computer aspect stays running and shuts down in a controlled fashion when the battery has been depleted, everything will be fine.

[dmxlights]

Hi Dan,

 

There is some custom designs here http://www.blue-room...showtopic=40648

 

 

I am also thinking of doing a custom design myself and also trying to keep wight and over all size down and the wing I have is a maxi wing. I did have a mini wing but I sold it and got a maxi wing as it will save on the size of the screen.

 

Also if you are on facebook look for chamsys on there as they have some more photos of custom cases on there

[mark_s]

It always amuses me that people want full UPS support in a lighting console. With no mains, what lights will be on?

 

But unlike most dimmers, modern desks can take an age to boot. They can also be accidentally switched off by errant feet kicking the switch on the wall, and of course control power will probably not be fed from the same place as dimmer/hard power. Having the desk (and any control equipment that might take a while to boot after a power interruption - nodes/etc) on a UPS makes perfect sense to me.

[gyro_gearloose]

If you want a single-board PeeCee, heave a look on ebay for Shuttle Motherboards. They're quite small, and usually have half-decent graphics built in - certainly enough to run MagicQ, but possibly not good enough to run the visualiser. The weak point on Shuttle computers has always been their PSU - they tend to die more often than 'normal' PSUs, and being a unique design are quite expensive to replace. That's why you'll often see Shuttle systems with no PSU selling for not much money. You can still hook a conventional PSU to them to get them working though.

 

Hope this helps

 

But unlike most dimmers, modern desks can take an age to boot.

True, but what about anything with a discharge lamp in it? They'll need to cool down for 5-10 minutes before they can be re-struck. Plenty of time for a PC to reboot, and for you to make a cup of tea :)

[timsabre]

The UPS is mainly needed so you don't lose programming. Most modern consoles only autosave at intervals, if someone unplugs your power or falls over the mains cable, you can lose what you've done. Having the console just carry on regardless is so much better, and UPS's are hardly an expensive bit of kit.

 

I built a mini-ITX factor PC using an SSD for about £150 a couple of months ago (without operating system), using one of those motherboards with a built-on processor, we use it to run an Asterisk PBX but it should run MagicQ.

[DanSteely]

From my perspective and experience:

On the UPS side of things it's more about keeping the Wing + the PC powered because of outages at FOH for all of the reasons listed. We have 48 ch of Betapack 2+3's and if the laptop or the wing should crash (in the current setup) I simply disconnect the two DMX universes and the tungsten remains lit.

Our intelligents vary when they loose DMX. At best they maintain their last state and in some cases they go silent (closing shutters and moving to their locate position).

 

So in a (even momentary) FOH power outage, the laptop will be fine with it's own battery power, the screen and the Wing will go off without a UPS. Having it totally PC based without a battery based plan B could lead to a 90 second reboot.

 

So the laptop as the host + a small UPS to power the wing only. Larger if poss to power the screen. The UPS would need a bit of a mod to prevent it audibly alarming.

 

Another thought...

 

The Wing run's off a 12v DC external PSU (wall wart type) at a pretty low current. How about creating a set up of a rechargeable 12V battery and a charger for it & a DC-DC Regulator.. like this to power the Wing...e.g..

 

http://cpc.farnell.com/mascot/2240000055/charger-2240-series-12v-1a/dp/BT03017?in_merch=Products%20From%20This%20Range

http://cpc.farnell.com/yuasa/03212/battery-lead-acid-12v-3-2ah/dp/BT00576

and a

http://cpc.farnell.com/stmicroelectronics/l7812cv/v-reg-12v-7812-to-220-3/dp/SC08364?ref=lookahead

 

Or is this floored?