Simple lighting desk for LED

[PuppetLight]

Running LEDs from a laptop with a DMX to USB adapter is a lot easier, appearance of a desk but they are not very many limitations, and chase sequences are much easier to programme and develop. We used it for a school christmas concert, had red and green chases all around the church, landing on the school colours for readings and prayers.Also means you can programme when not at the venue without having to lug a desk around. Also works to patch into dimmer to control halogens off it aswell.

[top-cat]

Surely you read the second half of my post? The bit about taping under the fader so you can't 'accidentally nudge that fader'. It works for me.

 

I can't see how that would work on those simple controllers because you have to move the fader to "engage" it when you select a new fixture to control. They don't automatically take the level the fader is standing at.

 

Can these controllers only control one thing at once?

 

I assumed when he said simple controller he meant a bog standard 12/24 sort of thing, where you'd just create the colours you want by mixing channels 1/2/3 for RGB levels, and leave channel 4 at max (and taped up) so the fader is at full intensity all the time, and is turned off by returning 1/2/3 to 0. I have a venue's architectural lights set up in this manner using their old Jester and it works fine.

[bruce]

 

So I could have 6 (is it 3 per special?) DMX channels at full, but still have 24 controllable channels?

 

Yep, 3 per "special", patchable just like the normal faders, treat them as faders 25 and 26.

 

 

I assumed when he said simple controller he meant a bog standard 12/24 sort of thing, where you'd just create the colours you want by mixing channels 1/2/3 for RGB levels, and leave channel 4 at max (and taped up) so the fader is at full intensity all the time, and is turned off by returning 1/2/3 to 0.

 

That's not the way these things work - you can have several "pages", one for each group of fixtures, so while taping up one channel might work if all of the LED pars were similar models, it wouldn't work if they were different.

[timsabre]

That's not the way these things work - you can have several "pages", one for each group of fixtures, so while taping up one channel might work if all of the LED pars were similar models, it wouldn't work if they were different.

 

It wouldn't work at all because every time you change fixture you'd have to take the fader down and up again to set the output value.

[dbuckley]

No, I don't know what sort of drugs the designers were taking when they came up with this scheme.....

 

They then upped the drugs and designed the seven channel variant. Garrgh. And then some designers really went for it and decided not to include the "3 or 7 channel" selector.....

 

If one has a competent control system, the seven channel variant adds nothing useful over the three channel variant, other than wasting channels on a universe.

[dmxlights]

(if anyone's ever using any of these sort of units with a Behringer LC2412, there's a useful trick - use the "special1" or "special2" buttons, which are effectively DMX channels that can only have 2 values - off and full- so latch them on and softpatch to the 4th DMX channel...)

 

That's interesting, and may be just what I'm after.

 

So I could have 6 (is it 3 per special?) DMX channels at full, but still have 24 controllable channels?

 

You can have 72 controllable channels (3 DMX channels to each of the 24 fader channels) and 3 to each of the specials as well and there is 2 specials buttons as well

[delicolor]

(if anyone's ever using any of these sort of units with a Behringer LC2412, there's a useful trick - use the "special1" or "special2" buttons, which are effectively DMX channels that can only have 2 values - off and full- so latch them on and softpatch to the 4th DMX channel...)

 

That's interesting, and may be just what I'm after.

 

So I could have 6 (is it 3 per special?) DMX channels at full, but still have 24 controllable channels?

 

You can have 72 controllable channels (3 DMX channels to each of the 24 fader channels) and 3 to each of the specials as well and there is 2 specials buttons as well

This is very pertinent for me as I have been acquiring a random assortment of LED PARs on the cheap to light a folk club as it can be insufferably hot with my Minuettes. I also picked up a Behringer which works fine but it is on an early software release where it isn't possible to softpatch the non-dims other than on 25 & 26 which is a bit chocolate teapot as my LED units also need various extra channels nailed at full or zero to not muck up the LED levels. (I did contact behringer Support to see if I could buy the latest EEPROMS but they passed me on to a local dealer who gave me a grockle reply and didn't respond to my follow-up).

 

As many people have said, the LC2412 is cheap as chips but incredibly frustrating to use, particularly for vamping. I'm at the stage now where I use my Chamsys dongle on my laptop to flash out/focus and 24 control channels patched to 72 DMX channels is a tad too limiting.

 

The rig is two RGBWs and two CWWWs FOH, 6 RGB uplighters behind and a WWCW to highlight the club sign. That is 12 channels for the turn, 10 channels for the back wall/signage (with pairing of DMX) & two channels for the 6 DMX channels that need to be nailed up.

 

I'm thinking of getting a couple of small movers for back lighting/ gosh cues so that will definitely make the Behringer a blind alley other than as an emergency desk. Shame those Chamsys mini-wings are so expensive for hobby use...

[dmxlights]

Delicolor

 

Chamsys themselfs have exdemo/B-Stock ones for sale from time to time on there site http://secure.chamsys.co.uk/shop/index.php?route=product/category&path=59

 

or look on here under the for sale section or on chamsys forum

[delicolor]

Delicolor

 

Chamsys themselfs have exdemo/B-Stock ones for sale from time to time on there site http://secure.chamsys.co.uk/shop/index.php?route=product/category&path=59

 

or look on here under the for sale section or on chamsys forum

Thanks for that, I've looked before and on ebay but thay have some cheap(er) mini-wings in at the moment.

 

Shame they won't support running Linux environment on Raspberry Pi, I work in telecommunications in the day job and trusting any real-time application to Microsoft Windows has its challenges, shall we say.

 

N

[themadhippy]

Shame they won't support running Linux environment on Raspberry Pi,

could always run linux on a cheap netbook.

[dmxlights]

Delicolor,

 

As themadhippy says run linux on a netbook and you should have no problems I have lubuntu on a Acer Icona tab W500 and it I was using a mini wing before I got my hands on a maxi wing both work with no problems at all

[delicolor]

Delicolor,

 

As themadhippy says run linux on a netbook and you should have no problems I have lubuntu on a Acer Icona tab W500 and it I was using a mini wing before I got my hands on a maxi wing both work with no problems at all

 

It's on my to-do list. Just waiting to retire one of two laptops so I can dedicate it. I have a Pi doing nothing much, bought it out of curiousity and to try and get my son interested in IT beyond playing games and designing spreadsheets at School. (he wants to be a zookeeper, so the appeal of showbiz doesn't extend beyond the proscenium).