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DMX lightning prob: lights + laser

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  • July 22, 2017 at 11:30 pm #2593571
    Chuck Van Eekelen
    Moderator

    Big can of worms. It’s why I always recommend using DMX software on a PC/Mac (like Cuelux) or on an iPad (Cuety). This gives you much more control than any single hardware controller.

    That said, depending on the controller, you should be able to make a scene that plays both a chase for the lights and one for the laser. After all, a scene is nothing more than a collection of settings for your your fixtures (regardless of what they are).

    That’s the theory anyway. Unfortunately DMX is to complicated to dive in without more (detailed) knowledge of the controller and the fixtures.

    July 23, 2017 at 10:20 am #2593631
    Stephaan Vandenbroeck
    Participant

    Hello Dj Vintage,

    Thanks for your answer.

    Some info about the settings on my AYRA oso 240b mk II. It has room for 12 fixtures and has 16 channel/fixture. My Pars use 8 channels, the laser uses 12, so no problem there.

    DMX Par1: 1 Par2: 17 Par3: 33 Par4: 49 Laser: 65

    When I run light and laser seperately, everything works perfect

    I tried making a chase consisting of alternating Light and Laser (S1:light S2 Laser S3 light, etc) but this way, the laser doesn’t run smooth enough. I was thinking of making a chase where each scene consist of light AND laser (S1 light+laser S2 light+laser S3 light+laser), but the problem there is that the lights and laser use the same channel for different things (channel2 light = red, channel 2 laser = pattern) .

    I’ve read that it’s possible to patch the channels, so each channels does hat you want it to do, but this seems a bit farfetched, as I imagine I’m not the only dj who wants to run different types of fixtures from the same controller at the same time?

    I also tried making two chases, one consisting of only lights, one consisting of only laser. According to the manual, it is possible to run two chases at the same time. Alas, this didn’t seem to work either.

    Any and all suggestions are more than welcomed !

    July 23, 2017 at 9:37 pm #2593691
    Chuck Van Eekelen
    Moderator

    Bit of a waste having to use 16 channels per par if the fixtures have only 8 channels.

    As I said, I use DMX software (with a mini-Moog midi controller attached). This gives me full control over anything and each fixture has it’s own channel settings.

    I don’t ever recommend hardware controllers for DMX for this reason. You can probably get better results with something like Sound Switch.

    I took a quick look at the manual and it’s not all that clear. Theoretically, you should be able to set the channel values per fixture and save those. By then selecting a fixture with a saved setting, it should do what you need. How exactly that would work with this particular controller is a question I unfortunately can’t help you with.

    July 24, 2017 at 7:15 pm #2594281
    Stephaan Vandenbroeck
    Participant

    Yeps, I know 16 channels are a bit overkill, when you only need 8 or 12, but that’s just the way most DMX controllers are designed. My first dmx controller only had 4 channels (RGBW), which I thought was more than enough, but I can’t change the channels on my light, channel 1 was maser, so 2 was R, 3 was G,4 was B and then there were no channels left.

    I know there is a way to assign 2 fixtures to one dmx channels and then assign their owe seperate channel, fixture one using channels 1-8, fixture two uses channels 9-16. If I knew how to do this, maybe I could run the laser on the same DMX channel als the par, but so far, no luck.

    I just found out about dmx software, but it’s crazy to spend even more money on a dongle and software for the simple setup I want to run.

    And nope, the manual isn’t very clear. Dmx isn’t so easy that you cabn figure it out by yourself, but you should se the manual that came with my laser and smoke machine. There’s more info in there about how to clean them, then there is about actually using them.

    I am able to assign color and scenes to fixtures, I can save them, make chases. It’s just the working together of laser and Pars that has me baffled..

    July 24, 2017 at 10:54 pm #2594341
    Stephaan Vandenbroeck
    Participant

    Never underestimate the brainpower of moi 🙂 I found the solution. What I discovered is that I can make a scene consisting of several fixtures doing different things. I knew that I could chose for instance to light Par 1 + Par 4 in red while Par 2 and Par 3 remained dark. Then I started experimenting. What if there was a way to make Par 1 red and at the same time make Par 4 green. I thought this wasn’t possible as both light use the same slider to adjust the color, so if I used slider 2, both light would turn red. Right?

    Well, There is a way around this, very simple, but I didn’t know it was possible:

    – go into program mode and select a free bank
    – click fixture 1 and adjust Par 1 to the color you want (ie red)
    – click fixture 1 again, thus turning it off, so it won’t react to the slider anymore
    – sliders down to starting position
    – click fixture 2 and adjust Par2 to the color you want (ie green)
    – click fixture 2 again, to deselect it
    – sliders down
    – click fixture 3 and adjust Par 3 to the desired color (ie blue)
    – click fixture 3 again to deselect

    Once you adjusted all the lights, click the scene in which you want it all to be saved and then click the save button (in case of tha Ayra it’s the Midi/Rec button. Et voila, now one single scene consist of differen fixtures with different colors.

    Using this system, I can include my laser in every scene I make, I only have to pay attention that I use the same settings every time, so the laser won’t change it’s pattern with every new scene.

    Now I finally can start programming my controller, which promisses to be one heck of a job….

    July 25, 2017 at 9:13 pm #2594891
    Chuck Van Eekelen
    Moderator

    Glad you got it figured out! And great job reporting back with your findings and solution.

    July 26, 2017 at 12:43 am #2594921
    Stephaan Vandenbroeck
    Participant

    Hey Dj Vintage,

    That what forums(fora?) are for, right? Searching and hopefully finding a solution, then sharing it with the world, so others won’t have the some problems.

    Sometimes, people ask stuff, then they just dissappear, so no one knows if and how the question was answered.

    Take care !!

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