kgallen

I just looked in the manual, assuming it’s Geyser P7. Theres nothing special. 1 channel for fog, then 14 for pretty lights. I didn’t see anything about the machine going to sleep. Also seems there is nothing the DMX controller (FLX or Chauvet) could do wrong or cause what you observe. Is the machine powering off completely? Are you trying to fire smoke continually?

Usually smoke machines have very simple controls. A channel for smoke, maybe a channel for a fan (more usual on a hazer). So the fixture profile is usually very unexciting compared to say a moving light. I would patch dimmer channels at the address your smoke machine is set for and have a play. Look at the DMX map that should be in the smoke machine document. Is there a channel that needs some weird value to keep the smoke machine awake? Within the Fixture patching steps you can create your own fixture for the smoke machine if you think the library one has some issue once you’ve played with the dimmer-per-channel thing above and checked the manual for any weirdness for the smoke machine.

I don't have a Jester or any service information sorry, but you might want to check out my post below to see if you have a similar issue. Actually... looking through my emails, seems we've already conversed on this on the Blue Room. Sorry for the repeated info, I guess that's not the issue then? Also on a PM on BR I gave you some instructions for contacting the current support. Did you use those?

I don't have a Jester or any service information sorry, but you might want to check out my post below to see if you have a similar issue. I will also send you a PM.

Your fault is probably in “cue 2” where there are blocking values that stop the mover prepping for “cue 3” but in your real cue list where you’ve been copying what I said in previous posts is most likely the case. I’m assuming here you haven’t deliberately set ‘Don’t Move’ in any related cue Cue Settings - if you have that’s self explanatory!

See also

See https://www.zero88.com/manuals/zeros/cues-playbacks/playback-settings/advanced?filter=2 for whole playback unblock.

Copying cues results in blocking cues when you paste. You will see white intensity numbers in the output screen. 1. Save your show. 2. GO into a cue you copied to, which shows the white intensity numbers. 3. Press and hold UPDATE to bring up the options window. Ensure SmartTag is enabled (red stripe). Press enter (or tap the playback go button) Blocked values should change from white to purple (tracked) (unless you subsequently changed them after pasting in which case they will be blue or green) and now your move on dark into that cue should work. 4. Repeat for other copy-pasted cues. Note: There is a method to unblock a whole playback in one go but I can’t remember where that option is. Check the manual. 4. Check the results on stage.

yea as @Davidmk says I don’t think you can keep the dummy lamp dark, you might as well just patch a scroller. Is there any scope to duplicate DMX address patching? Can’t currently get my brain sufficiently off work to think this through but I’ll give it some thought.

OK this is 10 years old comment, but this is where Jon told me the association of dimmer has to be within the fixture. I think at the time I was trying to do something vaguely similar to you where I had a patched Source 4 and wanted to associate the scroller with it to support move on dark.

The scroller uses the intensity channel of the associated fixture to know when ‘dark’ (as I’m sure you’re well aware). Scroller probably only has colour attributes. You might have to patch the lamp+scroller and patch the ‘lamp’ to an unused DMX address then use that bogus lamp fixture intensity to control your move on dark. I think early days of my FLX I asked a similar type of question and it just came down to you need that linked intensity channel to support move on dark. I know you probably don’t have time or access but this is a candidate for having a play to see what methods can be used to fool the desk whilst maintaining a usable workflow. I don’t think anyone left here knows how the desk actually uses the fixture information under lamp+scroller to know what cheats are viable.

I think it would have to be a ‘built in’ effect. The key to this as identified at the start is the ‘release’ instruction the desk needs. I’m not sure even user macros on FLX can make this any easier. Some sort of ‘auto release’ would be needed.

Just re-reading my initial post it’s a real dogs dinner! I’m glad @Davidmk and @Archie D have brought some clarity to the exercise with the neat use of a chase on the ‘master’ playback. Great work chaps!

Yea, sorry @Davidmk that’s just my slow brain. I wrote my initial response and thought ‘that’s awful’ and subsequently thought of using the master playback as triggers. Completely forgetting that was what you’d proposed initially… brain like a sieve!

I’ve read with interest what @Davidmk has written. I agree the key to this will be fixture Release to get back to your background colour. However I can’t as yet think of a neat generic way to do this. All I can think of at present is you will need a set of playbacks equalling the number of ‘white’ lights you want to overlay. Each of these playbacks will light one of those lights. Each has 2 cues. The first cue lights the light and releases the previous playback in the sequence. The second cue triggers the next playback. This ‘next’ playback has the two cues as above, the release being for that first playback. Repeat playbacks like this for each sequence light. You could have a ‘master’ playback that triggers the first playback in the sequence and a second cue that releases all of the sequence playbacks. This is not readily expandable and quite clunky to implement. Also changing the speed will require exiting the cue times on each playback. Yuk. Possibly you could have a master playback that triggers and releases each sequence playback, that would probably make time editing far easier and all the sequence playbacks need to do is light the light. As yet I can’t think of a better way. At least on FLX/S there are no real shortage of playbacks and the sequence playbacks could be buried on a later page. We’ll all keep having a think as this is fundamentally not unusual as a requirement.