kgallen

(Shameless thread steal, but I think it's run its course!) Hi Edward, I was completely unaware you were running these online sessions - although clearly they were publicised somewhere as I heard you mention @Lufferov early on. I must be going blind - I don't see any mention of them in News & Announcements, General Discussion or the FLX Forums (FLX Training and Videos last updated in 2015) - so where/how? I didn't get any email notifications either that I'm aware of (I do indeed receive a fair number of Forum notification emails and they don't go into 'Spam'). Anyway, I've watched the one you linked above - very interesting - well at least I learned you can use the Shift key in Fixture Setup to enable column sort 🙂 I'm off over to YouTube now to give the Ethernet video a spin, and probably all of the rest in good time... Hope you and the team are all well. Regards, Kevin (ps Is Jon morphing into Tyler with that facial hair? 🤣 Oh no! I see it's worse than that! Tyler has GIVEN Jon his facial hair!!! Watch out Edward, Keith's hair is comin' after you....!!! Arrrrggghhh It's already happened!!! Nat - run, run, run, NOW!!! Oh dear, working from home must finally be getting to me....) (pps What's going on at Z88. Tyler thinks he's Ronnie Corbett!)

My French is on the (cough) poor side, but these are great Eric. Clearly a lot of work has gone into them. Great work! I hope you get favourable feedback from our French colleagues! Kevin

I always wondered if ‘Stomping’ has anything to do with this. Edward did explain Stomping to me somewhere here (and I don’t think it was what I expected!). However there is ‘Allow Stomping’ somewhere in the playback options I think. Have a play!

Yes you can rename the fixtures. Again in Setup when you have the list of patched fixtures, the second column defaults to the fixture name, but you can edit that name like other fields. These names will be used on the Output Screen and in the fader pane on an external display (FLX, FLX-S48 or FLX-S24 via Monitor app). I'm not aware you can add any other text/notes. And the name will get truncated on the Output Screen. (Where a sequence of fixtures have the same name, e.g. Dimmer, then the name can span the width of the fixtures so is less likely to get truncated. So put the "important bit" at the start of the name, so title them e.g. "SR Wash", "SL Wash" not "Wash SR" and "Wash SL", then at worst you'll get something like "SR W" and "SL W" rather than "Wash" and "Wash"!

Channel (fixture) number and DMX address are independent. So you can configure fixture #2 (channel fader #2) to DMX address 6 for example. You do this under Setup. You can tap and renumber the fixture, providing that fixture (channel) number is not already used. The output screen will follow the Channel (fixture) number so you can't for example have a different fader order to the order shown on the screen - because I think that would drive you to madness anyway! I hope this what you're looking for... Kevin

No, tha's Ollie's FLX 🤣

Apparently this topic is now HOT!

Ollie - interested how you get on. I bought Capture (at great expense) a fair few months back, but to date haven't had the guts to try and connect it to FLX... (desk or Phantom).

I was first for a change! 🤩😝 (no accounting for quality of course!!!)

Hi Ollie, Does anything in this recent thread help? Kevin

Lights off but Effect still running is a common issue. It’s probably because you had Smart Tag enabled when you tried to record ‘No Effect’ and the lights at 0. Smart Tag doesn’t save the No Effect. So what you have to do is run the cue where the lights go off and the effect should stop (but don’t), select the lights that are in the effect, select No Effect from the Effects palette. Then press Update to get the Record Options pane up then deselect Smart Tag, then ok the Update. Then clear the programmer, go back a few cues then run through and make sure the Effect now stops when you need it to. Of course if you need the Effect to start again in a later cue you’ll need to go to that one and enable the effect again. Hope that helps. Kevin

Whoaaaaaaaaa! 👍 (Z88 marketing guys are livid. Image picker gets disabled in next version of ZerOS!)

Martin, Don't worry about it. Hope it's going well otherwise! What's going wrong with your tracking that's causing you issues? Don't forget you can use Update with Cue Only and Track Forwards (and Track Backwards although I've never used that one). Also with FLX you can go back to Cue Only mode if you want and also you can turn the whole cue stack into snapshot cues then work your new stuff using Tracking on.

Neil - Probably better to post this query on the Blue Room. http://www.blue-room.org.uk/

I don't think so, sorry. ETA: Doh, beaten again by a better answer!

This is the DMX map for the fixture: https://www.robe.cz/index.php?type=10898&tx_odproducts_f[action]=downloadFile&tx_odproducts_f[file]=robe/downloads/dmx_charts/Robin_MiniMe_DMX_charts.pdf If you only want 8-bit control for the Pan and Tilt you could write a fixture definition that did not include channels 2 and 4 (the "fine" channels). However you will get the "lumpy" control as I describe above. An interesting little fixture that Robe!

Like it! 👍

Fixture definition looks good. As David says, you only want to tag your Param1 (or Param2) parameter (which ever one controls the height) when you program the playback. Also there may be a setting to ensure only this one parameter is tagged otherwise tagging one beamshape parameter may cause all parameters in the beamshape attribute to be tagged. Other option is to move the height parameter to Position (where it's the only parameter) then you don't have to worry so much.

ETA - David just beat me to it! You can do ‘Fader Controls’ and set it to Beamshape. SETUP+Playback Button Not sure if the fader still controls intensity too. If you have other parameters on Beamshape maybe move this one onto Position so it’s on its own. I’ll have a look at your fixture profile in a while - we’ll get it working somehow! Kevin

Actually your first 4 channels will be: 1 Pan (MSB) (coarse) / 2 Pan (LSB) (fine) / 3 Tilt (MSB) (coarse) / 4 Tilt (LSB) (fine) One DMX channel gives an 8-bit binary value, which is 0 to 255 in decimal (256 steps). This is too coarse to give usable angular control of a moving head (pan or tilt). For a 360 degree circle, with 256 values in the control channel, each value thus results in a 1.4 degree angular change. This is too much of a change for the beam throw in any practical situation - the beam would step too far across the stage with each increment/decrement in the DMX channel value. Hence for parameters like Pan and Tilt, two channels are coupled together to give a 16-bit control value. This gives a decimal range of 0-65535 for that parameter. If a fixture has a Pan range of say 540 degrees, then the 16-bit Pan parameter gives a granularity of around 0.01 degrees per step. This is much better! Some fixtures (like the Philips PL range) have a mode with a 16-bit intensity (dimmer) channel, but this is quite unusual. 256 steps for most parameters (intensity, colours, gobos) is usually more than adequate. This is why your Pan and Tilt have a 0-65535 range - because they each use 2 DMX channels to get the required angular precision. Hope that helps!

So really you need a merger that can do HTP merge but only on the intensity channels of each fixture. Then FLX can control all of the functions of all of the lights (esp. position, colour beamshape), but the DJ console can "flash" the intensity channel as an HTP override of the intensity that FLX is putting out in the same DMX channel. This would require a merger with per-channel merge configurability. Does your fancy merger have this? But still depending on what FLX is doing with the light this might not work. Say FLX has all colour channels at 0, the DJ console setting the intensity to 255 will still result in the light having no output. Then you get into some weird requirement that the merger needs to "force" some channels if the DJ console wants to flash the light. This is not likely in a commercial product, it's such a convoluted requirement. You're into some custom Arduino type project!

The merger manufacturer is suggesting the DMX frame (s) received by the merger is not correctly formatted or timed. eg incorrect mark or break periods, incorrect header code, mistimed or malformed channel data. The same observed issue with the DMX-in route (basically a "merger" within console # 2) versus the external merger route demonstrates we are not looking at an equipment problem (of either the desks or the merger) but more a conceptual problem of how two "masters" can control a single "slave" and what the expected slave behavior is (and then whether a merger product exists that can be configured accordingly). The OP says "light effect" which implies some "non-trivial" fixture with intensity, probably color, maybe position and beamshape attributes. @ jb07 Thanks for the merger link. That looks like an expensive piece of kit - but I don't think it's the answer to your question - because at this point I don't think we (you) know what the question is - i.e. how you want your aggregate control surface to work.

..and HOW do you want the 2 consoles to control the same lights? What is the responsibility of each console? How would the DMX universe be "carved up" for each console. We've already covered that an HTP merge is not going to work unless you only have dimmers. It makes no sense to have two active consoles controlling the same "intelligent" light (unless they are a specifically designed active/backup tracking pair). This merger for example: https://www.elmvideotechnology.com/store/dmx-merger-dmg-2x1?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwcuSlL705wIVFuDtCh0ftQdiEAAYASAAEgKev_D_BwE claims to have an LTP merge mode. But still how would this work in practice? You have two lighting consoles (who have no knowledge of the commands sent by the other) giving likely conflicting data to one light, which is going to jump about trying to service both sets of unrelated commands, depending on how the merge picks DMX channels from each console. This is my "shouting at the kids" example from earlier. HTP mergers are often used if the venue has two lighting desks, but where only one is active/powered at a time. Say a very simple desk used by groups "who just want some light" and a more complex console used by "advanced" users. Tell us what type of fixtures you have in your rig and how you want the overall control surface to work.

HTP is fine for an intensity channel (e.g. a dimmer) but is likely a disaster for any other parameter (position, colour, beamshape) which would almost always be treated LTP. Your merger will work if you use one desk at a time (and the unused one outputs 0 on all channels - unlikely if you have ‘intelligent’ fixtures patched). Using both together unless you only have dimmers makes no sense to me. Think conceptually what you want to achieve and how it would actually work. With anything but dimmers I don’t think a merger is the answer. There is nothing wrong with your FLX S.

How would a merge actually work? FLX sends out a full 512 channel DMX packet. Where does the data from the other ‘master’ fit? If the other master sends channel data to a fixture that FLX thinks it’s controlling surely the fixture is going to jump unless somehow the other master is snooping what FLX is sending and builds some sort of transition from where FLX puts the fixture and the other master wants it, and the merger gives that master control over those channels. One master has to control the parameter of a fixture to get anything sensible out. If the merger gives alternate frames to the FLX and the other master, then these are two uncorrelated data streams and I can’t see how anything other than mayhem can result. Both you and your wife shout independent instructions alternately to your son and see if anything useful results! "Get your shoes on" "Go clean your teeth" "Comb your hair" "Pack your school bag"! -> I dont really understand how this can work sensibly. Maybe I’m about to learn!