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dwh

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Posts posted by dwh

  1. The problem I had was that my power supply wasn't supplying enough current on the 5V line. Floppy actions draw quite a bit, it seems. I had a power supply that came with my desk which was not a Zero88 one, which only supplied 2.8A on 5V, and the floppy apparently needs more than that (Manual says 5A).

     

    Ooh, that's a point, I still haven't sent that other power supply in, sorry guys (school holidays meant I could get in to get it, and you know how things distract you your first week or two back!), will get it to you the top end of next week!

  2. I'm trying to keep myself down to 24 channels for generics, but I want to pull just over 24kW for them (29 lights in all)... I have 3x 24 channel 10i racks, running off seperate 100A supplies. Alas, my current requirements are about 105A in total, so it looks like I'm going to have to split the load across two dimmers (wouldn't want a fuse going in the supply mid-show when too many sliders are accidentally shoved up!)... When playing with softpatching on my Bullfrog, I can only patch channels in the blocks of 24... So, is there an easy way to pair channels from seperate dimmers to the same channel on the desk? Or would I be best off just setting both dimmers to the same DMX addresses? Will they react nicely to that? Might they get annoyed?

     

    Cheers!

  3. Looks like AC still have some cheapies going:

    As New Fat Frog DMX Lighting Console £1,397.50

    Ex-Demo Frog 2 Lighting Console c/w Flightcase £3,750.00

    Ex-Demo Frog DMX Lighting Console £875.00

     

    They're a fantastic company, often have bargains like this on slightly-used kit, and are generally quite happy to negotiate on prices.

     

    Clicky

    They generally warn you of any problems with the kit, but do ask before buying! And they also normally have farily good warranties, but make sure you thrash out the details before you hand over any money!

     

    Regardless of where you go, make sure you get a good warranty.

  4. Right, ok... Remote... First of all, neither I nor Zero88 nor anyone else accepts any liability/responsibility for anything stupid you do to yourself (soldering iron and that), your desk, or anything you've bought/own/anything else in the world, and I don't guarantee that this will work, or be safe, but it worked for me. Unfortunately I'm in America at the mo, away from my original wiring diagrams and stuff, but I'll put together what I did for you :)

     

    That out of the way:

     

    If you just want one Remote Go on one submaster, you could just get a wireless doorbell and hack it up, so that instead of a bell, you just have a relay across two pins of an 8-pin DIN which goes in the Remote Go port on the Fat Frog. I decided I wanted all 6 remote gos, so I did a bit more...

     

    Here's what I did:

     

    Kit list:

    1x TX, 1x RX (Radio Frequency transmitter and receiver). I used these ones from Maplin, which are AM and work at 433MHz: Click, Datasheet. These are the things that actually transmit the data. Anything similar should do the job, but the specifics for wiring them and exactly what else you'll need will be slightly different.

     

    1x Encoder, 1x Decoder. I used these ones, also from Maplin, which are made by the same company: Click. Again, anything similar should work, but your wiring will need to be different (like these need certain resistors and certain voltages on certain pins).

     

    2x Antennae are handy, I used these. Flexi are better than Heli, but Heli are smaller. You'll also need two little nuts to screw them in to, I think those use M4 but I could be wrong.

     

    Some way of inputting what Go you want (I used four sub-mini STSP switches to set the 4 inputs).

     

    Some momentary switch to "send".

     

    1x "Transmit" LED, which indicates when the transmitter is transmitting (you can skip this if you want)

     

    2x 5ish V power supplies (I used 3V for my transmitter and 4.5 for my receiver, on 2 and 3 AA batteries, respectively)

     

    1x "Status" LED for the receiver

     

    2x 1KOhm resistors

     

    1x 15KOhm resistor

     

    1x 22KOhm resistor

     

    1x Low battery LED for the receiver (optional)

     

    1x "Learn" switch

     

    If you want up to 4 Remote Gos, you just need 4 reed relays. If you want more, you need as many relays as you want Gos, and you need some logic gates to sort out the binary signal you're transmitting. I can go into detail on that if you need.

     

    Then you just need to wire them vaguely according to the diagrams in this.

     

    I wired my encoder like this:

    Power supply - momentary switch to send data

    Then, between pins 1-4 and the momentary switch, I had my switches to select the Remote Go you wanted (I used a binary system, so pin 1's switch was the 1 column, pin 2's the 2 column, pin 3's the 4 column and pin 4's the 8 column.

    Pin 5 goes to the power supply ground.

    Pin 6 goes straight to the Data In on the TX unit (ignore the amplifyer they have on their datasheet). It was pin 3 on my TX (see the TX datasheet)

    Pin 7 connects to the annode (positive, longer leg) of the transmit LED if you're using one, and the cathode (negative, shorter leg) goes to the power supply.

    Pin 8 goes straight to the momentary switch.

     

    Then I wired my receiver like this:

    1, 2, 17, 18: Outputs to logic/relays

    3: Low battery LED (I skipped that)

    4: 15KOhm resistor

    5: Power supply ground

    6: No connection

    7: 22KOhm resistor to ground

    8: No connection

    9: Data Out from RX (pin 14 on mine, see that datasheet)

    10: This one's a bit awkward. See the RX datasheet for the schematic, but basically:

    VCC (power supply) - Status LED - Learn switch - Power Supply Ground
    
    									|
    
    							 1 KOhm Resistor
    
    									|
    
    							   Pin 10

    11: No Connection

    12: Ground

    13: VCC (Power supply)

    14: VCC (Power supply)

    15: No Connection

    16: No Conncetion

     

    Then you just wire your relays across the relevant pins in a male 8-pin DIN plug (see the back of the Frog manual for the schematic) and you're set!

     

    There's a bit about learning the transmitter, that you can read about in the data sheets, but when you've soldered that all up you're pretty much ready to roll! I'm assuming you have some electronic know-how here, if that's not the case, I can try to give a more basic guide :) Hope it's been helpful, any questions just shout!

  5. Are there any known issues or strange behaviours with the lock function of Chillis? I have 3x 24-channel 10A Chillis and when I lock them with a PIN, walk away to do a job, and walk back again (a few minutes; enough time to re-point a light), they don't need the lock code any more... They're only a few weeks old, and there's been no setting-loss so I don't think it's a battery issue, and it would be strange for all three batteries to have gone after a few weeks (we got them in in March), and there's not much else I can think of, so I turn it over to you!

  6. I generally find it more helpful to use the version of software that I'm actually going to be using; saves me sitting there getting confused between minor differences when I don't have to be!

     

    But yes, it is a very easy to pick up desk :)

  7. As it stands, your best move is to make one; I don't think zero actually sell them.

     

    It's not terribly hard to do if you have a little electronic knowhow; either get a receiver, a transmitter, an encoder and a decoder and get out the soldering iron, or bodge apart a wireless doorbell... I made one which cost me about £40 to put together and has up to 15 signal combinations; well over the 6 remote gos you get on the desk.

  8. Yes, go to 3 Wheel Groups (or 4 Wheel Groups, depending on your mode), right click a wheel group, press "properties", you can choose which property you want on each wheel. Alternatively, you can clear the wheel groups, add new ones from scratch, but preserve the paramaters. Means you keep your paramaters, and get to re-define which paramaters you want on each wheel.

     

    Or have I misinterpreted what you're looking to do?

  9. I had a bit of a fun tech for a time-pressured (aren't they all?) play on my first proper run with my new Bullfrog, and I didn't realise that fade down times in the stack were for the action you're on, as opposed to the memory you're on (i.e. I thought "LX2: Fade up 3s, Fade down 5s" in a column meant LX2 takes 5s to fade down, not LX1 takes 5s to fade down), though I realised what was happening, and a quick search of the forum explained it... Might a mention in the manual be helpful?

     

    Just a thought.

  10. If it's not actually in any of the cues, I'd just set a submaster (or even leave master A or B) with that channel as 82%, and leave it on full the whole time. This 82% will HTP override the 0% Programmed in any of the cues.

     

    Of course if it's programmed anywhere above 82% in any of the cues, have fun with your editing.

  11. Thank you very much :)

     

    Are they vaguely easy to create/edit? Are there any tools around that do it? There's a thing or two I'd love to modify a little (swapping around the order/pages of a few properties)... Is it do-able?

     

    And one last thing, is there a way to view attributes (e.g. when colour is at x% show on the monitor that it's displaying y colour)?

     

    Thanks again for the quick response!

     

    [Edit:] Don't mind me, got the utility now... Still, about viewing attributes?

  12. The CX-2 uses 1 Ground 2- 3+ so all you have to do is wire a straight-through DMX cable with a 5-pin XLR at one (for your fat frog) and a 3-pin XLR at the other (for your light)

     

    5-pin male   3-pin female
    
     1------------1
    
     2------------2
    
     3------------3
    
     4
    
     5

  13. 5) Latching flash option

    Just push the fader to full!

    But that's not the point of flash! If I've got things set up on my preset(s) [depending on wide mode], and I want to solo a light for a minute, maybe while I walk away from the desk, it's inconvenient to have to program and clear one of them, or to program a blank memory and manually edit it.

  14. I've just gotten a lovely new Bullfrog and there are a few things I've noticed which I've liked in some of the desks I've played with over the past few months, which aren't there (or at least that I didn't see)...

     

    1) An inhibit light function; if a light gets knocked or a gel slips during a show, it's convenient to be able to just black out the light, so that it won't come up when you go to the next memory.

     

    2) Blackout: Could there be a SU option to set it to momentary/latching?

     

    3) Remote switches: Could they do things other than just "go" (maybe a simple programmable interface, or certain channels assigned to them?) [less important than 1 & 2]

     

    4) A "lock whole desk" function - stop pesky kids from fiddling with my desk! (I've seen a post or two about this kicking about)

     

    [Edit] Forgot number 5) Latching flash option [/Edit]

     

    Cheers!

    -dan

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