Paul

Frog Reference 5516 - Default Submaster fade times to be 0s. Frog Reference 5517 - Default Dwell time to be 3.0s (Operating Manuals update only).

Unfortunately it is not possible to convert the Sigma (Switcher) into a Delta (Dimmer). Different PCB, no coils etc. The Triac used in the Sigma/Delta is a BTA26-600B. It is still readily available from RS/Farnell/Arrow in the UK. Apparently we still have some in stock (so the stock computer tells me), so you could always contact our Service Department and order some from us. Alternatively try http://www.rsaustralia.com

Forgive me if I am wrong, but this does seem to be a rewording of the question asked in THIS TOPIC. Again the answer is the same, that this sort of complex functionality is better supported by our more advanced products such as the Illusion 500 and Frog2. Adding such features to the Frog could easily clutter the user interface. Whenever we consider adding new features to the Frog aimed specifically at advanced users, we must weigh this against making the desk more difficult to learn for beginners and operate for basic shows. I'm guessing that Pearl's suggestion of using Chases set to Manual Drive on Submasters would not work for you, because as you've said in the other topic, you're running multiple chases at once, and want to simultaneously change them all with one button hit. How many chases are you running that need to be simultaneously changed? If there is a way of us making the desk work better for you, without us having to rewrite the entire thing, then we will consider it. However we would like through discussion on the forum and involving other users, to come up with something that not only works for you, but is useful to as many other users as possible too. edit: fixed link

Tis cunningly hidden in the lock the desk topic Editing (rather than reprogramming) a submaster will retain the fade times, LTP actions etc. However is it generally felt by other users that when reprogramming submasters (and I suppose by extension memories and SXs too), that the fade times and LTP actions should be preserved? Is the Edit function that hard to use, that it's quicker to press Program, and then confirm the overwrite? Your thoughts please... edit: fixed links

If the battery is going, then data in the battery backed RAM inside the desk will be randomly corrupted. The manifestations of this will vary, but I suppose it is possible that you see submasters disappear and not memories.

There are 2 types of main board that are used in the Fat Frog desks. Earlier desks used the STMain1/1B board, which had a 3.6V NiMH battery soldered to the board. Later desks use the STMain2 board, which has a 3V CR2032 Lithium coin cell. You can tell if you've got an STMain1/1B or STMain2 main board by looking at the position of the floppy disk drive on the back panel. If it's an STMain1/1B, the drive is next to the DMX connectors. If it's an STMain2, the drive is next to the Power in connector. In either case, open up the desk and measure the battery voltage with a multimeter to check that it is OK before ordering a spare. If you have the STMain2 main board, the coin cell battery can be probably be found in a high street store. If you have the older STMain1/1B main board with the soldered in battery, you'll need to find a good electronic components supplier. If the battery measures OK, or if you still have problems after replacing it, then give Keith a call in the office to discuss getting the desk repaired.

Scroll Lock on the external keyboard actually inhibits the Keyboard Go function. There is a bug in software versions up to and including 9.8 (CLICK HERE) where the scroll lock will sometimes come on of it's own accord, but you can easily turn it off again. The external Go button linked to both desks sounds like a good idea, not a bodge at all. Infact it's come up before, but with a Frog and an Alcora (CLICK HERE). If you have a demux available and wanted to go one step further, you could use some of the demux outputs driven from the DMX on Desk 1 to close some relays to switch the remote inputs of Desk 2. Might be more flexible! edit: fixed links

It's an interesting idea, but not without it's difficulties to implement in the Frog. As Sam has pointed out, this sort of functionality is more the domain of the Illusion 500 or Frog2, which have Macros, command line syntax, multiple playbacks, graphical user interface, mouse, full tracking, full partial recording etc. which all go towards making this sort of feature possible. It might help if you could explain a little more what you are trying to achieve, then maybe we can come up with something that does fit in with the Frog.

You can also use the wheel editing modes to create the effect of inversion on some fixtures while editing. If you select Fan-Middle, then some fixtures will move Left, and some will move Right. Or Up and Down, as appropriate. Try it and see!

"Pantone Green 3305C"

Nope, still can't reproduce this one :cry: The only odd things it does for me, is that the first time I press any of the cursor keys, it turns Scroll Lock on. :? Also the Pause/Break key seems to toggle NumLock :? Next time you lose the letters and numbers, can you try unplugging and replugging the keyboard (as opposed to doing a desk reboot) and let me know if this makes any difference. Ta, Paul.

I tried it again on a real desk here, and can't reproduce either of the problems you describe. Go on, give us some more clues...

Have a look at THIS POST for a quick start guide. edit: fixed link

See THIS TOPIC.

Yes! You can always update to the latest version directly from any previous version. If you've been using version 6.0, you're going to be very pleased making the jump to 9.8

Just to update you, we have received a report on the UV Lacquer problem from our suppliers. Some extracts... >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The photographs supplied suggest that the surface (u.v cured) lacquer on the clear window has been removed either physically or chemically. Although it could be caused by chemical attack, it is more likely to be caused by physical damage from a sharp object. The Lacquer used on all Zero88 Frog fascias is Sericol UV-383 Uvibond varnish. This is formulated to give a high degree of physical and chemical resistance although these properties can be compromised at extremes. The polymerised lacquer film has excellent resistance to possible contaminants including water, alcohol, antifreeze, bleach, brake fluid, cosmetics, detergents, motor oil and petrol however would be effected by paint thinners or aggressive chemicals such as Xylene or Acetone (commonly used in nail varnish remover). The film has some resistance to mild alkalis but strong caustic soda will discolour/damage it. Suffice to say, if someone has been painting the walls or painting their nails near the console then there is a potential danger. Having said this, the photographs suggest a fairly clean removal of film, and most chemical damage does leave a stain or clouding of the plastic as well. The polymer film is very tough but could be scratched by a sharp or abrasive edge. As the film is polymerised (cross-linked) the scratch could result in further cracking of the film and bits could fall off. A watch buckle or bracelet could provide a sharp edge. It is of course possible that there has been some inherent weakness in the film at that particular point (inclusion or air bubble that was not picked up). This could lead to a stress fracture over a period of use, but we have no previous experience of this on our products. It is also extremely unlikely the film hasn't been cured, as it would have been noticed a lot earlier. We are reluctant to suggest changing anything at the moment unless Zero88 report further instances of this from other customers. We've made a lot of these fascias. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> So there you have it! Paul.

Hi Paul, Are you using the desk with an external VGA monitor? As No1_Moose suggests, the Outputs screen will show you the exact levels of all 48 channels, plus a colour coded indication of whether they are fading up or down. The LEDs in the flash buttons could only ever show you 24 channels at a time, and could only be On or Off (they can't be dimmed I'm afraid). Regards, Paul.

The LEDs in the Channel Flash buttons are used to indicate channel selection in Autopatch -> Selected (Super User), and also (on the moving lights desks) to indicate programmed Palettes and Groups. See also THIS TOPIC and THIS TOPIC. [There are only flash buttons under the Preset B faders on the Frog series, which are toggled between 1-24 and 25-48 using the Shift button. Bullfrog users read 1-48 and 49-96. If you've really got some Preset A buttons/LEDs - wow ] edit: fixed links

As Peter says, this can already be done in the Desk Defaults -> Submasters menu in Super User. Do you really need the default default :? to be 0? Off-topic a bit but related (came up the other day when testing 9.8 ), the default default dwell time on the desk (Desk Defaults -> Memory) is 3.0s, however the manual says it is 0.0s. Any preferences which one of these would be the most useful, so we can correct either the software or the manual?

Frog Reference 5387 - Fixture assignment from floppy disk - corruption of data. Bug to be fixed in next release. This seems only to occur when the 'Assign' button is pressed for a fixture which has already been assigned from floppy disk to no more than one fixture on the desk. The fault behaviour varies from blank names, to corrupted text, to blue screen of death, to white screen of death (eeek!) This one has lain dormant for 2.5 years, until the day after we release 9.8, when someone rings up and describes exactly the circumstances required to reproduce the problem...!!

There are some issues to do with editing palettes containing movement effects, which will be cleared up in the next software release. Unfortunately it is not possible to record Positions and Movements independantly. As with all other partial recording to parameter level issues, the user interface controls on the desk just aren't available to select which parameters are recorded and which aren't. I know I'm in danger of re-awakening old arguments from the regulars by repeating this 8) However :wink: if you call up a position palette containing the centre positions (and any or no movement - doesn't matter), then set the movement effect parameters using the wheels so they're NOT showing Pxx (xx is the palette number), then what will be recorded into your Memory/Submaster/SX will be the centre position from your palette plus a non-paletted movement effect. To quickly stop the movement effect when editing Memories / Submasters / SXs, just change the effect to 'None'. Then when you're done editing the centre position, put the effect back to Ellipse/Quad/Tri/Figure8, and save your edits.

Wouldn't really work, the CPU trying to guess when the console is idle. You could be just about to hit the 'Go' button, or play back a submaster/SX/palette, when the desk does the autosave! Besides, if you've just edited something, and the battery backed RAM has filled up, the desk needs somewhere to put the changes, so it has to flush the battery backed RAM to FLASH at that point. The time taken to load/save a show is a combination of the time required to access the data and the time taken to process it. For accessing the data, the loading is faster than the saving. Conversely for processing the data, the saving is faster than the loading. On Phantom Frog, the processing performance will depend on the spec of your PC. The accessing performance will be significantly quicker than the desk as you have a hard disk rather than Flash memory. However we chose not to use hard disks in the desk because of noise/reliability/cost issues. I'm sure if we didn't have the battery backed RAM buffering changes, and relied on the user to manually write the changes from the DRAM to FLASH, then there'd be an awful lot of annoyed people on the phone to us grumbling they'd lost hours of programming because someone else dropped the power just before they'd saved the changes. We think the way it works now is the best compromise. Just out of interest - what sort of Show file sizes are other users regularly coming up with on the different desks for different show types? Would be interesting to know, just to allow us to size the amount of storage we provide in desks of the future. Might be a bit off-topic here, I risk K-Nine splitting the thread at this point I know... 8)

There is a known bug in replaying palettes, in that all selected fixtures are auto-tagged, instead of just those which are actually recorded in the palette. This can lead to confusion as to what is recorded in the palette, and is I believe the root cause of Frog Reference 5509 (CLICK HERE), although if anyone can prove otherwise I'd be interested to hear. Yep, genuine bug this one. When the wheels are showing "Pxx" (where xx is the palette number), moving the wheels should 'pick-up' the value in the palette for editing. However this doesn't currently work for the Movement Effect (Shape), Size X, Size Y, Offset, and Rotation parameters. You get silly numbers instead. Frog Reference 5513 - When using the wheels to edit Movement effects from palettes, the values should begin at the values in the palette Frog Reference 5505 - When a movement effect is running on a fixture this is not reflected in the movement effect parameters on the wheel LCD - they show No effect , size = 0 etc. The desk has to do much more thinking when loading the show than when saving it. It has all sorts of internal tables to build up from the data in the showfile. This affects both the real Frogs and the Phantom Frog. The Phantom Frog is much quicker at saving the show though, since it doesn't have to write to internal Flash memory like the desk does.

The not-quite-so-bright fixtures LCD is due to the software being too mean on the maximum brightness that it will drive that display at. The explanation goes something like this... Early fixtures LCDs that we were supplied with were of the array-LED backlight type. More recent fixtures LCDs that we have been supplied with are of the edge-LED backlight type. The latter type requires a slightly higher drive, hence the FR, which will increase the allowable brightness of the fixtures LCD in the next software release. The slight dimming of the display seen when the floppy motors run is quite normal and nothing to worry about. All desks have always done it. As with all motors, the floppy drive motors draw a fair amount of current when starting. I've never noticed any of the panel LEDs flicker though, I'll watch out for that one. The speaker connector was fitted for when the same motherboard was used in the Illusion 120/240. Since we discontinued these products, the latest version of the motherboard has this connector removed. Similar story for the Mouse connector, which is used in the Illusion 120/240 and Illusion 500. It also makes an appearance on the Frog Box, however isn't currently used there. Edit: The issue with desk lights is covered in THIS POST. The desk light pinout information is now in the latest issue of the Frog manuals. Have a look in the back under 'Technical Specification'.

I suspect there's a good reason behind this, like being able to select just the chase on the memory stack for live editing, and still being able to use the submaster / sx flash buttons as normal. I'm sure K-Nine will fill us in on the thinking here tomorrow. Anyhow, how many button pushes did it take you to post this on the forum? You could have saved them for use on the desk