Simonkbike

Thanks Jon. Yes, I see now. Apologies to Ed, I misunderstood the switch on/off yesterday. S

I'm playing a live music show for first time; I usually run a fully programmed cue stack for theatrical productions. Following Ed's advice in video training for "Limited programming time", I have recorded an intensity-only playback and intend to switch colours & position using palettes. At 24:15 in video (using an FLX desk), Ed puts "Programmer time" on a spare playback to adjust the fade time between palettes. I've recorded this option to a playback on my Solution but it has no effect when I select a new colour or position palette. Can this fade time be adjusted on Solution desk? Even setting it to a single, longer value would help. NB. emailed this to support as didn't know forum was back working but think they must be busy. Cheers, Simon

Getting error messages on boot so looks like I need to replace the battery. I found this topic in Orb section Battery Replacement which seems to have a good suggestion. Can't find if it's been actioned or do we still need to email support? NB - my old iPad won't display the Solution drawing .DWG file from website - maybe a PDF version? Cheers S

Apologies for not responding, been offline for a few days. Dozy operator error; of course you need to regen colour palettes. Thanks, S.

Patched some new fixtures into Solution desk (os 7.8.1.2). ETC Colorsource PARs and Prolights StudioCob PlusFC using standard library. I can control intensity but colour selections having no effect on Output levels - stuck at RGB @100, W@0. Any obvious troubleshooting? Cheers, Simon

Hi, I've watched some of the training videos you're streaming and, although naturally based on the FLX board, they will be useful to us Solution users too. Most of the time it's fairly to translate to Solution but there must be some command or syntax that's less obvious or impossible. It would be helpful to have a translation grid of which FLX commands work on Solution desk ( & maybe other models) and which don't, and how to convert instructions from FLX to Solution. Cheers Simon

Hi, Trying to find or create a fixture file for some generic RGBW moving head fixtures for use with Solution desk running 7.9.4 ZeroOS. I have looked at Stagg MHB-HH20 which is nearly the same, containing pan, tilt, RGBW colours and in 9CH and 14Ch modes as is my unit. Struggling with the Fixture Editor assigning my "Master Dimmer" parameter to a fader. In my manual, the "Brightness" channel is split into three DMX address sub-sections : 0-7 = OFF 8-134 = Master Dimmer 135-239 = Strobe 240-255 = Open I seem to recall there's a way to assign the sub-addresses 8-134 to separate channels but struggling to work it out tonight. Might also be helpful to put the Strobe on a separate channel. Any help gratefully received to create a file with the sub-address assigned to a fader. Thanks all, Simon PS. When I get it connected there may be more questions !

Hm. Not how it seemed to be working for me but I was using a showfile from the old version of Solution 7.1? With the Master fader up and a Master Playback cue active, fading up Playback 1 had no effect (even though light X had value 0 under Master playback and value 100 under Playback 1). Fading down the Master Playback effectively cross-faded between the Master Cue and Playback one. I tried deleting the old showfile and building a new one from scratch and this time it worked as you describe, so I think this may be something about the old showfile with new software. I've recorded this effect here in case it's of any use to other users. I'll send a copy of the showfile offline.

So it's Panto time and I'm back on the Solution desk after 12 months off, freshly upgraded to 7.9.3, and trying to decipher my notes from the training day at Cwmbran. Questions likely to be coming from every rehearsal, starting with... How do I play in a sub-playback while I'm running a master playback? The Master fader must be up for master playback but down for sub-playback. Thanks in advance & Merry Christmas to all on here. Simon

Evening, Location is a village hall, mainly traditional lanterns on 4 lighting bars, bank of Chilli dimmers (one=12x; one=24x; 1=4x), all controlled through a Solution desk. The 4 channel box provides a switched supply (no dimmer) to a socket at each bar; i.e. with a dmx signal >0, the power is on. I don't have access to the original installation specs but it was circa 2010. Q1: I checked that the dimmer law is showing "normal" so can I assume that these are the "bypass switches" on the Chilli product range rather than dimmers? How else would I confirm this? The problem is that I need to use this to power the couple of LED fixtures we have, with the result that every fade to blackout powers the LED off/on causing a brief flash. I know it would be best to provide separate permanent power supply to the lighting bars, but with no budget it ain't going to happen, so I have to work with the feed through the Chilli boxes. My current thought is.... Q2) Can I remove the DMX control from a single channel and switch the power directly on/off at the Chilli box? I read the Chilli manual (but I quickly got lost) and tried setting a channel to manual, level=100 to no effect (the Solution desk remained the only way of switching the channel), so if anyone can provide step-by-step instructions, that would be great. New to this stuff so any alt suggestions welcome (apart from re-wiring!) S.

Hi All, I am hiring in 3 LED battens (Miltec EA8090 with up to 13 channels but the only spec I can find is from Viking hire here which may or may not apply). I thought I'd get ahead on PhantomZerOS and learn how to program some chases & other effects. I've read Jon's post on Pulse LED Block which helps but hit some snag for very inexperienced DMX programmer. Patching How do you patch the 4 RGB segments to MFKs and the intensity to a fader, if the unit expects all 13 channels to be contiguous? From the EA8090 spec, I think I need a control channel, then the 4 RGB segments - does that mean the control channel goes on an MFK as well. Effects When I get the patching done, I need to start getting to grips with effects. If anyone has some sample show files with these programmed I'd be grateful for a look. Simon Solution desk.

Thanks for swift replies. I can see now that : 1) is actually in the manual but I didn't read it well enough 2) isn't; so thanks to @ziglight for that 3) I get the gist of your suggestions but I'll need to play around with the desk to get the hang of it. I like @kgallen idea of grouping the "other" lights I'm going to dim for the "shudder" to a sub, which I can use to quickly create the chase. I'm the first lighting tech to program a show for our productions, my predecessor was doing it for 30 years and only ever used Subs and flew the board by the seat of his pants (with variable results). I'm still trying to work out these sort of shortcuts to programming a show so we can make that the new "normal" way of running the lights. If anyone has suggestions for resources/tutorials on I'd be happy to hear them. Many thanks, S.

Hi All, I know I can go to Zero88 support, but I thought posting here might help other newbies like me. Just to be clear, I'm newbie lighting tech for a village hall theatre group running 28 fixed lights (through Chilli dimmers) and a couple of LED par 64s controlled by a Solution desk. We do hire in Fixtures when there's a need. I've done the day course at Cwmbran (highly recommended) but there's quite a lot it, and the manual, doesn't cover. I'm finding it difficult to understand why & when (not just how) you'd use a feature and particularly how to best program our fixed lights. So here goes ... 1) Patching my LEDs, after I've done the first one, is there a quick way to copy a second fixture of the same type to another MFK or do I have to patch each fixture individually? 2) How can I create a Group of dimmers (I get an "All Dimmers" group from the Auto Menu but I want to group some of my dimmers - say the Cyc Floods - to control them as a unit) 3) My Panto (Jack & the Beanstalk) needs a lighting effect whenever the Giant is about to speak, all the stage lights (i.e the Cyc floods & some of the lights illuminating the stage, but not the profiles on the main characters) should "shudder" & then dim to, say 70%. What's the easiest way to create this shudder effect? (I'm thinking a chase, but I suspect I should be using palettes to apply a quick series of intensity changes to a group of dimmers? How do I do this, and how can I apply the same effect in another scene when my stage lights are at different intensities? Probably enough for now; I expect there will be more to come!. Not sure if this would be better split into separate posts. Simon

Sorry for not updating this, in case anyone else is searching the forum. The answer was as Jon suggested, the DMX addressing on one of the Chilli racks had been reset, so 2 racks were set to the same DMX channels. S.

Any reason why my Solution can't find a fixture file on my USB stick? I adapted a fixture file to create one for a LEDJ Alu Par 64. Put it on the same USB stick I used to backup show files. When I try to load the file it doesn't show up. File attached. LEDJ DMX spec is at prolight.co.uk/images/media/LEDJ110/LEDJ110-um0.pdf Any suggestions? S, Sorry, not sure if this should be here or in Fixtures section. LEDJ ALU PAR 64.ift

Hi Jon, Thanks for the swift reply. I found out this evening that the hall has been used by a pro group shooting a video so I'm beginning to suspect they've been mucking about with the addresses as you suggest. Had another read through the Chilli manual online (Page26) and I think I understand a bit more about setting the channel addresses (Top Menu >> DMX Controls >> Set DMX Patch). It doesn't specifically have "View" instructions - if I enter a channel number, will it show me what DMX address it is currently set to? Do I assume the channels are numbered top to bottom of the rack? I'll need to set each channel individually to match the wiring number. (sorry to ask daft questions, but it'll be late evening before I get another chance to sort it out and you'll all be a-bed!) S.

Hi, Firstly, I'm a very newbie to this so go simply and slowly with any advice and excuse any wrong vocabulary. We have a Solution control desk linked to suite of Chilli dimmers (about 30 dimmers in 2 racks and a 3rd rack with straight switches). All our lights are old non-fixtures (mix of fresnels, Pars and spots) and the Chilli dimmers and their associated power circuits are all numbered so no confusion about connection between control fader >> chilli dimmer >> light. Setup has worked fine for a couple of years, certainly when I last used it for a production in January. So far as I know it's not been touched since. Today, I found that some faders on the control desk are working the wrong lights. e.g. fader 1 brings on light 1 and light 26. These are on different physical lighting bars so no confusion about which sockets they're plugged into. Just in case, I installed the current ZeroOS upgrade (to 7.8?) but that had no effect. So: 1) Can't find instructions in Chilli manual to set/confirm DMX channel for each dimmer in the rack. 2) Lots of instructions for patching fixtures for the Solution but couldn't recognise anything to help me. How do I diagnose what's wrong? Thanks, Simon.