setting up Jester 24/48 to operate Performer 18 rgbwa

[davey4]

Hello, I have experience from decades ago of operating and programming strand galaxy boards and have been asked to assist a small theatre group with their new Jester 24/48 board. I'm out of touch with the technology and could do with an 'idiot's guide'. Any recommended reading? Their rig consists of several ledj performer 18 rgbwa lamps, How, for example, do I set up the 24/48 to control colour functions? Any help would be appreciated. As I said, it's been a long time since I was involved with lighting so please forgive my ignorance. Thanks

[kgallen]

Is it a "vanilla" Jester 24/48 (i.e. not an ML or TL?).

 

If so you'll have to map the channels of the LED fixture to individual faders since that desk does not have support for "intelligent" fixtures. You need to count up how many DMX channels you need - so how many "normal" (generic) lights on dimmers do you have (if any) and how many channels do you need to get the granularity of control you need for the LED fixtures.

 

So the manual for the LEDJs is here: http://prolight.co.uk/images//media/LEDJ252A/LEDJ252A-um0.pdf

 

Each LEDJ unit has either a 5 channel or 9 channel mode, so will take either 5 or 9 DMX addresses. You could "parallel" more than one of these units to keep down the channel count required. What that means is set the DMX address to the same on more than one fixture, but this means that one fader will control say the Red LED on all of those "parallel" units. If you must have individual control of every colour in every unit then you are going to eat through your 48 channel maximum capability very quickly. More so if you need the fancy features and choose to use the 9 channel mode on one or more units.

 

You can use the Jester in either a 2-preset 24-channel setup or a 1-preset 48-channel setup. And of course you can program your show into a cue stack with 48 channels available per cue.

 

Let us know if any of that makes sense then we can elaborate more. It would be useful if you could have a think/research you total channel needs based on what other lighting you have, how many LED units you have and what compromises you can accept on individual control of colours in a unit.

 

And of course the Jester manual is here to have a read of: http://www.zero88.com/manuals/7340300_jestermanual_3_4.pdf

[jamief42]

Hey - Just read this - i'm at a school with a Jester 12/24 desk.  I've just bought some LED Par Cans here: https://www.astounded.com/shop/ledj-intense-9p10-rgbaw-led-slim-par-can-light/

Really silly question but having set each lamp to D001 (9channels), D0010, D0019 etc how do i get the lighting board to recognise those lamps?

Sorry for being dense. ANy help appreciated. 

 

[kgallen]

Jester 12/24 doesn’t have any concept of a complex fixture. You have 24 DMX channels to use across those fixtures plus any others you have so you can’t run them all independently in 9 channel mode as that would require 27 DMX channels. Either choose a lower channel count mode on the fixtures or use the same DMX start address on two or more.