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What console do I have...?


drscoop

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Firstly, Ed and team, thanks for all the video training sessions recently - despite having had the console for over a year now, I've learnt a whole lot of productivity and time saving tips from these...

Second - hopefully not as daft a question as the title suggests - following the setup video on DMX Universes, I was discussing with the team here the possibility of future upgrades to a 2 universe desk - we bought a 1 universe FLX S24, model 0020-000022-00, vs the 2 universe -000023-00 version.  Or so we thought...

On digging around, I appear to be able to output DMX independently on both XLRs, as 2 discrete universes.  I wondered if we'd been shipped a -000023-00 version instead, but it seems we have a 000018-00??  So, I'm curious - what type of desk do we have, how many universes and, therefore, how many DMX channels can we work with?  I can't find any record of this model number.  Is there anything else this model can, or cannot do, that is worth being aware of?

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Hello,

2 hours ago, drscoop said:

Firstly, Ed and team, thanks for all the video training sessions recently - despite having had the console for over a year now, I've learnt a whole lot of productivity and time saving tips from these...

Really glad to hear you’ve found the training sessions useful. 

2 hours ago, drscoop said:

On digging around, I appear to be able to output DMX independently on both XLRs, as 2 discrete universes.

Yep, that’s correct on both a 1 universe and 2 universe FLX S. The difference between a 1 and 2 universe console is the number of DMX channels you can patch. Therefore a 1 universe console has a maximum of 512 channels, and 2 universe console has a maximum of 1024 channels. These channels however, can be patched across 64 universes - in SETUP -> Universes you’ll see all 64 universes listed, which you can configure to route from the console.

As an example you could patch half the channels on universe 1, and the other half on universe 2 on a 1 universe FLX S - or indeed fill both universes on a 2 universe FLX S. I hope that clears things up- let me know if you’d like me to elaborate. 

2 hours ago, drscoop said:

it seems we have a 000018-00??  So, I'm curious - what type of desk do we have, how many universes and, therefore, how many DMX channels can we work with?  I can't find any record of this model number. 

Where abouts are you seeing this number in the serial number? That is the order code for a Chilli 12 dimmer! Feel free to email me a picture of your serial number if you’d like me to confirm. 

Hope this helps, if you have any questions let me know. 

Edward

Edward Smith
Product Specialist

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Hi Edward,

I took the S/N off the Desk Info, after tapping the "Z" key..

If that's correct, your Chilli dimmers are very easy to programme! :)  I'm now even more intrigued as to the desk's serial number!

 

Edited by Edward- Z88
Removed image of serial number.
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Hello,

Thanks for confirming. I have deleted your images just to keep your serial number hidden.

I see where the confusion lies:

 

2 hours ago, drscoop said:

we bought a 1 universe FLX S24, model 0020-000022-00, vs the 2 universe -000023-00 version. 

These numbers are the part codes of FLX S variants, listed below...

https://zero88.com/control/flxs#partcodes

2 hours ago, drscoop said:

it seems we have a 000018-00

This is the part of the console's serial number which defines the product, which is different to the part code. You can find this below by clicking Enter details manually...

https://zero88.com/upgrade/

Apologies for any confusion, if you have any questions let me know.

Edward

Edward Smith
Product Specialist

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1 minute ago, drscoop said:

Though I couldn’t seem to retrieve the part no. from the link you referred to, only an option to upgrade.  

 

11 minutes ago, Edward- Z88 said:

You can find this below by clicking Enter details manually...

https://zero88.com/upgrade/

After clicking Enter Details manually, you should see a drop down menu. In the drop down shows the starts of the serial numbers. 

Edward

Edward Smith
Product Specialist

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Just to 100% clarify the situation...

To reduce waste, environmental impact and cost, we don't ship a UK, Schuko and US cable in every box.

However, we also don't stock separate consoles with separate cables - as that would be frustrating if you were a UK customer, but we only had stock of the European variant.

Therefore, we ship "packages" which include a "base model" console (without a cable) and the relevant cable. This is where the confusion is.

17 hours ago, drscoop said:

we bought a 1 universe FLX S24, model 0020-000022-00

This is the code you ordered. When you order this code, you received a "package" of a FLX S24 (0020-000018-00) and a 13a UK to IEC cable (CC0010311)

17 hours ago, drscoop said:

but it seems we have a 000018-00

This is the code of the console itself (not including the cable).

15 hours ago, Edward- Z88 said:

That is the order code for a Chilli 12 dimmer!

The confusion here is that the first four digits were missing from the code:

0001-000018-00 is Chilli Pro 12 - 10A MCBs: With Bypass

0020-000018-00 is FLX S24 1U (base model, without cable)

 

Writing it out like this makes it sound unnecessarily confusing - but we've done this for many years, it works really well, and very rarely causes an issue.

Jon Hole
Global Product Manager, Systems and Control

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22 hours ago, Edward- Z88 said:

This is covered from about 20 minutes in. 

Edward

(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!)

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Hi Kevin,

3 hours ago, kgallen said:

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').

These were announced on the home page of the website, and also on our social media channels.

Take a look at https://www.zero88.com/live for more information. 

3 hours ago, kgallen said:

(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!)

Hahaha!! No I think I’ll avoid the Zero 88 lockdown facial hair.

I’ve been Edward. 

Edward Smith
Product Specialist

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10 minutes ago, Edward- Z88 said:

These were announced on the home page of the website

I've got a store full of Z88 product to be going on with so the home page is not somewhere I visit much (unless you've designed a new one and point me there to comment on it).

10 minutes ago, Edward- Z88 said:

and also on our social media channels.

Don't do Facebook or Twitter.

So maybe worth dropping a post into News and Announcements on the Forum for this sort of thing?

Thanks, Kevin

 

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Hi Kevin,

Apologies you didn’t see these. They were very popular and it would have been great for you to have joined us. 

6 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Don't do Facebook or Twitter.

So maybe worth dropping a post into News and Announcements on the Forum for this sort of thing?

We certainly can for any future sessions. We were originally running the sessions over Zoom. We then live streamed them, so they are now available to watch back, so the main thing is you haven’t missed any content!

Cheers,

Edward

 

Edward Smith
Product Specialist

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3 minutes ago, Edward- Z88 said:

We certainly can for any future sessions. We were originally running the sessions over Zoom. We then live streamed them, so they are now available to watch back, so the main thing is you haven’t missed any content!

Thanks! Zoom - that's another one (popular at the moment). I'm all video-conferenced out at the moment, using WebEx, Google Hangouts, Cisco Jabber and now Zoom!

I'm currently having a Z88 feeding frenzy on YouTube. Tyler is up at the moment and doing a sterling job! You chaps should invest in some microphones though - either some USB headset/mics or some half-decent USB table-top condensers. There is a lot of room ambience on the recordings because I guess you're using laptop internal mics, which makes them hard work, although I'm using a headset which helps a lot. Also the graphics/legends on Phantom are really totally unclear - even with the YouTube maximised on a large 1920x1080 monitor they are all unreadable - and the "External Monitor" pane is not much better. I know the desk, but it would be tough for a newcomer to try and keep track.

Anyway keep up the good work and keep safe.

Kevin

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Hi Kevin,

4 minutes ago, kgallen said:

I'm currently having a Z88 feeding frenzy on YouTube. Tyler is up at the moment and doing a sterling job!

Thanks for the feedback. 

4 minutes ago, kgallen said:

You chaps should invest in some microphones though - either some USB headset/mics or some half-decent USB table-top condensers.

We did have an issue with background noise in the FLX session. Hopefully you should find the audio of the others is better?

4 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Also the graphics/legends on Phantom are really totally unclear - even with the YouTube maximised on a large 1920x1080 monitor they are all unreadable - and the "External Monitor" pane is not much better. I know the desk, but it would be tough for a newcomer to try and keep track.

We deliberately made the front panel window small as it wasn’t needed (other than for pushing up faders) - the buttons required to be pressed were named in the session. At 720p resolution the external monitor window seems to be clear for me in the videos. Some of the small fonts are a little broken but still legible. 

Any questions let me know.

Edward

Edward Smith
Product Specialist

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4 minutes ago, Edward- Z88 said:

At 720p resolution the external monitor window seems to be clear for me in the videos. Some of the small fonts are a little broken but still legible. 

You gotta be kidding! We know what the buttons say, but Home, Setup etc, each letter gotta be 3 pixels by 3 pixels at best! And if you can read REC or DBO then you're "makin' it up"!

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3 minutes ago, kgallen said:

You gotta be kidding! We know what the buttons say, but Home, Setup etc, each letter gotta be 3 pixels by 3 pixels at best! And if you can read REC or DBO then you're "makin' it up"!

On the external monitor window? I can see that fine. The front panel is not readable.

image.thumb.png.8b9b6c17daabfc1c214faa0d4bef238c.png

 

Edward Smith
Product Specialist

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Yea you're spot on with the External Monitor - readable but a little broken up. Yes it's the front panel that is wholly unreadable - but even Phantom running on your PC, we know the front panel is pretty bad/unreadable.

I have a paid-for Capture 2019 license - I really need to try hooking that up to FLX like you guys do (I need to find one of your videos). I do find that software a bit clunky to set up a rig on though. I've tried to demo ideas to our directors but it was a bit of a PITA. Not very intuitive I find and pretty clumsy to position and move stuff. Must have taken you hours to rig those 10 movers and that band on the YouTube demos I'm watching.

Or maybe I'm just useless at that too...

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16 minutes ago, kgallen said:

I have a paid-for Capture 2019 license - I really need to try hooking that up to FLX like you guys do (I need to find one of your videos).

The nice thing about Capture, is it is pretty “plug and play”, when you have your console and laptop in IP range. If you want to be lazy, just connect your laptop and console to a router, and then the laptop and CITP protocol on the console can both just be set to DHCP with no need to configure IP addresses. You then just need to match your patch. 

See the article below on how to configure your console to communicate with our demo files...

http://support.zero88.com/1004254221

If you want to connect Phantom with Capture on the same PC, as we were doing for the training, see below...

http://support.zero88.com/988883201
 

16 minutes ago, kgallen said:

I do find that software a bit clunky to set up a rig on though. I've tried to demo ideas to our directors but it was a bit of a PITA. Not very intuitive I find and pretty clumsy to position and move stuff. Must have taken you hours to rig those 10 movers and that band on the YouTube demos I'm watching.

 

I personally really like Capture, and find it easy to use - I have been using visualisation software for quite a while now though. 

Drag in the truss, drag pieces and they snap together, then drag in your fixture, snap to the truss, copy it, and duplicate it across X, Y or Z axis with even spacing. 

If you have any questions let me know. 

Edward

Edward Smith
Product Specialist

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Cheers Edward. I would just bring the FLX into the house and plug into a spare port on a switch on my house network (192.168.x.x), so sounds like with DHCP it should be easy to play. Thanks for the article refs.

Guess I need to work with it a bit more to get it "second nature". I think the bit I found hardest was setting up the stage environment - getting the pros in place, getting the bars in the right place, getting the tabs, cyc and wings into place and the right height. Placing the fixtures I agree is not so bad apart from the 3D aspect - I always seem to end up dropping a fixture onto completely the wrong bar!

I think I need a trip over to Cwmbran some time when we're past this madness...

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Hi Kevin,

A good place to start with Capture is by using one of the predefined performance spaces - you can drag in a proscenium stage for example and define all the dimensions. 

12 hours ago, kgallen said:

Placing the fixtures I agree is not so bad apart from the 3D aspect - I always seem to end up dropping a fixture onto completely the wrong bar!

That’s definitely something you have to get the hang of! I tend to have an overhead window, a front on window, a rendered window (shortcut Ctrl-X) and the settings window. The front on window I then toggle sometimes to the side on view depending what I’m doing.

Hope this helps,

Edward

Edward Smith
Product Specialist

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