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Dear Forum Members, Some of you may have heard already, but to make it official, after 29 years I am leaving Zero 88 or Vari-Lite as we are now. My last day is Thursday 28th March. Since I started with Zero 88 way back in August 1995, as production test technician, testing both the PCB and complete units for the classics like the Sirius 24/48, Betapack Mk1, Rackmasters to name few, have seen many changes through mergers and acquisitions. I am proud to have been part of them and am looking forward to seeing what the future holds for the company. To those of you i have met personally, sorry about that …..not 😉 Those i have spoken or exchanged post/mail with, lucky you, got away lightly then 😉 In all seriousness, thanks to you all for the support and kind words over the years. I wish you all the best for the future, and will leave you in In Edward and Jon’s capable care.

Just a quick note to wish you all a very Happy Christmas! Thank you for being part of our little community this year, for helping each other, for helping us find & fix bugs, and generally bringing a smile to our faces - it’s a pleasure to read through the posts here! Look forward to continuing in 2024!

Dear All, We’re excited to announce the availability of ZerOS 7.14.1, a new update for consoles and servers running the ZerOS Operating System. New software features include: Move On Dark now follows "Next" cue jumps. The Grand Master can now behave as an additional playback Playbacks can be prevented from looping. Clear Fixture is now available on all consoles. + 51 other enhancements and bug fixes Please see the ZerOS 7.14.1 Release Notes for full details. Click here to download ZerOS 7.14.1, Phantom ZerOS 7.14.1 (offline editor) and ZerOS 7.14.1 Release Notes. The ZerOS Online Manual has been updated to reflect these changes. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at support@zero88.com

just installed 7.14.1 on my flx. Indeed ready in time for the next winter show. 😃 I sort of prepared the desk already for this show (only patch, groups, and some macro's/udk's/ special faders) in 7.14. The update seems successful, no problems at reloading the show . Next monday we start programming and rehearsals. Rig of 28 movers, 20 led batterns and 36 to 40 dimmers. Let's rock. 😁

Dear All, We’re excited to announce the availability of ZerOS 7.14, a new update for consoles and servers running the ZerOS Operating System. New software features include: MIDI Show Control now supports multiple playbacks Unused channel & playback pages are "hidden" Updates to Macros OSC (Open Sound Control) Dynamic playback button LED flash rates DMX In now available on FLX & FLX S RS485 Vision.Net + 116 other enhancements and bug fixes Please see the ZerOS 7.14 Release Notes for full details. Click here to download ZerOS 7.14, Phantom ZerOS 7.14 (offline editor) and ZerOS 7.14 Release Notes. The ZerOS Online Manual has been updated to support all the new features. ZerOS 7.14 update overview video: If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at support@zero88.com

I think the thing worrying me and probably others is this... Whatever the actual organisation behind you, Edward and Keith our impression is of a group of friendly, contactable people who actually understand the products. While we know people move on, get promoted and so on and that it might not be the same to three forever we have always had continuity of that. If support were ever to be rolled into one, all brand, call centre type arrangement, "disappointed" wouldn't even start to cover my reaction. It would certainly remove my basis for choosing and recommending Zero88 or anything from the same stable with a different badge. Yes, your products are good - but so are others. In my mind your USP is the support. Strand, and later Zero88 have been there throughout my lighting career. I've seen Strand go from the mighty driving force to a shadow of its former glory but Zero88 has carried on. Losing this name as well will be very sad. Not a rational argument I agree but without Zero88 as a concept what is there to be customer-loyal to?

That's certainly our plan - we have a lot of plans on the table which we're working through. To be clear, the OS is not "frozen" for FLX... there will continue to be ongoing software updates for FLX & FLX S. After ZerOS 7.15, we are "freezing" the OS for Leap Frog 48 & 96, ORB, ORB XF and Solution. Bingo! Yes, that was when we "relaunched" the Leap Frog 48 & 96 console as Solution. Not as part of ZerOS 7.15, but potentially in the future (after tweaking it!).

Hi, The power is always provided through the triac, so is implicitly "dimmed" even if the channel is at full. Betapack2 does not have a bypass or "non-dim" circuit. The test output level is hard-coded in the design - it's notionally "@FUL" but this is not the same as direct undimmed AC. This is not recommended as explained above this is still a notionally "dimmed" output and will be chopped by the output triac, even if only to 1-2% - i.e. it's not clean AC. Your LED fixtures will almost certainly use a switched-mode powersupply, which will not take kindly to an "unclean" AC supply. Unfortunately you need to get installed some "hard power" (i.e. normal mains AC) outlets, correctly protected for overcurrent and overload (and probably with RCD), into your venue, with which to supply your LEDs. (I do sympathise, I've had to do the same thing - my main venue has Betapack1 and Betapack2). Google is your friend. I just searched and found them straight away. Zero88 will not provide these to you and you need to self-certify that you are competent to use the information from a safety point of view. ...but you will find what I describe above and your electrician friend should conclude the same.

Hi, Have created the two attached profiles for you to cover this. i think the mystery channel maybe a speed control for the colour change channel so may only work when that is set to certain values. LED 4 & 8ch.ift

You must use the ML one if you have Jester ML!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and good pantos to everyone and particularly to all at Z88 - IMHO the best support in the business.

Brilliant thankyou there's no chillinet panels at all but will give Keith a call soon as I get chance thanks again for your help much appreciated 👍

I expect someone from zero88 will be along in the morning with better advice but, in the meantime, can I pick up on a couple of things that I'm pretty sure they will ask about. If the desk isn't connected to the packs then it cannot be responsible for things that start after it is disconnected. Worse case scenario here is that the dimmer packs 'remember' the last state before the disconnection. Not sure if your packs do this, Z88 person will, no doubt, confirm. Do you leave your dimmer packs on 24/7? This isn't a good idea in any case, they are using current even when they are at zero% on the desk an there's generally current going through anything attached to them. If nothing else this is bad for the electricity bill. If they are off they can't go silly at 3am either. Lastly, it's a long shot, but mention roughly where you are. There's a chance there's an experienced forum member in your vicinity who would be willing to take a look at your set up. I'm Milton Keynes based myself if you are somewhere near me.

Finding stuff like the Online manual is a PITA (it was bad enough before VariLite, now it's... more work than it should be, it's not under Support that I can find, not easily anyway, so then it's dig around under Products...). Could you add a ZerOS online manual link in the Forum header - the banner with Homepage / Forums / All Activity / ... ZerOS Online Manual. Or maybe even more generically "Manuals" then we can find stuff for Frog etc quickly too 😉 Pretty please? 🙂

Hoorahhhh! - at long last :¬) Nice to see you all again

Dear All, We’re excited to announce the availability of ZerOS 7.12, a new update for consoles and servers running the ZerOS Operating System. New Features include: KiNET support Vision.Net support Philips Hue support Updated fonts & improved font rendering ZerOS Library 3.2 Various enhancements and bug fixes Please see the Release Notes for full details. The Online Manual has also been updated to support all the new features: https://zero88.com/manuals/zeros ZerOS 7.12, Phantom ZerOS 7.12 (offline editor) and the Release Notes can be found at zero88.com/zeros If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at support@zero88.com Kind regards, Jon

Ouch. OK, so there's no quick or easy fix for this, at least not if you have any fixtures that are not connected to dimmers. I'm guessing you aren't a specialist theatre technician either so I'll keep this simple. Before you can start patching, you need to know what you have to patch. Unless your school is surprisingly state of the art I'd expect most of your fixtures are plugged into dimmers. These will just have a power lead - no DMX connection so you can probably spot them from ground level. If they are all like that then you can breathe a sigh of relief, 90% of the problem has gone away. First off, find your dimmers. In a school, I'd expect to find a number of boxes looking something like this (which is the newest version, preceded by 3 previous generations). Of course it may not be Zero88 - other manufacturers, including Strand, made similar products (i.e. a box with a dozen sockets on the front with some sort of control/fuse/circuit breaker panel alongside). There will be a very thick power cable going into the box and a thinner control cable. You might find things like this instead - smaller boxes, less sockets but still with a mains cable and a control cable. Look at the plug on the thin control cable if it is a 3 or 5 pin XLR then your dimmers are (probably) DMX controlled - follow that control cable back, it should go to the desk, possibly via a section buried in the wall. It may go to another dimmer box, if it does then follow the control cable going into that until you get to the first one (the one where the cable goes somewhere else). If that first connection does go to the desks then smile and skip the next 2 paragraphs. You may have hardwired dimmers like these but, as it's a school I feel it's unlikely. If you have then what follows still applies (sort of) but you won't be able to see or follow the wires. If you are in this situation try and establish the make/model if your dimmers and come back. If, however, the control cable is an XLR but it goes to a different kind of box (not dimmers) you need to identify what that box is. One with a network connection might be an ArtNet node. No network connection but two incoming XLRs and one outgoing is possibly a DMX merger. No network, one incoming XLR and two or more outlet sockets is probably a DMX splitter. All of these are good, they may give you headaches in the future but not with this issue. Skip the next paragraph. If aren't skipping this paragraph then you probably have (very) old analogue dimmers, probably using non-XLR connectors. This sort of connection means there must be one or more DMX to analogue converters sitting between them and the desk. These will have an address, probably set with rotary or DIP switches. You can follow the next paragraph to establish what the addresses are but look at the converter boxes, not the dimmers. First, take a moment to contemplate the level of spending on such things in education and to check that the dimmers at least have reasonably recent PAT test stickers and make suitable arrangements if they haven't after all they have to be multiple decades old. Yo can also marvel at how good the engineering was that they have survived so long. OK so now you have one or more boxes that have addresses, you just need to know what they are. Ideally you should have the manual and you may be able to get it from the manufacturer's website or somewhere like manualslib. If you can't find the manual then look carefully at the dimmer/converter box. There may be a display of some sort, even better it may display a number between 1 and 512 when powered up - good chance that this is the address. If not then you may have to start pressing buttons - go have another look for the manual, you don't want to change anything by mistake. Failing that there may be rotary switches and you can read the address from them. Finally, there may be DIP switches - you can read about them here but essentially the switches give you the address in binary. Having got the addresses count how many dimmers you have on each address. A box with 12 sockets but only 6 breakers/fuses probably has 6 dimmers so patch 6 dimmers starting from the address on the box. Again the manual could be of help here. If you don't have any fixtures that have DMX input then you are done. If you do then you will need to identify what you have (exact make and model) and try to find the manuals online. You will also need the addresses and the modes they are set to so get the Tallescope/Zarges/scaff-tower out and go climbing. Similar things apply to finding the address as it does with dimmers. If you get stuck come back to the forum with at least a list of make and model. I see Keith at Z88 has made a shorter reply. If anything I've said contradicts him then assume he is right not me. No apologies for the length of this reply though - I have tried to cover most of the things you might encounter at a basic level and that takes a lot of words 😀

Bonjour, Bienvenue sur le forum. FLX S24 est sortie en 2017 et reste une console très puissante. Trois changements principaux ont été apportés à la console depuis son lancement : 1 - Les consoles FLX S24 sont désormais livrées avec 2 prises XLR 5 broches pour la sortie DMX. 2 - Les consoles FLX S24 sont autorisées en standard pour 1024 canaux de contrôle 3 - il y a eu une poignée de mises à niveau de processeur sur les consoles FLX S24 au fur et à mesure que de nouveaux processeurs sont devenus disponibles. Les consoles FLX S24 continuent de recevoir des mises à jour logicielles régulières, ajoutant de nouvelles fonctionnalités. S'il vous plaît laissez-nous savoir si vous avez des questions. Hello, Welcome to the forum. FLX S24 was released in 2017, and is still a very powerful console. There have been three main changes to the console since launch: 1 - FLX S24 consoles now ship with 2 5-pin XLR sockets for DMX output. 2 - FLX S24 consoles are licenced for 1024 control channels as standard 3 - there have been a handful of processor upgrades to FLX S24 consoles as and when new processors have become available. FLX S24 consoles continue to receive regular software updates, adding new features. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Hi @rickw As others have mentioned, this is how the console will work by default. It therefore sounds like the default behaviour of the console may have been changed. Firstly, please go to Setup > Settings > Record & Update. Make sure that your "Tracking Options" are set to "Enabled". If the console is in "Cue Only" mode, this basically means the console is in beginner mode. This is ideal for simplistic cue stacks, but will cause problems if you want to do more controlled mixing between playbacks or more complex programming. When the console has Tracking Options enabled, exit Setup, and then tap the RECORD key. This will open the Record Options on the external monitor. In here, by default the "SmartTag" and "Cue Only" buttons should have red stripes. If they're currently blue, tap them. You can then tap RECORD again to save and close. You can now record your playbacks onto the submaster faders. The console will then only record the values that are required to achieve the lighting state that is currently outputting. No other information will be included, which should mean the playback on the submaster fader can be mixed with cues on the Master Playback. I hope this helps. Please let us know if you have any questions.

"re"formated" the usb stick and now update ok with the second attemp, everything fine

You patch them on the desk in the same way you would if it was a wired connection although you won't be able to use RDM unless the lumenradio handles it. See the manual here for details on patching.

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm sorry I misunderstood something here, now I know how to do it right. Kind regards AlexTec

As @iank99 says, this error is nothing to worry about. FLX uses FeRAM technology, as opposed to the more traditional RAM in the x86-based consoles (Solutions & Orbs). You may therefore get different test results depending on the hardware you're using. Ultimately, this test is designed for internal use, and only during very niche troubleshooting.

Wow, this was fixed in 7.14.1 (29 November 2023)! 🥳 This will save me approx. 10 minutes a year! (which I'll probably spend power-cycling the video projector or rebooting the audio interface) Thanks guys!

Bonjour sb! Setup+Playback button, disable Release on Lower https://www.zero88.com/manuals/zeros/cues-playbacks/playback-settings/raise-and-lower

See manual here.

We found two bugs that were affecting a small number of consoles and so we've released a ZerOS 7.14.2 to fix this. We recommend everyone updates. There should be no show file compatibility issues (forward or backwards) between 7.14.1 and 7.14.2. Click here to download ZerOS 7.14.2, Phantom ZerOS 7.14.2 (offline editor) and ZerOS 7.14.2 Release Notes. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at support@zero88.com

There are probably more busking tricks than there are people in this forum but a, non-exhaustive, list might include... Only use playbacks for the intensities of fixture groups, do the rest in the programmer. Practically limitless but difficult to keep track. Look up programmer time if you go down this route. Whether using the programmer or not, use palletes for LED colours, positions, beam & shape. Much easier to amend and makes them easy to apply when busking in the programmer. Record cue stacks and use go cue no. (hold the go button, type cue no. - on an external keyboard since it is S series - release the go button). Economical with playbacks but looking up the cue no. takes time does mean you can go from one cue directly to the next. It's in the manual with S48 selected but the text only refers to FLX so not sure it works @Edward Z88 will advise I'm sure. Use colour mixing for LEDs. Always a good choice but don't try to use playbacks or programmer for LED colours if you've set up colour mixing. Don't record full "looks", instead for (e.g) moving heads have some beam, shape, position & effect options on different playbacks so you can mix & match. Don't forget you can have playbacks that control a single parameter (like pan, tilt, zoom, etc.). Get into OSC sooner rather than later. I used to use midi (on FLX) but OSC is more flexible, uses less playbacks and available on S series. If you want more help with OSC contact me by DM. There are remote switches on FLX but these can also be triggered by ctrl/F1 to ctrl/F8 on the keyboard. These don't appear in the S48 manual so not sure if you have them or not. Again @Edward Z88 will advise. All I can think of quickly but I'm sure you will get other's offering their take on the subject. My own set up uses 18 playbacks as follows... 1 thru 6 contain cues setting LED PARs fixtures grouped by location and odd/even to one of 13 colours. 7 is the same 13 colours but for a small number of LED moving head washes. 8 thru 10 are positions, zoom settings and P/T effects for these mh washes. 11 is colour wheel settings for DS (non LED) moving heads, 12, 13 & 14 positions, gobo & P/T effects for these fixtures. 15 thru 18 are the colours, gobos, positions & effects US non LED mh's On another page I have the intensities for all the above fixtures, grouped similarly and a few LED colour effects like rainbow and sparkle. Finally, a tablet running TouchOSC (full one, not MK1) and a control surface I designed and coded myself to trigger the cues. This is customisable and I am willing to share it with a few people (because I couldn't support a big userbase). I'd have to write a user manual though. Have fun!

Hi @netzton Welcome to the forum. Thanks very much for your suggestion. This enhancement is logged as reference number ZOS-4947 on our software tracking system. I have made note of your request for this. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Yep - works for Mk1 & Mk2 versions of the Alcora/Elara - the software version number displayed on the LED's will vary of course because the MK 2's offered patching. It's also worth noting that if there's an analogue output card(s) fitted then the analogue outputs will track fader movements whilst in test mode too. Also worth adding that when testing, give the power in DIN a little waggle to see if power drops off - I've seen a few MK1's where either tracks lift on the PCB from physical movement of the desk with the PSU plugged in (back and forth to storage for example) or dry joints have developed. I have genuine spare faders in stock for these desks, compatible PSU's for DMX only output desks, buttons/mechanisms, fader caps and knobs and some case corners (shameless plug I know but some folks assume that spares for these desks are like unicorn droppings!!)

The purpose of Fader Controls, for all attributes including Effects, is that you can raise a playback fader, to transition fixtures from their current values to the recorded values. If Fader Controls Effect didn’t control both Speed and Size, the fader couldn’t be used as a subtle crossfader - you’d either see the Size or Speed snap in upon raising the fader. Dedicated Speed and Size masters are a separate feature, that are on the todo list. This is covered under the “Improve Effects” item in the poll. As mentioned previously, Speed Override faders can currently be used as Speed Masters.

In case its of interest, here's the latest revision of the show file... Grease End Of Dress.zos My random tip for the day, which you may already know: Let's say you're currently in cue 9, and you need to make a cue 10, that is only slightly different. So, you make your tweaks, and are about to record cue 10. The director/lighting designer then asks you to quickly show the difference between this new state and cue 9, to check there's enough/not too make change. If you CLEAR CLEAR to reveal cue 9, you have obviously lost all your tweaks. For this, I like to use a "Clear Fixture" UDK. Select everything (1 THRU ENTER), and tap your Clear Fixture UDK. This clears all fixtures, allowing the current cues to play back, revealing cue 9. The nice thing is, that Clear Fixture can be backspaced. So backspace to undo, and you are then back in your proposed cue 10, ready to record/tweak. Apologies to @Uriahdemon for going off-topic!

How much do we pay you @Edward Z88 to sit next to you at the production desk and absorb all this wisdom?! 😅 I've just recently finished a week of 'The Wind In the Willows' on the FLX, and although it was relatively a pain free experience, I still felt awfully clunky programming - practice makes perfect and all that..! It was quite the beast for me, a new venue to LD in, ~200 fixtures in total, resulting in about ~200 cues by the final performance!

Reassigned S/N using SETDSKID.OSF from Keith. Installed OS by GOTEK Seems to work. Thank you bye

I'm sure @Jon Hole will see this but pinging just in case not, so he can check (or get @Edward Z88 to!).

Hello aggain. Have fun in the sun with DMX 😉

Think I’ve only posted (and edited) the once and it was ok. …Or that might have been on another forum… 🤣 I dunno, I’ve been (vaguely) to sleep since Tuesday. So here’s a post…! … which seems to have worked from my phone which wasn’t the case before. So this is an edit…

No, just one. Otherwise you will double-terminate - the two 120 ohm resistors will be in parallel resulting in a 60 ohm termination which is the incorrect termination for a 120 ohm transmission line.

It’s not here. Work the rest out yourself 😜

Both solutions worked as you described: (1) Make the DMX output react immediately to the fader movement by means of setting the Programmer Time to 0 (2) Remove the attribute from cues using HOME - long press UPDATE - REMOVE Thank you, Kevin!

I have managed to achieve sending Strand Vision.Net messages from SCS to ZerOS. In my case to a LeapFrog 48 lighting board. There is a little bit of easy setting up to do in ZerOS (Setup / Triggers) The tricky part was formulating the HEX message (Thanks to Edward in support), once I had achieved that putting it into SCS was straightforward SCS must be configured as follows: Editor / Production Properties / Devices / Control Send Remote Device: Any Device or Product Network Protocol: UDP Network Role: SCS is a Network Client IP Address or Server Name: needs to be a broadcast address 192.168.1.255 Port No.: 2741 SCS 'Control Send' Structure: In EDITOR / Cue / Add 'Control Send' Cue Create a 'Control Send' Cue Control Send Device: as named in Devices Entry Mode: HEX Network Message: 8C 01 A8 C0 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 84 09 01 5f 00 02 05 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 8C 01 A8 C0 is the IP Address of the sending PC in this example 192.168.1.140 but in reverse order 140.1.168.192 02 05 The message is set for ‘Room’ 2 ‘Preset’ 5 which will fire macro 5 My Macro 5 is a recording of pressing the ‘Go’ buttton In addition to Macros it is possible to map Vision.Net rooms to things like Playback faders and Cues (via playback buttons)

There are some features that won't make it to Solution - but we try to keep those to a minimum. For example, most recently we couldn't bring Philips Hue support to Solution. We no longer update documentation for Solution, but we do note all of these in the release notes - so you would need to read through each of those for the "full picture". We also made the decision a year or so ago that we would "stop supporting" Solution being used without a touchscreen (or alternatively a monitor and mouse together). Whilst most things are still accessible without using anything other than the console itself, it started becoming too complicated to design modern interfaces whilst still supporting Solution front panel hardware without a touchscreen.

Good news for us. I will Download this new ZerOS and try this Fixture editor... This new 7.13, is really a good thing. thank for All of You Eric (France)

For the benefit of anyone following this issue... The app isn't supposed to connect while the desk is paired to the Hue hub. If you want to add anything to the hub it has to be on a network that has Internet access. The network you have your desk on should NOT have Internet access. It follows, therefore, that you need to connect the hub and the device with the app on to a different network to add devices. If you want to use the app for other reasons while the hub is on your lighting network then obviously your Apple or Android device needs to be on that network. You may get a message warning you that there is no Internet - do not ignore this as you may have to accept it to get connected properly and for the app to work. You also have to unpair the desk and hub. Be methodical and patient and it should work in the end. Try not to be in the position of connecting the app while under pressure, do it before you are in in trouble and it should all just work when you need it. Don't forget to re-pair the desk and hub when you are finished with the app. This should be a nice addition to the solutions available but it is a marriage of theatre and domestic technology and your mindset needs to accommodate this. Have fun!

Hi Both, Software team are looking into this, will get back to you as soon as i have a reply from them.

Just got round to testing it, the resistance seems fine - but going to test it I think I found the problem. Pin 3 on the input is just missing/broken off so there's no Data+, @kgallen was on the right track! Well I'll add replacing that to the list of jobs... Thanks all for your help.

Dear All, We’re excited to announce the availability of ZerOS 7.11, a new update to the award-winning software available on Zero 88 consoles as well as the Strand FLX S series in the Americas market. New Features include: Colour mixing support for multiple emitters Updates to “Home” functionality on FLX Colour Filter References Filter Library updates Fixture Filtering Fixture Export Colour Temperature fader and palettes Parameter List display in Add Fixtures Generic Multicell fixtures added ZerOS Library 3.1 Various enhancements and bug fixes Please see the release notes for details on all updates and bug fixes in the software. ZerOS 7.11, Phantom ZerOS 7.11 (offline editor) and the Release Notes can be found at zero88.com/zeros If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us at support@zero88.com Kind regards, Edward

Deep Red = "Deep Re" Red Orange = "Red Orn" Light Green = "LightGr" Mint Green = "Mint Gr" Green Cyan = "Grn Cya" Royal Blue = "RoyalBl" Deep Blue = "DeepBlu" Congo Blue = "CongoBl"

I have got to say I love the PhantomOS interface. Much easier to work on. Thanks folks !!.

Legacy products in use: A Contour 12 dimmerpack, and an Alcora. Last I nowadays actually only use as a test-dmx source in my storage . But still in good running order. The Contour serves very well too. Sometimes in harsh conditions outdoors , no problems. And an nice unit, with all the menu-possibilities.