kgallen

Yea I can see Cue Only is a big limitation here, particularly stopping you overlaying operations since "all data is recorded in all cues" (or at least that's how the desk plays them back regardless of how the information is represented in the internal datastructure) - so you lose the ability of another cue taking control over a parameter. I came to FLX from Fat Frog. On Fat Frog the few times I used Partial mode I ran back to Full mode because I lost control of what Partial was doing. I've not had the same experience with FLX. I'm always in Tracking On mode and never have I felt the need or even the inclination to go to Cue Only mode. Compared to really advanced users, I don't do anything "that fancy" although I do have a reasonable number of LED and mover fixtures (although surprisingly on my last show, conventional fixtures did outnumber LEDs 2:1 which was unusual, usually it's closer to 1:1). So, even as a "low-to-medium complexity" user myself, I'd encourage you away from Cue Only to Tracking. It really isn't at all scary, and SmartTag pretty much makes Tracking work the same way as Cue Only for 95% of cases and move on dark works beautifully in the background [1]. It's only when you want some finer grained control (or Remove!) do you need to start fiddling with SmartTag in my experience (which is theatre). I've had my FLX since 2015, so have done quite a few shows with it. Go on, you know you want to! Kevin [1] Tip: Programme a blackout with "1 THRU @ ."

Eric, Coming back to your initial question: I agree I would not use a USB stick for "long term" storage. I copy the show files from the USB stick onto my PC which as a RAID NAS attached. The USB stick is purely a mechanism to get data to and from the FLX and my main computer. In this respect, it's adequate. Maybe I interpreted your initial question wrong. USB sticks are of course a portable medium. SSD (in terms of the solid-state HDD replacement) is more usually semi-permanently attached inside a computer - they usually have some version of SATA interface. This isn't hot-pluggable in the way that USB memory sticks are, so "SSD" wouldn't be a replacement for USB on the FLX. Kevin

When plugged into FLX front panel or via a USB hub in rear port I haven't had an issue with USB sticks (Zero88 or other branded) becoming unusable or corrupted. Aside: The issue I do have, is since the USB sockets are not labelled on the FLX, is knowing which of the USB keys is associated with the port name provided by the GUI. I have had issues with USB sticks (including a Zero88 one) being corrupted and becoming unusable when connected to a Windows10 machine, but not when connected to FLX. I don't believe an SSD card would be any more reliable. The underlying Flash memory technology is the same, only the interface is different, and I don't have any reason to trust SSD over USB.

I was just reading a reddit article and it made me think about the issue many of us have with non-premium LED fixtures and their inability to dim nicely at the bottom end. The suggestion in this thread is to add a delay to the dimming instructions to LED fixtures to help them blend with traditional fixture dimming. Maybe this is something that could be added to a fixture in patch - a delay to the dim value being output. (This would be analogous in sound to applying a delay to an audio output for particular physical outputs).

My extra 2p worth too, if the issue is with an Effects palette, then I've found it easier to delete the darn thing and start again. I think the last time I had that issue Edward agreed that is often the easiest approach! Above should be good though for a normal cue or single cue playback. Let us know if it worked!

I just looked in the manual. Also you need SmartTag *disabled*. Somewhere on this forum you'll find me endlessly asking the same question, and Edward patiently answering. https://zero88.com/manuals/zeros/cues-playbacks/updating-cues/update-options#remove

I always struggle with this, but your friend is the HOME key since this tags all parameters of a fixture. So select the fixtures you want to remove. Press HOME. Press and hold UPDATE to get the options box up and enable REMOVE. Press the playback you want to remove this stuff from.

Without wishing to short-circuit @Davidmk 's excellent response, once you've gotten your head around the structure of the system it would be worth patching say 48 "dimmers" on the desk and seeing what (if anything) responds to channels 1 thru as-high-as-you-fancy. There is a high chance that conventional dimmers will start at address 1. Of course to do that you need to have located the supply isolation for the dimmers and any other kit rigged, which is the opening part of @Davidmk's reply. @james_ letting us know where you are geographically would help too. You don't need to give out the name of the school publicly on here. A city/town would do for a start. Best of all, add it to your Forum profile. Also I'm with @KWR88, if this was a professional install, there must be some sort of documentation somewhere. Only the most cowboy of installers would have left you with absolutely nothing. Roughly how old is the install? (1-2 years, 5, 10 years, 20 years???) Are there stickers anywhere for the installer/supplier who should have some records of the main info we need here - accepting some details of the install/kit might have been changed post the install date.

Great news, thanks for letting us know! Here's to another 20 years of use!

Sorry Edward! Hope it's going ok! You seem to have found your laptop at least. Hope you also found the bread and baked beans! 😆

Yes of course. (I was hoping Edward might chip in here as I’m not fully familiar with the restrictions on Effects on FLX-S!). You could approach this several ways. I think with FLX-S you mostly have to use the preprogrammed effects palettes. It’s probably easier to deal with the intensity and movement parts separately. So I’d select your fixtures and have a play with the Effects marked ‘I’ which are intensity effects and see if there is something there that suits. You should be able to adjust the speed and ‘size’. I think there is a 1/8 intensity effect which might be a start. On the movement side it depends what you want to do. Again, look at the Effects marked ‘P’ which are position effects. There are circles, figure-of-8, fly-in etc. maybe one of them suits with adjustment to speed and size. If the existing Effects palettes get you something you like, you can layer each type onto your fixtures. When you’re happy you can then RECORD this new composite effect to a new effect palette. Ensure the palette when recorded is marked with I and P. If you want to do something quite different on intensity and movement than what’s available from the Effects palette then you will need to go down the route of programming a sequence. You could do this all on one playback, but if you wanted independent control of intensity and movement you might want to put each on a separate playback then overlay the two, maybe triggered from another playback. Maybe time to have a read of relevant parts of the manual and have a search on this Forum for similar questions as there are details you’ll need to understand (like tracking and only recording certain attributes). Good luck!

Did you save to USB stick? If not then yes you will have lost your programming.

Yes but maybe not in the way you describe. You can create any sequence of cues on a playback then you can trigger that playback from any other playback(s) when you want to trigger that sequence. When you start programming the sequence, when you go to record the second cue, the desk will ask if you want to create a sequence, where you can set the speed. Effects are something slightly different. On FLX S (compared to ‘full’ FLX) they are a little more limited on how you can create your own. But nonetheless you can setup say some movers in a position pattern with some colours and gobos then you can record that as your own Effect palette. You can use this effect palette in the same way you can use any other palette type.

Jon I think the guy has a Solution rather than Orb, but couldn’t open the DWG file for Solution. I could be wrong, sorry if so.

It’s probably a CR2032 or similar coin cell? It you feel competent to do the job the go ahead. What is worth researching is which screws to remove to get access as usually it’s not all of them (for example on Frog desks it’s just two screws required to be removed not all 20).

Hi Terry, That's a shame. Where are you located? There is an AmDram society (or two) near me that could probably make use of one. Can you give more information? Thanks, Kevin

Check your cables - swap them around to see if the fault changes. A broken data- or data+ can cause these issues where the screen is intact.

Add a USB keyboard and mash F1 at boot. You’ll get some options. Worth having a USB key with 7.10 and 7.11 on it. See https://www.zero88.com/manuals/zeros/trouble-shooting/zeros-startup-tool

Hi Franco Can we go back to the beginning and you list out what you want to do?

Programmer Time under Z key.

Just to wrap up, thankfully no other issues with the FLX/ZerOS during our tech/dress/performance run. (No issues from any of my other LX or SX kit either including my ~20 yo Sony minidisc decks 😉). Just one blown (but well behaved) T25 in a Prelude PC! 👍 Just the Cue List focus requiring a mouse click once in a while (a bit random as you say)… and on Saturday Matinee, a bit of a PEBCAK issue (ie me! 😆).

I got lucky as I realised afterwards the question was for Solution and I wasn't sure it had the same buttons or process as the FLX! 🤣

Setup+Playback button Release on Lower = no

Fantastic thanks Edward! Interestingly I’ve booted the FLX twice tonight (for dress rehearsal) and on neither occasion did the palette screen appear!

Hi Jon! I don't have an A:B comparison as I use generics for face light (and specials, gobos etc) and LEDs for back and side light colour washes. I don't have good enough quality LED fixtures to use for face and hence neither are they colour calibrated. So in that sense I'm not trying to match tungsten+gel to LED+palette, I'm using the colour palettes to pick a convenient colour for LED fixtures rather than a match to conventionals. That said, the wider filter range is nice - but the colour on stage is not really much like the colour on the touchscreen swatch. My LED fixtures tend to be RGB(CW) or RGB(WW) or RGBAW - i.e. no "filler" colour LEDs like lime etc that you get in a high-end LED fixture. This could be unrelated but I'd have to say the yellow shades I could achieve on my cyc seemed much better than I remember from before - I believe a decent yellow can be hard to achieve from the simpler RGB+W fixtures which I have (in this case my cycs are Stairville RGB(WW) floods). As mentioned above I did also use the new "Temp" (colour temperature) feature with a Philips PL1 LED profile (probably the "highest quality" LED I have) which as a backlight worked nicely when working with a tungsten Source 4 from the front - I was able to warm-up the PL1 a little to blend a little better with the Source 4. So probably not the data you're really looking for, but that's all I've got to offer, sorry! Regards, Kevin