Davidmk

Well so am I, sort of. There's a lot to be said for keeping old kit going. Conventionals are simple and in a school, or any other environment where the user's main skills are in other directions, simplicity can be key. They can, generally, be fixed and they are pretty robust so the fixes should be easy and cheap. We've got 4 SILs , rescued from a skip more than a decade ago and all our conventionals are at least 22 years old. I trained as a teacher and I didn't find a lot of hands on tech knowledge among my fellow students. Especially not in my class of Drama mains. Guess who got the job of building sets and lighting the annual assessment productions. However the move to LED, while slow and resisted in some quarters, is inexorable and this will contract the market for spares and lamps making them more expensive and harder to source so the day will come when it is no longer possible to resist. Well, lower electricity bills for a start but as the stage lighting is probably a small part of the schools power usage this is probably not a deciding factor. Not sure we can claim LEDs are better for the planet - fair enough they use less electricity and produce less heat in use but I have no idea what damage their manufacture does to the environment. LEDs are (IMHO) way superior to gels in parcans. Not only can you mix them on the fly and tweak them when the director says they are too cold, hot, yellow or whatever but the transition from one colour to another is so much more controllable - it can be instant (no waiting a second or so for one set of cans to cool down and another to heat up) or it can be timed over a whole scene (20 minute sunsets anyone?) and go through all the colours in between. Plus you don't need a cabinet full of gels or order them in advance (and be stuck with what you ordered) and there's no climbing into the rig to re-lamp and hardly any chance of a lamp going pop just as the overture finishes. You need less of them as well - if it takes 6 cans to light your set for daylight it will need another 6 to light it for moonlight but with LEDs you just use the same 6 for both. Then there is the educational aspect. Somewhere in your school there may be kids who will be part of the next generation of amateur and/or professional designers & techs. They should be getting some exposure to the 21st century, not go out into the world only knowing about stuff that was around when I was a lad half way through the 20th century. On balance, I would say that, if you can get the budget, you should start your transition into the 20th century.

We run a mixture at my usual venue (The Stables, Milton Keynes - tech spec here). It works pretty well but we are a music venue, it would be trickier for theatre because white on LEDs, discharge lamps and tungsten is so different. Initially you probably want to replace any floods or parcans with LED. IMHO this will get you the most bang for your bucks. Replace Fresnels as well if you have the budget. Leave focus spots and/or discharge fixtures until you have to or have the funds to replace the whole rig. However, that is just a first reaction - you could replace the focus spots first but I'd suggest you need to do all of them at the same time whether they pass PAT or not so that they all have the same colour white. You will probably need to replace these one for one. Floods, parcans and Fresnels you can replace some and keep some and may not need so many LEDs as you currently have tungsten (because LEDs can be different colours in each cue). Do not, under any circumstances connect any DMX controlled fixture to a dimmer, there will probably be a loud pop from the dimmer and it will stop working. There may be LED fixtures designed to be connected to and dimmed by dimmers but I'd be surprised if they also have a DMX input. You will need to run raw power and DMX to all the DMX controlled fixtures and, given that you are working in a school, you'd be very wise to use different plugs and sockets for the raw power e.g. blue CEE 16A, Powercon, Powercon True or even C13/C14. Preferably not 13A though - there's always the risk of a fuse blowing up in the rig somewhere although you may be able to use 13A sockets for your supply. LEDs don't use anywhere near as much current as tungsten or discharge so one 13A socket will run quite a few LED pars but do keep an eye on that, don't overload the socket or the ring main. Also don't mix your phases - use the same phase as any dimmer outlets on the same bar. LEDs do use more DMX channels though so you may find you need a second universe and have to run another connection from your desk position to your rig as well as running DMX around the rig itself.

Have you tried changing the default colour?

Possibly not relevant here (because it's a bit of a rabbit hole where it is easy to lose your way) but don't forget playbacks can be released by cues in others. Trouble is that it is a snap release. LTP still applies, even to lowered but unreleased playbacks though. I use both in my rather convoluted busking set up. Still end up with oddities where it is very difficult to trace where the issue originates from.

Until someone from Z88 comes along with a better answer... My first suggestion would have been to set the fader to control colour but I see you have already done that. This should fade the colour from whatever it currently is to the new colour as you raise the fader. It doesn't go straight to the new colour though so, if the are currently blue and your playback makes them red the colour will start blue and through through purple and magenta before ending at red. You could try changing the trigger level (see manual here). By default the cue in the playback doesn't come in until the fader reaches 5% if the fixtures already have an intensity level and a colour then this will show below 5%. While you are at it you should make sure trigger on raise is selected. Following on from that, set the playback button to Go (snap) and press the button before raising the fader. Not a very convenient option but might get you by. You can change the default colour to black. This will not change what happens when you already have some colour set by another playback but it will mean that the fixture comes up from black when there are no other playbacks active. Check the manual here for amending default values.

It's certainly a relief to hear that. Still sad that Zero88 as a brand will be disappearing.

Do you know I have no idea. I'll have to Google it now. Thanks for the backup though. 😀 Google gives mixed results. I think I'll go with this one. Hear Hear.

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?

I have just seen it on FB as well. https://fb.watch/eeTobdldUW/ Two reactions to this, emotional and logical. Neither positive.

PS Really old readers, who have used resistance dimmers, may recall that the windings were not evenly spaced - this was also in response to the non-linear relationship between voltage, current and apparent brightness.

This isn't restricted to LED fixtures those with discharge lamps that use shutter dimming come on suddenly and gain most of their apparent brightness within a few points. Even incandescent lamps have this issue but not as extreme and helped because ordinary dimmers have a built in curve - called the S law - where current goes up quickly at the bottom and top but more slowly in the middle. They also have pre-heat where a small amount of current passes through the lamp all the time, even when the dimmer is at zero. I haven't tried it but I suspect a different dimmer curve is required for LEDs and shutter dimmers, one that goes from Zero to the "visible light" point very steeply, is very shallow from there until the point where further changes are imperceptible and then steeply again to full. I think this is an extreme version of the S law. Dimmer curves are in the voting list above already.

Just to expand on that a bit... My variation on this is to record only the fixtures I want but surplus attributes (typically intensity). In this case, instead of Home, you can just select the fixtures and the unwanted attributes then update/remove.

That too is a good idea. Not systematic but a good start. As long things are powered up of course.

Very true. If you are in Milton Keynes I could probably pop over tomorrow. Anywhere near but not in MK would have to wait until Thursday.

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 😀

You need a lot of information to do a patch. Once you know what fixtures you have and their addresses the actual patching is pretty straightforward. If the desk was patched before then someone must have done it. They may have a showfile. If not they must have had the information you need. They should be able to help - are you able to contact them? Failing that. What is your situation? Is this a school, a community theatre, etc? Is there a tech responsible for it, other users, etc, who may have showfiles? They may even be on this forum but not realise it's "their" venue. Where are you? Another forum member may be close by - it would help avoid us asking lots of questions if someone experienced could take a look in person.

That depends on the fixture. A lot of fixtures have a display that shows their address when they are powered up - these are the the easy ones. Some have displays but show nothing when they are powered up (or they display something that isn't the address) - these you will have to go into the menu on the fixture and find the address. Lastly there are ones without a display that have a row of tiny 'DIP' switches - these actually represent the address in binary, usually with the least significant bit on the left. It really is a nightmare and I'm pretty sure you will be saving your showfile at every turn in future. One thought, is the desk used by anyone else who might have saved a showfile? If so, you can load that - there are options for how much of it you want to load or you can .old the whole lot and delete stuff you don't want.

Press the button in the middle of the wheel - see manual here for details. Only learned this myself in the last few weeks 😀

Definitely!

It's tedious to do but it might be possible to work out what channels the fixture uses and in what order then match that to one of the four models. Basically, starting with an empty patch, you assign the fixture as as series of dimmers so if the fixture's address is 100 and the maximum number of parameters is 10 you assign 10 dimmers starting at 100 to channels 1 through 10. It might help to assign a few more than the maximum you expect in case your variation has extra ones. Then, in channel mode, put all channels to full and start playing with them. If you can, get the fixture near to the desk and listen as well as watching you should be able to hear a colour or gobo wheel rotating for example). The first one to try and find is the dimmer so that you get some light out of the fixture. What makes this difficult is that other parameters may affect light output. In your case, we already know that the dimmer channel needs to be below 100% to get output. Remember there may be 16bit parameters so while if one channel makes a bit difference for a small change (e.g. the fixture pans) the change effected by the next one may make a small difference for a big change - so small that you can't see it. Shutter and control parameters are the worst as they often have multiple positions that stop light output so full on and full off might both be dark. Pan and tilt are probably the easiest because you don't need output to see those. Auto programs and effects can throw spanners in the works because you can get all sorts of responses on those parameters. I've had a look at one of the manuals and in that version shutter values below 3% (DMX 7) would block output. In your case it appears there is a colour wheel but in the case of colour mixing fixtures at least one of the RGB etc parameters needs to be non-zero. Non LED fixtures probably have values that turn the lamp off. All these things and more make this a trial and error option - it might help to get as many variations of the manual as you can to inform your experiments but be open to the possibilty that you don't have the one you need. It may prove too difficult to identify which model you have but it's worth a go if you have the patience. Just don't give up too early, it's a bit like trying to open a combination lock when you've forgotten the combination. Good luck.

I'd go for the playback option then because these are like scenes in a show and you probably want to fade between them. Set up a playback with the 4 cues in it as if it was a show with fade times. You only need the 4 cues. Then go to setup/triggers and set the 1st 4 remote switches to execute a cue each. Test it from a USB keyboard using Ctrl/F1 to Ctrl/F4 including going from "show" to "doors open/interval" and FUF to "doors open/interval". Job's a good 'un (hopefully)

Me too because the UDKs can all be active at the same time but cues in a playback "replace" each other. Does depend on what you are trying to achieve though and you might need to dedicate one switch to releasing the playback.

Of course, still a work in progress. Not exactly in sync shouldn't be an issue. After all, with incandescents, the actual time the light stopped varied between lamp types. I'll wait and see.

That's a shame but I can still see it being useful, maybe not so much for prop fittings that need to go on or off on cue but it could still be good for dressing.

I think I'm mildly excited by this development. I get artists arrive with decorative lighting that has non-dimmable LEDs or which need ballast - I can see this being a simple way to control intensity and, more importantly, colour, from the desk, with just a change of lamp. Then there's all the hassles of prop fittings. I wouldn't have asked for it but I can see ways I might exploit it depending, of course, on how it is actually implemented. Looking forward to getting full details. Look out Budapest Cafe Orchestra