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amillar

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Everything posted by amillar

  1. Hi, Over the past while my FatFrog has been hanging occasionally (well getting close to 50% of the time!) when powered up. It doesn't even get as far as checking the floppy drive for upgrade disk etc (it doesn't seem to make a difference whether or not a floppy is in the drive). Cycling the power the desk comes up fine. I'm just afraid that someday it will not come up at all. Any ideas on what may be the problem or what i need to check? My frog is running software version 10.4.1. The BIOS version is 5.2.1 (8/3/04) and the battery state reads OK. I can provide serial number if required. Any ideas? Thanks, Andrew.
  2. After supplying 3 Jester 24/48s and having my own 12/24 Jester I thought it was time to re-visit this problem. I found a company in the US that make nice custom dust covers - www.compucover.com. They work out at about £20 each and you can even get a matching one for your monitor - they take about 2-3weeks to make and deliver to UK - they also have a useful UK helpline number if you need to chase your order. Hope this helps some of you out there. Andrew.
  3. I have a fatfrog and use it in various Churches and for Christian events throughout Northern Ireland. Great job. Thanks.
  4. Paul - sounds good - is there a target date or timeframe for the next release? Thanks, Andrew.
  5. I have just discovered that this upgrade is available and am interested in people's comments on 10.8 but unless i am missing something there is a distinct lack of interest/comment on this forum around this version... I have only just got used to 10.4 (which is great) but I don't want to jump in if there are issues - it does seem much more complicated in terms of tracking. Andrew.
  6. Hi, I just added a couple of additional moving heads to my rig and i wanted to move my assigned fixtures around a bit to allow me to make use of the Fan-Middle feature (as this is tied to the number of the fixture and not the order they are selected in). Is there any way to do this without losing the stored palette information or do I need to go the effort of re-creating them all again? Before anyone suggests, changing the DMX values or positions in the rig of my lights is not an option as the new lights are slightly different from existing ones and i want to symetrically match my lights on the rig. Hope this makes sense. Thanks, Andrew.
  7. Fantastic service - thanks for considering this. This is why i bought a Zero88 desk rather than from the competition. Andrew
  8. Hi, Is there any reason why when you copy and paste between submasters and memories that the name is not also copied across? If not could this be considered in a future release? I must admit I thought that the desk would have automatically done this (like the Frog desks). All in all though, a lovely desk. Thanks, Andrew. PS: I'm using v1.8 JOS
  9. mmm...sounds like a job for my wife Thanks anyway. Andrew. PS: Would be nice to have an official one supplied with the desk - one of the nice touches I thought when I bought my FatFrog.
  10. Thanks for the quick reply. Andrew.
  11. Hi, I do most of my lighting on my own and as a result whenever I'm focusing lamps I either have to find someone available to bring up the sliders when I shout down from the stage or run up and down the venue and up and down ladders to fade up different lights. Enough was enough - this takes far too much time and I'm not getting any younger! So, I got myself an RF transmitter/reciever from eBay. Mine is only a 2 channel version but you can get them with up to 7 channels easily - It cost me <£20 and even came in a case with a key fob transmitter. Add a 12V power supply and simply wire in the DC power and the outputs to a DIN plug for the Frog remote inputs and hey presto, a very simple wireless remote. I then set up a series of memories to represent channels 1-48 and configure one of the remote inputs to go to the start of this memory stack and the other as a standard GO button. This allows me to stay up the ladder and focus, stepping through the channels as it suits me and returning back to channel 1 easily when I need to (eg when cross over to the other side of the stage to do it all again or if I'm only rigging a 6 or 12 channel rig) - all from my little keyfob! A must have time saver in my opinion and I wish I would have done it sooner Hopefully this will be of use to some of you folk. Any questions give me a shout. Andrew.
  12. Hi, Is there a Zero88 dust cover available for the Jester? If, does anyone know of an alternative? Many Thanks. Andrew.
  13. Is the Jester Power supply compatible with the FatFrog - ie having a Jester as a backup desk doubles as a spare power supply. Thanks Andrew.
  14. Interesting suggestion, thanks. Would mean that I could still use pallates for the colour macros for setting "full" colour intensity. That would allow timed fades using subs or memories (using LTP fade time). Manual dimming would be still be possible on the RGB generic channels. Any other ideas?
  15. Hi, I am just about to receive some cheapy PAR64 LED fixtures. What is the best way to control these using a Fat Frog? I was hoping to set the RGB as colour parameters so that I could use pallates but then just realised that these being LTP cannot be controlled for brightness using a submaster. Am I best to just set these up using Generic channels? or what do you folk suggest is best? I already have 4 fixtures assigned to my Fat Frog and use up to 24 generic channels. I am only getting 4 of the LED units (at least to start) and would like to have individual control over them for greatest flexibility but I do want to be able to "easily" match colours between them during set up Each LED unit requires 6 DMX channels (RGB, Colour Macro, Strobe, Colour change macro) - not exactly sure what the Colour Macro channel is but I suggest it allows me to select individual colours without RGB mixing). Thanks, Andrew.
  16. Simple answer is that I bought the hazer well before I had the Frog and at that time (several years ago) I wasn't aware of any affordable DMX hazers. Anyway - I have managed to get something working using a chase loaded onto a submaster. I have a multimeter with a frequency mode and used this to set the speed of the chase. It appears to work quite well and the pump does make noises when controlled from the Frog (via my demux) that are similar in frequency to those it makes when the analogue Jem controller is used...and it seems to produce haze rather than a continuous fog Thanks for all your input on this post - this forum was one of the reasons that I bought the Frog. Andrew.
  17. The analogue controller has a pot which allows control of the intensity of the haze (ie 2-10V pulsed). With the knob set at "0", the controller still gives 2V to the hazer - this keeps the heater running. The way Jem described the pulse to me was: "The length is 300MSec and the pulse is 2 per second." I confirmed with them that it was a square wave. Using a Chase to do this, I would keep a preset channel always to 20% to ensure that the heater always runs and then use the 2 step chase to set the intensity of the haze - the trick is to set the speed. Not sure I want to butcher my analogue controller too much as it is useful to be able to use the hazer standalone - plus it has a button for priming the pump when you run out of fluid etc. Thanks, Andrew.
  18. Sam, Thanks - I will give this a try this week - I imagine that it will only be a rough thing and I will have to see if the effect is more like what the analogue controller would produce. Hopefully, I can get it to remember the speed as I don't think I want to have to tweak during every show. I guess if I can get my hands on a scope I could look at the output wavform from the demux and tweak the speed of the chase so that the pulse is 250-300ms long (ie close to what Jem recommend) - that might be my best bet. Thanks for your input. Andrew.
  19. Thanks for the replies guys. Yes, I am aware of how to use the memory stack to do it but I do not want to tie up my stack in this way as I use it for others things. Didn't consider the refresh rate issue so I guess it may end up thinking that the voltage is constant anyway... Thanks for the suggestion of usedlighting.co.uk - I have already investigated this but it's the ZR12 i/f and not the one for my Technohaze. Jem can, however, sell me a replacement card to go inside this unit which would bring the total cost down to around £100. Hence the post to see if you guys had any suggestions for me instead before I part with cash unnecessarily. Andrew.
  20. Hi, I have a Jem TechnoHaze which runs off an anaolgue controller (connects using an 3pin XLR). It uses a 0-10V signal from the controller and I thought that it would be a simple matter of connecting my DMX demux up to the Haze machine to provide it 0-10V and therefore control from my Frog. Well, this does sort of work but unfortunately it turns the Haze machine into a fogger rather than a Hazer (and it drinks the fluid!). I contacted Jem support and they told me that the output from the controller is an analogue pulse (300ms on, 200ms off) rather than a fixed voltage. They do have a DMX i/f for this but of course it will cost me £150ish :cry: I was wondering how/if I could achieve this type of output from my Fat Frog? I know I could use 2 memories which automatically toggle between each other to represent the pulse but that does tie up my memory stack which means that I cannot use it for anything else. At first I thought a chase would do which I could assign to a submaster but I don't think that I can set the chase speed accurately enough as the speed is only pot controlled. Anyone got any ideas or am I asking too much of my Frog? Thanks, Andrew.
  21. Hi, what is the minimum size of external monitor (probably TFT) that you folks you recommend for using with a Fat Frog desk? Thanks, Andrew.
  22. Paul, Thanks - I think I can work with that - will give it a go later. Andrew.
  23. But does this work when you want to program effects? I am trying to do something similiar - ie have palettes to define fixed positions on a stage which can be edited as I move from venue to venue. I want to have some movement effects which are based on these fixed positions (ie as starting points) but from reading other posts there appear to be some issues when movement effects are edited in palettes. I thought that I could perhaps use submasters or the memory stack but if I reference a palette then I reference all of the position data. :cry: Do I need to define these starting positions twice? - ie once in a palette to allow me to busk fixed positions and again on a memory or submaster which can be edited at each venue for the movement effects I want to use? If I do have to do this then is there an easy way (when editing a movement effect on a submaster or memory) to stop the effect and position the head at the effect "starting" position? Sorry if this is slightly off topic - I hope it is related. Thanks, Andrew.
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