Hi All.
I'm based in Singapore, and am no professional lighting designer. I'm more into Sound Mixing, but unfortunately, my church installed a set of lights and there was no after sales service when problem occurred, explaining the reason why I took upon this myself and seek out the solutions online.
I kind of know the basic in sending the scene to the standalone and etc, setting the position the lights, but now the problem is I need to set up the software properly before I can use it.
Setup:
1. 2 spotlights with moving heads [sorry i dunno what is the proper name]
2. Standalone control [DMX 512]
3. Software [DVC 1]
What happen is that it was working fine when everything was installed initially but for dunno what reason, it crashed and nobody revived it. So now, I'm trying to run the lights again. What I did was to install the DVC software into my laptop and get my laptop to recognize the standalone control. I also followed the tutorial on Daslight website "http://www.dmxsoft.com/manuals/?oem=FT8p45&na=Mg5" to setup the scene and etc.
Which scanlibrary do I choose? Is GLP the default for all lights? If it is, what do I input in the DMX address & fixtures?
Appreciate any help that is given. Thank you.
Advice Needed.
Yep, what you have there is an old Stand Alone interface.
You need to find out what the moving head lights are so you can patch them from the Scanlibrary. If thay are GLP lights then you need to patch the correct GLP fixtures. If they are other fixtures then you need to identify them and patch them.
I think it will only work with the DVC1 software, but cannot be sure of that.
It might be better to see if you can get an upgrade, they have offices in China which is a great deal nearer than europe so will assume will be cheaper on delivery.
Sorry I cannot be of more help, never used the stand alone feature of DVC1.
You need to find out what the moving head lights are so you can patch them from the Scanlibrary. If thay are GLP lights then you need to patch the correct GLP fixtures. If they are other fixtures then you need to identify them and patch them.
I think it will only work with the DVC1 software, but cannot be sure of that.
It might be better to see if you can get an upgrade, they have offices in China which is a great deal nearer than europe so will assume will be cheaper on delivery.
Sorry I cannot be of more help, never used the stand alone feature of DVC1.
Andre
Thanks Andre for replying.
So in simpler words, if I can find out what the moving lights are, then I just add them from the scan library direct and everything will be fine and I'm able to control the lights? And DVC 1 software is still the one available on the net am I right? Just to make sure I'm on the correct software.
Is it okay if no upgrade is needed, because basically what we need is just very simple lighting that will be able to draw the attention of the audience to the happenings on stage, like preacher, choir etc?
So in simpler words, if I can find out what the moving lights are, then I just add them from the scan library direct and everything will be fine and I'm able to control the lights? And DVC 1 software is still the one available on the net am I right? Just to make sure I'm on the correct software.
Is it okay if no upgrade is needed, because basically what we need is just very simple lighting that will be able to draw the attention of the audience to the happenings on stage, like preacher, choir etc?
Yes you need to find out exactly what the lights are then in the DVC1 software you will patch those lights.
WIth the correct lights patched you will be able to create scenes for them and save them into the Stand Alone interface, which will then allow you to play them back without the computer attached.
Yes the DVC1 software is still available and has recently been updated as well. Can be found here http://www.daslight.com/download.php and is called Daslight Virtual Controller there is no number on it like there is for the DVC2 software.
As I am not familiar with that interface I am not sure what controls it has, but I am assuming it has a step forward/backward buttons for the scenes.
So if for example your first scene points the lights to the preacher and has a yellow colour. The 2nd scene could have the lights pointing to the ceiling or some other place and be a different colour. The 3rd scene could point to the choir and be a different colour. 4th scene could have one light poijting at the preacher the other at the choir.
You get the picture of what I am trying to say.
Just think logically about what you want each scene to do and with the minimum of button presses between scene changes, to get the effect you want.
It would be very easy if everything was to strict timings but that is most likely not going to happen as you cannot ensure that the preacher will speak for exactly 5 minutes and then you get a colour change for example.
But if all you want is gentle colour changes over a given period of time without any intervention on the interface that would be acheivable quite easy.
Stand Alone interface are really for architecual applications or for display purposes in a trade show or something etc.
For the type of thing you are trying to achieve where timing is not fixed it really needs an interface with a computer and someone controlling it to changes scenes when what is happening changes.
I hope that all makes good sense and good luck,
WIth the correct lights patched you will be able to create scenes for them and save them into the Stand Alone interface, which will then allow you to play them back without the computer attached.
Yes the DVC1 software is still available and has recently been updated as well. Can be found here http://www.daslight.com/download.php and is called Daslight Virtual Controller there is no number on it like there is for the DVC2 software.
As I am not familiar with that interface I am not sure what controls it has, but I am assuming it has a step forward/backward buttons for the scenes.
So if for example your first scene points the lights to the preacher and has a yellow colour. The 2nd scene could have the lights pointing to the ceiling or some other place and be a different colour. The 3rd scene could point to the choir and be a different colour. 4th scene could have one light poijting at the preacher the other at the choir.
You get the picture of what I am trying to say.
Just think logically about what you want each scene to do and with the minimum of button presses between scene changes, to get the effect you want.
It would be very easy if everything was to strict timings but that is most likely not going to happen as you cannot ensure that the preacher will speak for exactly 5 minutes and then you get a colour change for example.
But if all you want is gentle colour changes over a given period of time without any intervention on the interface that would be acheivable quite easy.
Stand Alone interface are really for architecual applications or for display purposes in a trade show or something etc.
For the type of thing you are trying to achieve where timing is not fixed it really needs an interface with a computer and someone controlling it to changes scenes when what is happening changes.
I hope that all makes good sense and good luck,
Andre
Yup I do understand and get what you say. No worries about the scene because I more or less do know how to operate it.
I do really need to get hold of the info on the lights that they installed. If let's say we cant figure out, do you think you will know the kind of lights just by looking at the photo?
I do really need to get hold of the info on the lights that they installed. If let's say we cant figure out, do you think you will know the kind of lights just by looking at the photo?
sg_xh wrote:Yup I do understand and get what you say. No worries about the scene because I more or less do know how to operate it.
I do really need to get hold of the info on the lights that they installed. If let's say we cant figure out, do you think you will know the kind of lights just by looking at the photo?
Well that would certainly help and also any other info that is printed on them anywhere.
Andre
If you cannot find out what the fixtures are, see if you can address one of them to address 1, if not already done so.
Connect that one fixture to the interface and start DVC1 software.
Use the first slider and set it to 128, save to interface and run it, see what the fixture does, keep repeating this with each channel and note what the fixture does, obviously this would be easier if it was not a stand alone interface as you could just move the sliders and see what it does live.
You might have to try differering values other than 128 to really see what each channel does.
Once you find out how many channels there are, be careful as some channels might only operate at a specific value that you did not try, you can create a fixture using ScanLibrary for that number of channels. Patch the new fixture you have created and ensure that the last few channels of the 1st fixture no not interfere with the first channels of the 2nd fixture.
Hope that helps in some way if you cannot find out what the fixtures are.
Connect that one fixture to the interface and start DVC1 software.
Use the first slider and set it to 128, save to interface and run it, see what the fixture does, keep repeating this with each channel and note what the fixture does, obviously this would be easier if it was not a stand alone interface as you could just move the sliders and see what it does live.
You might have to try differering values other than 128 to really see what each channel does.
Once you find out how many channels there are, be careful as some channels might only operate at a specific value that you did not try, you can create a fixture using ScanLibrary for that number of channels. Patch the new fixture you have created and ensure that the last few channels of the 1st fixture no not interfere with the first channels of the 2nd fixture.
Hope that helps in some way if you cannot find out what the fixtures are.
Andre
Hi Andre,
My church manager checked it out and said it was "moon" or something, and it was not in the scanlibrary. I will need to go and search for the model myself, probably get to the lights to see what it is.
Anyway, I can actually run it live from my laptop w/o transferring to the standalone, so I can actually see the lights move if I were to play with the fader. I'll give your method a try and play around with it, but I dun think I'm up to that myself.
Cheers!
My church manager checked it out and said it was "moon" or something, and it was not in the scanlibrary. I will need to go and search for the model myself, probably get to the lights to see what it is.
Anyway, I can actually run it live from my laptop w/o transferring to the standalone, so I can actually see the lights move if I were to play with the fader. I'll give your method a try and play around with it, but I dun think I'm up to that myself.
Cheers!
Do ignore the above post because I've already found "moon" from the scanlibrary. There's also "moon2", I tired and it functions the same? Or there might be slight differences which I might not have noticed.
I do encounter another problem. As I said there are 2 pairs of lights installed, and do I key into the software that I've 2 fixtures? Because currently, my left lights can be controlled, but not the lights on the right. It doesnt seems to respond. Do I need to change to another channel?
I do encounter another problem. As I said there are 2 pairs of lights installed, and do I key into the software that I've 2 fixtures? Because currently, my left lights can be controlled, but not the lights on the right. It doesnt seems to respond. Do I need to change to another channel?
When you click the "Insert a chosen Scanlibray fixture" button and located the fixture you want in the "Open" dialogue it then give you a dialogue box which enables you to set the "Number of fixtures" you want. Change that to "2".
Then on the setup page you will see the addresses for the first and second fixture, ensure that you set the addresses on the fixtures to match.
You should also see 2 fixtures down on the sliders.
You will now be able to control both fixtures either together or independantly.
Then on the setup page you will see the addresses for the first and second fixture, ensure that you set the addresses on the fixtures to match.
You should also see 2 fixtures down on the sliders.
You will now be able to control both fixtures either together or independantly.
Andre
Hi,
Ive done the above mentioned steps and change the fixtures to 2.
From #1-7, I can control my left lights. But for #8-14, I can't seem to get my right lights to work. It doesnt respond to any of the changes I made, like opening of shutter, pan/tilt etc.
What's the possibility of a hardware problem?
Ive done the above mentioned steps and change the fixtures to 2.
From #1-7, I can control my left lights. But for #8-14, I can't seem to get my right lights to work. It doesnt respond to any of the changes I made, like opening of shutter, pan/tilt etc.
What's the possibility of a hardware problem?
Could be a hardware problem.
Are you sure that the fixture profile is correct for the fixture, if it is not correct as in the number of channels then that can/could affect the 2nd fixture as well as the first.
Address the 2nd fixture the same as the first one (on the physical fixture), then try that on it's own.
If it works then you know the fixture is OK, then all you need to do is set the address back.
Are you sure that the fixture profile is correct for the fixture, if it is not correct as in the number of channels then that can/could affect the 2nd fixture as well as the first.
Address the 2nd fixture the same as the first one (on the physical fixture), then try that on it's own.
If it works then you know the fixture is OK, then all you need to do is set the address back.
Andre
Starting address
Hi
As Andre said, simply interrogate the lighting fixtures by pushing the sliders up on the software one at a time.
Write down what they do to the lighting fixture. When you eventually push one up that has no effect you will know how many channels it requires to operate.
Normally the next fixture will start operating as you keep going along the sliders, however if it has been wrongly addressed it may not do anything - if this is the case keep pushing sliders up until you get some action on the second fixture.
When it moves - This slider will be the starting address for the 2nd fixture.
Remember when setting up fixtures - you only need to know the starting address and how many channels (sliders) it will require to operate.
Check out my video tutorials on www.youtube.com search for Ryger DMX
These are for DVC2 but the principle is very much the same.
Cheers Ade
As Andre said, simply interrogate the lighting fixtures by pushing the sliders up on the software one at a time.
Write down what they do to the lighting fixture. When you eventually push one up that has no effect you will know how many channels it requires to operate.
Normally the next fixture will start operating as you keep going along the sliders, however if it has been wrongly addressed it may not do anything - if this is the case keep pushing sliders up until you get some action on the second fixture.
When it moves - This slider will be the starting address for the 2nd fixture.
Remember when setting up fixtures - you only need to know the starting address and how many channels (sliders) it will require to operate.
Check out my video tutorials on www.youtube.com search for Ryger DMX
These are for DVC2 but the principle is very much the same.
Cheers Ade
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