how to create a fixture that holds a set of 4 lights

[mikey9206]

hi there, i have the 'EUROLITE LED KLS-100' which comes with 4 led spot already connected to a T bar. on my current desk, the first fadar controls auto run (i.e. preset chases) the second fadar controls strobe and the third fadar controls the master fade.

each spot has green/yellow/red led's and my current lighting desk controls each color on each spot per fadar

i.e. fadar 3 controls the red led's on one spot. fadar 4 controls the blue on the same spot and then fadar 5 controls the green on the same spot. then fadar 6 controls the red on the next spot and so on...

however when creating a lighting fixture, its very limited and only allows the creation of mainly individual cans, moving heads or scanners. would i have to create each spot individualy? or is there a way i can create the fixture with all four spots attatched with the same ability to control the lights as my desk does at the moment?

im quit new to lighting so dont understand all the lingo

[Andre]

The easiest way to create this would be with two seperate fixtures.
The first fixture will just hold the channels for presets, dimmer and strobe. You can choose what the fixture looks like and size it so it is very small so in the visualiser you can hide it. Make it an "Other" type.
Then create a fixture for one of the LED spot i.e. 3 channels and set them as R, G, B. Again you can choose what the fixture looks like. Most probably like a PAR Can or similar.
In DVC2 you would patch the first fixture at your starting address and then patch 4 of the send fixture at the starting address +3.
You will end up with 2 fixture groups, but it will not be a problem.

This is the only way it can be done until Daslight create a new ScanLibrary program that allows multiple RGB channels.

There is a post about a similar thing with a Eurolite LED Bar
http://www.daslight.com/support/viewtopic.php?t=234

[mikey9206]

sweet thanks...

im gathering RGB stands for red/green/blue relating to the colours within the light?

so basically its just to set up each spot individually with its own RGB control?

what i did think of was creating each light with RGB and strobe/dimmer then linking all the LED's together...if thats possible

[mikey9206]

just realised...although this would work in the visualisation...it wouldnt work in real life...sorry to be a pain but can you explain:

'In DVC2 you would patch the first fixture at your starting address and then patch 4 of the send fixture at the starting address +3. '

i bit more i dont quite know what you mean by this

thanks

[Andre]

just realised...although this would work in the visualisation...it wouldnt work in real life...sorry to be a pain but can you explain:

'In DVC2 you would patch the first fixture at your starting address and then patch 4 of the send fixture at the starting address +3. '

i bit more i dont quite know what you mean by this

thanks

OK, say you fixture has 15 DMX channels and the channels are as follows.
Channel 1 = Presets
Channel 2 = Dimmer
Channel 3 = Strobe
Channel 4 = Red (light 1)
Channel 5 = Green (light 1)
Channel 6 = Blue (light 1)
Channel 7 = Red (light 2)
Channel 8 = Green (light 2)
Channel 9 = Blue (light 2)
Channel 10 = Red (light 3)
Channel 11 = Green (light 3)
Channel 12 = Blue (light 3)
Channel 13 = Red (light 4)
Channel 14 = Green (light 4)
Channel 15 = Blue (light 4)

Your first fixture you create is the one for channels 1, 2 & 3
The second fixture you create is just an RGB fixture (3 channels).
You would patch 1 of the first fixture.
Now patch four of the second fixture.
If the first fixture is at address 1 then the first of second fixtures would be at address 4, which is +3 from the address of the first fixture.
If you are using DVC2 auto patch feature then you do not have to worry about this. Just remember to patch 1 of fixture 1 first then patch 4 of fixture 2 and repeat for as many of these t-bars you have.

So you should have 5 fixtures patched per t-bar.

Is that more understandable now ?

[mikey9206]

yeah gotcha!

so your saying that i need to create a whole other fixture to hold the presets, dimmer and strobe...but surely then when you turn on the presets dimmer or strobe, it will only turn it on for that particular light...it wont turn it on for the whole four light fixture

[Andre]

Well I have just downloaded the manual for that fixture and it is not DMX controllable, it is all done with a 4 pedal footswitch (order seperatly).

The KLS-200, KLS-300 & KLS-400 are DMX controllable though.

So you are up a creek with a paddle or a canoe if you want to control that via DMX. Sorry to tell ya.

[mikey9206]

sry yeah its the kls 200 my bad...

anyway last night i managed to create a fixture that technicaly should be able to control the lights in real life, just not within the 3d visualiser

[Andre]

As it is the KLS-200 then you should create 2 fixtures as described above.

If the ScanLibrary fixture is created correctly then it will work in the 3D Visualiser, but you could just create one fixture that has 15 channels and not assign anything to them and just use the sliders and have no palette control. You could even not create a fixture and just use the correct sliders in the "General" tab.

[mikey9206]

yeah what i planned to do was just create one fixture with 15 channels...seems a lot less complicated than anything else


thanks so much for your help though, it was really appreciated!

[Andre]

Just remember doing it that way you will not be able to use the colour picker pallete for the RGB channels. You would have to control all three sliders for the R, G & B individually for each of the 4 lights.

[mikey9206]

I suppose, but thats how im currently controlling them with my desk... i understand how it would work now with the five fixtures now...that only means that in the 3d visualiser you wont be able to get the light to strobe dim (spose this can be done by turning all the lights off individually) or preset... but hey, thats better than no light at all

[Andre]

That is true, in the visualiser the dimmer will not work nor would the strobe or presets as you have correctly stated. But the visualiser would not know what the presets are anyway !!!!!!

Until Daslight create a new ScanLibrary program that allows multiples of the same type of channel, this is the only way it can be done, to be able to use the RGB Pallettes.

As stated in other posts here somewhere, I only use the visualiser for "rough" positioning and movement programming. I do not worry about gobos, colours or strobing etc.

You will be able to create better strobing by creating scenes to do it. That is how I have done it with my 20 LED Par Cans. I have white and colour strobing at various rates, I have white and colour chase strobing at various rates and I have white and colour psuedo random chases at various rates. The speeds can be further controlled by using the speed control of the scene to get it just as you want and to add a bit of variety when playing them live. You would not be able to do that using the strobing built in to the fixture. The colour strobing is not just single colour but also multi colour chasing and psuedo random colours.

[vianney]

Right now the SCANLIBRARY SLL format do not allow MULTI beam for the fixtures. A new format SSL2 should come on next year. So tomanage MULTI beam (RGB and dimmer) you must use 1 SSL file fixture for each beam. like a 4 cell fixture with 4xRGB will request 4 RBG SSL file.