Controlling 4-channel Dimmer Packs
Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 5:41 am
There’s something I’m not understanding with regard to SCS lighting cues.
I have a simple 4-channel ADJ DMX dimmer pack that I’m using to switch on/off some practical lamps on stage. Channel 1 is always used alone. Channel 2, 3 and 4 are always used together. Being lazy I just created a 4-channel fixture to emulate the physical device and planned to command the channels independently. In use, if Ch1 is commanded on within SCS, the dimmer pack turns that channel on. So far, so good. But when I later put some levels on 2, 3 and 4, channel 1 goes out even though it’s not ‘included’ in that particular cue and it’s therefore grayed out on the editor screen. I assumed if not ‘included’ it’s value also wouldn’t be changed within the DMX stream but such is not the case.
So trying to be clever, I lied to SCS and created a two fixture types. One as a single channel fixture starting at address 32 and one as a three channel fixture starting at address 33. The physical ADJ dimmer pack is of course addressed to respond to addresses 32 (thru 35). After commanding the one channel fixture on, there’s no way that commanding the three channel fixture could affect the one channel fixture, right? Wrong. Any cues commanding the one fixture impact the other fixture even though the other fixture doesn’t even appear in that cue.
Clearly there’s something I’m not understanding about SCS lighting cues and we’re getting very close to tech week. What am I doing to cause one fixture to stomp on unrelated fixtures?
Regards,
Mark
I have a simple 4-channel ADJ DMX dimmer pack that I’m using to switch on/off some practical lamps on stage. Channel 1 is always used alone. Channel 2, 3 and 4 are always used together. Being lazy I just created a 4-channel fixture to emulate the physical device and planned to command the channels independently. In use, if Ch1 is commanded on within SCS, the dimmer pack turns that channel on. So far, so good. But when I later put some levels on 2, 3 and 4, channel 1 goes out even though it’s not ‘included’ in that particular cue and it’s therefore grayed out on the editor screen. I assumed if not ‘included’ it’s value also wouldn’t be changed within the DMX stream but such is not the case.
So trying to be clever, I lied to SCS and created a two fixture types. One as a single channel fixture starting at address 32 and one as a three channel fixture starting at address 33. The physical ADJ dimmer pack is of course addressed to respond to addresses 32 (thru 35). After commanding the one channel fixture on, there’s no way that commanding the three channel fixture could affect the one channel fixture, right? Wrong. Any cues commanding the one fixture impact the other fixture even though the other fixture doesn’t even appear in that cue.
Clearly there’s something I’m not understanding about SCS lighting cues and we’re getting very close to tech week. What am I doing to cause one fixture to stomp on unrelated fixtures?
Regards,
Mark