Stage Ape Hamster Personailty Attributes Mixed Up

[Tallysrfr]

Hello. My church has 20 Stage Ape Hampsters, 10 with a power outlet and 10 without. We are using an Avolites Titan Mobile and the personality will not work with either fixture. The attributes seem to be all mixed up and work (or don't work) differently. There is no dimmer control on either, but the color mixer seems to be controlling the dimmer, strobe, & color of the one without the outlet. It also has no shutter, color macro or speed. The one with the outlet has some shutter control (pulse- fade in <56%, fade out >56%), color macro (except scroll has one speed, fast at speed >56.2%), and no color mixing or strobe. When I patch each channel as a separate dimmer, it seems that the one with the outlet has the following channel assignments: 1-G, 2-R, 3-B, 4-Color Change, 5-Speed, 6-Strobe, and 7-Dimmer. That's the way the personality lists them, but it doesn't work. The one without an outlet seems to have the following channel assignments: 1-strobe, 2-Dimmer, 3-R, 4-G, 5-B, 6-?, and 7-?. Not Sure what to do here. Any suggestions would be appreciated

[niclights]

There is a place for bug reports. But since you've already posted...

I suspect the problem with the existing version is the colour macro channel. From the sketchy details here they have made no allowance for a setting that enables colour mixing (or disables macros). I can only guess that this is actually ch 4 at zero. If you can confirm this with your dimmer patch then I will get it fixed, along with changing scroll to a percentage value. I can also add another mode with the alternative mapping. However, it would be useful if you could confirm what channels 6 and 7 do, if anything. Unless you have documentation?

[Tallysrfr]

Thanks Niclights. I actually did submit a bug report months ago. Don't know what happened. I will confirm the channels for you when I get back there tomorrow. I don't know if this helps, but we were using an Azure 2000 before, and the .r20 personality worked fine with it. Maybe something got lost in translation?
Thanks again,
Bryan

[niclights]

My apologies. I hadn't seen it in the list. Bug reports are often much harder to deal with than requests, especially when fixture manufacturers don't provide accurate documentation.

In the Classic software the attribute ranges of functions only affect what is displayed above the wheels on the Pearl LCD (when enabled). But in the background a wheel will still control a channel from 0-255. So when you used it on an Azure the colour macro channel was probably at zero and everything worked. In Titan the functions specify exactly what DMX values are sent. This is generally an advantage but it can be unforgiving.

[Tallysrfr]

Thanks again Niclights. In order to check the color mix on channel 4 at zero, how should I do that on my dimmer patch? The only way I can mix colors is to vary RGB, each using the Dimmer intensity function, as if it is just a single light. I'm not sure how to check for whether it turns on or off color macros. Could you explain it a little more? I'm new at this. Lol.
Bryan

[niclights]

Just leave all at zero and raise 1/2/3 which should give you G/R/B colour mixing respectively. That should prove that colour mixing is enabled with colour macro at zero. If you then slowly raise 4 you should see it switch to a macro fairly quickly, overriding the values set on 1/2/3.

You can be more precise about the switchover point by opening DMX view and observing the raw DMX values for the channel.

[Tallysrfr]

Thanks Nick. You were right, color mixing is on Ch 4 at zero. Here are the dmx values for Ch 4:

DMX... Function

0-16... Color Mix
17-47... Red
48-63... Blue
64-95... Green
96-120... Color Mix
121-191... Blue
192-240... Color Change
241-255... Sound Activation

I hope this helps,
Bryan

[niclights]

Thank you for that.

Unfortunately we must still be missing something. The existing personality already defaults ch 4 to 0-16 so it ought to work. If possible can you please patch the factory personality and check again. Please test by locating which should light the fixture in white and then try changing the colour mix controls. Assuming it doesn't work please open dmx view and look at the actual values, in particular ch 4, 5 and 6. Then start again with a dimmer patch (viewing dmx) and see what might be different.

I did forget to mention that ch 6 and 7 should, according to manufacturer, be at full in order to see anything. I think it is probably worth playing with ch 5 levels at the same time if you didn't already. This might reveal different results on ch 4, particularly if ch 5 is setting the speed of an effect - if the speed is at zero it might be so slow that it looks like nothing is happening.

Hope that makes sense! To make it easier to test I would record each dimmer at full to a separate playback fader.

[Tallysrfr]

Sorry. 0-16 is White. There are supposed to be other colors like, 32-47 Purple, 64-79 Cyan, and 96-120 Light Green. Some of the LED's don't work, so it was a little off. I don't know if it is important, but I noticed the personality in the Avolites Personality Library has 121-255 as scrolling, no Sound Activation. That it how it is on the Stage Ape website, but that's wrong. 241-255 is definitely sound. But the color macros should be the same.
Thanks,
Bryan

[Tallysrfr]

Nick,
You were right about the speed. On ch 4 121-191 is scrolling, but speed has to be at 144 and it doesn't change above that. On Ch 4 at 192-240 is color change, but the speed can be varied completely with Ch 5.
Bryan

[niclights]

Ok, at the moment I'm clear that there should be a sound at 241-255. Can you clarify the difference between 'scrolling' and 'colour change'? Normally I would assume 'scrolling' means a cycling through a number of colours at variable speed, much like a simulation of a continuously spinning fixed colour wheel. 'Colour change' I would have assumed means a variable index of colours, a bit like a hue control. However, you say it is also controlled by the speed channel which makes it sound very much like the scrolling. Perhaps one snaps between colours and the other smoothly fades? It's not so important but I'm curious.

More importantly though we need to clear up the colour mixing issue. In your original post you say there is no colour mixing control.

If you don't mind could you please do the following:

(using dimmers)

- Open DMX view
- Set ch 1 to 100%
- Set ch 2 to 0%
- Set ch 3 to 0%
- Set ch 4 to 0%
- Set ch 5 to 100%
- Set ch 6 to 100%
- Set ch 7 to 100%

= Please confirm output. Expected result = green.

- slowly raise ch 4.

= At some point the output should change to white. Can you also confirm this and let me know exactly what value this occurs according to DMX view?

[Tallysrfr]

Nick,
I already did that and you're correct, with green, speed, strobe, and dimmer at 100%, the result is green. When Ch 4 dmx goes to 1 (not 0, sorry) it changes to white through 16 and changes to red at 17.
As for the scrolling, with Ch 4 at 121 And speed at 144, it cycles through the colors so quickly that I can't tell whether it's flashing or fading. The color change at Ch. 4 @ 192 the color fades i and out and the speed can be controlled y the speed, but the fast scrolling does not change.
I'd love to be able to do this on my own, but there is only the Quick Start Guide, which doesn't explain everything. Do you know of a better guide on building them?
Thanks,
Bryan

[Tallysrfr]

Nick,
The personality works pretty good so far. I didn't have much time to play with it on Sunday, but both modes seem to work. The only thing I've found so far is that on Mode 1, the shutter has to be in "Safe" before the dimmer function works and Mode 2 doesn't have Color Macro (as I'm sure you're aware), but that's no big deal. I wish I could go up there this week and really test it, but the church is closed and I don't have the key. :>(
I'll let you know more about Ch 6 & 7 the next time I get up there.
Thanks again,
Bryan

[niclights]

If you tell me which channel, if any, is used for colour macro then I can change it.

The shutter and dimmer thing might be a limitation of the fixture. In other words, when it strobes it always does it at full. I can't remember if I added a raw option to shutter. If I did you could experiment with that to see. If not you could do the same with individual dimmers.

If it is a limitation of the fixture theoretically it can be overcome by using a virtual dimmer to control the RGB channels and set the fixture dimmer permanently to full. The problem with this is it would probably prevent dimming of the colour macros.