The Avolites Discussion Forum

So currently i have been working on a profile for the Elation Rayzor Beam 2R, once i finished making the profile i realized there was already one in the most recent Fixture Library. So I've been comparing mine to the profile created by Avo and had some question about 16bit dmx values. My understanding is that dmx value ranges from 0-255, so could someone explain to me the reasoning for this

http://gyazo.com/1b6ebc145e92b16db881c6580b7e7c3c
This is a screenshot i took from the profile off of the website, the "DMX Start'' value is 56026 and "DMX End" is 65535. When i try to replicate it on the profile im building it tells me that the value must range between 0-255. If someone could clarify the value range difference between a 8bit and 16bit channel it would be greatly appreciated because im a bit stumped.

Some parameters (attributes/functions) use two dmx channels to express a value.
One common example is position, which will often use a 'Fine' channel.

One dmx channel is 8-bit, with a value range of 256 (0 to 255, '0' being also a value) ; two channels allows to express 16-bit value, and 16-bit value range is 256*256 = 65536.


As for Pan, i.e. :
One dmx channel is 'Pan', the other is 'Pan fine'.
'Pan' controls the coarse (256 steps for the whole range of pan movement) and 'Pan fine'... controls the fine (256 steps for each coarse step), permitting much more accuracy with 65536 different steps : from 0 to 65535.
Principle is the same for any 16-bit controlled parameter.

What you have on your screenshot is function 'Scroll' of the Gobo wheel, which is triggered by all 16-bit dmx values between 56026 and 65535.
As you can see if you select Fixed>Gobo 1, all values between 2056 and 3855 are going to have the gobo wheel in your moving head snap to gobo 1.
4112 to 5911 snaps to gobo 2, and so on... But that you probably already know.

Also, to be able to specify correct values in your custom personality file, you must click on your Gobo attribute and change maximum resolution to 16-bit :

(Click on image to see the whole window)

Thank you, that cleared up a lot.