The Avolites Discussion Forum

Hello,

This is going to be my first forum post on something which keeps irritating me since I have been working with avolites.

In our shows we use a lot of showtec galactic beams (40mw fat beam lasers)
We do this to create a great wow effect when the customer has a small budget.

Now here is the anoying part... The lasers have 2 modes, a solid beam mode and a pattern mode. Both modes are seperate personality's in de fixture library.. Mode 1 has other pan and tilt channels than mode 2.

Is it true that I can't use the convenience of the two modes simultaneously?

On previous tables, I was abble to use two fixture personality's on the same DMX address so I was able to switch between the modes very easily.. I was able to use shapes for both the solid beam and the pattern effects.

I hope someone can help me!!

Greetz Robert
Holland

You definitely cannot have more than one fixture on the same dmx address. However, there's nothing stopping you from having both modes patched and programmed where one is parked. When you switch modes, park the one you don't want to use and readdress the one you do.

Oke, but whats is the best way to use both modes during a show using cue's and palettes? Should I make macro buttons out of them?

Please advice me because now we can't get the best quality out
Of the lasers.. I can't use a console right now, the next time will be on show sow I want to know where to start haha

Greetz,
Robert

Unfortunately that's not something I can personally help you with. I don't know the fixtures, I don't know what you want to achieve and I don't know how you like to operate. There are just too many variables.

You can store information for any number of fixtures in a cue or palette so if you want the same thing to achieve the same result for both modes then I would record the appropriate values for both fixtures in the same cues or palettes.

Oké thans my faut! I'll give à try explaining what I want to achieve.

The problem is is that the fixture has two modes. A solid beam mode and an pattern mode. The stupid thing about the fixture is that in both modes the pan and tilt channels are different. Mode 1 has pan and tilt on channels 2 and 3 whereas mode 2 has pan and tilt on channels 7 and 8.
In mode 2 on the channels 2 and 3, there are zoom and pattern functions..

Now, there are 2 different personality modes that both have the correct settings for the pan and tilt. I know that the programmed shapes etc will be preserved if I park a fixture.. But can I make a macro which will repatch the parked fixture? (we are now, for the simplicity, only talking about one fixture)

Greets Robert

You probably could write a macro to park/address but it might be risky. Presumably you have to make adjustments on the fixtures themselves to change mode? If so it strikes me it would be comparatively simple to do the parking/readdressing on the console.

Alternatively you could consider a custom personality where there all the attributes are just raw 0-255 values (or 0.0-100.0 percentage range). You could then write separate cues/palettes for each the two modes and fire the relevant ones. If you needed shapes in both modes it could be achieved by customising the shapefile.