Newbie - Using lasers in a show - help please.

[DJH]

Hi All,

I'm very new to titan and am programming up a show for tomorrow

Please forgive if this is a basic question.

I've got all my movers, parcans & Washes all programmed and all is good.

For the life of me, I cannot work out the best way to program lasers into titan.
All the profiles work fine, but what is the best way to activate and deactivate lasers (eg set them for sound control and then turn them completely off again) ?

I've got a couple of KAM 1000 RGB's and some KAM iLinks which I want to turn on and off by setting the dmx on each to sound active.
Problem I'm finding is that once I've recorded anything with the correct attributes, the DMX settings do not reset the laser to off.


Can anyone help please ?

I've tried keeping it simple by using two Kam UltraClusters.
No matter what I do, I cannot get the laser to turn on / Off by recording.

Many Thanks,

Howard

[Gregory]

If you record the Control channel in a playback it is marked as a dimmer in the 1000 RGB so when the playback is killed, the value should return to closed. For the iLink try setting a Release Mask on the playback in Playback Options.

[niclights]

Gregory beat me to this but just to add that the control will release to the power on state in the personality.

The KAM iLink Blue 500 control channel currently defaults to 'DMX Mode'. If this isn't appropriate you can change this so that it releases to 'Closed' by placing the 'Closed' value in the programmer and then press RECORD/RELEASE/[Record].

The KAM iLink GVC doesn't appear to have a 'Closed' option in the control channel. It might be suitable to release to 'DMX' mode which is how it is currently set. Or, alternatively used the colour channel which does have a 'Blackout' option (currently the default state).

[DJH]

Great - Thanks Guys !!!

I'll give it a try

[DJH]

Ok,

So the KAM 1000 works fine

I'm just trying to set the release for the iLink blue 500.....

I'm selecting the ilink 500's selecting "Closed" in the attrributes, then pressing RECORD/RELEASE/[Record]

Doesn't seem to change anything....

What am I missing ?

(Its gotta be something simple )

Thank you

Howard

[niclights]

Have you set the relase mask on the appropriate playback?

On the KAM iLink Blue 500 the Control attribute is in the 'Special' (S) group. Assuming you have a playback that sets the Control attribute to the 'Sound' function go to [Playback Options]/<select playback>/press the (S)pecial attribute bank button. This will toggle the Special group to be included in the release mask.

[DJH]

Ok, Obviously I need more time with this stuff....

In the end, I couldn't get either method to work, so I edited the profile of the lasers and changed the Control Attribute to be Dimmer like in the Kam 1000 RGB and all is working fine.

When I get more time I'll change it back and see why it wasn't working.. but for now - I have a solution

Thanks guys for the suggestions....... I've got a workaround now for tomorrow.

Howard

[n4spd]

Hi I run into a similar problem with KOLOs laser in the library (it should be KOLO by the way).

This laser has no blackout function, so it is either in DMX mode with laser output, or it is Off and out of DMX mode, which makes it hard to use.

I have saved a page of playbacks for these lasers, and i use below method to turn it on and off and wonder if there are better ways;

I put the laser off in programmer, and saved it on a fader, then set the fader mode to cross fade. so I use that fader to turn laser off.
Another way I can think of is to save 2 macros and use them to turn them on and off.



----------------------------------------------------
another question is how to flash laser. If I use the above mentioned Off fader, when i press is Flash button, the color of the laser first changed to multi color before it returns to the color it has been running on. How to flash a laser like a dimmer? thanks!

[niclights]

As with the OP I would suggest the best way to achieve an on/off fader would be to record a playback in auto mode and set the release mask for that playback to include 'Special'. That way when you fire the playback it will go to DMX mode and when you kill it will return to the power on function which is 'Off'. You would achieve exactly the same result if you set the playback to mode 2 but given there is nothing to actually fade I would use release.

In either case flash will act as if the playback has been fired at full and letting go will return control to the current fader level.

It is very important that you record the on/off playback using record by channel mode to ensure only that attribute is recorded. When done this way firing (or flashing) the playback will only change the mode attribute level to the value for DMX and killing will cause the mode attribute level to snap to the Off value. If the fixture still changes to multi colour first then unfortunately this might simply be how the fixture works.

[n4spd]

thanks, i now understand this and got the on/off switch onto one fader. My next questions is: is a on/off switch the easiest way to turn them on and off, as with other lights we don't need this switch. thanks

[n4spd]

because all my color, pattern, beam pallets for this laser does not include the attribute: S, for going into DMX mode (because I set the personality file to be in DMX mode from power on), so my understanding is i have two choices:

1, use a on/off switch

2, include attribute S into each of the pallets, so that when the playbacks are released the S attribute can be released to Off, which seems to means more work for now, and less when running the show

am i right?

and there is no way to update a number of pallets at once to include the same value?

[n4spd]

now I have included S attribute into all the pallets. the laser turns off when i drop the fader.

I have one problem, the pan, tilt, zoom, filp movement attributes does not go away when i drop the fader. i have set the laser to a static state, and hit: Record/Release/[record], and set the playback release to include: PGBS, but the movements does not go away. when I raise another fader, the movements from last playbacks come back, even when i press: Release/Release all playbacks. What have I done wrong?

[niclights]

This works ok for me when I test - adjust all attribute values, record a playback, adjust attribute values again, record/release/release, clear. Set playback release to include all attributes. Open DMX view and observe values. Lift/lower playback = new release values. Assuming you have done this correctly my only thought is that the fixture stops responding to the commands as soon as [S] is released meaning the values for the other attributes are ignored. Use DMX view to confirm if the values being output are correct.

There is currently no way to update a range of palettes although this is hopefully something that will be possible in a future version. You can speed up the operation to a certain degree by latching the record palette menu.