Hey,

Just wondering... I have a computer with Compu Live that controls all the intelligent lights and a Zero88 Frog board that controls about 50 conventional par can lights. Is there any way to control those lights with Compulive? how would I wire that together? Maybe compulive could control the zero88 board? what do you think?

Sure you could just simply add in the channels to a generic par 64 fixtures page. for example say you had 16 channels from dimmer packs that have your pars on them. you can go to create a new page> then in the generic folder> par 64. now you can group your par channels all onto one page or split them up a bit. The choice is yours by how ever many fixtures you address in one given page. you could even patch them in groups like front stage, lower back stage, etc.
Sincerely,

Ok but how do they get plugged in to the computer... right now the intelligent lights are all daisy chained through dmx and then in to the dongle (i think right?)... but the conventional lights are all on dimmer packs that are daisy chained to the light board... so how do i get them to the dongle so Compu Live can control them?

Not a big deal. You need to at some point disconnect the DMX cable from the lighting console, and somewhere else, you need to connect the conventionals into the DMX chain, where-ever it is convenient to do so.

Another idea might be to have an Elation OptiBranch/4. Run your CompuLive into that, then you can do a cable run from one of the splits to your front lights, a second run to your rear lights, then a third run to your front truss and a fourth run to your back truss. Using the OptiBranch/4 is a smart move for a good many reasons, not just for this the topology I specified, but that's a good one too.

If your dimmer packs are DMX, these are just additional DMX devices. Without knowing the CompuWare product yet, I'm sure it has some similarities to MyDMX. Dimmer packs themselves you don't add into your universe, you simply tell Compulive what you're controlling(say, a generic ParCan for example) and it(CompuLive) will do the rest.

If you're running lights from FOH via CompuLive and the console, disconnect the console run, connect that to CompuLive. After the last dimmer pack(are these rack-mounted dimmers or truss-hung dimmers?), then start connecting your intels. Actually, the order doesn't really matter as long as in end all the fixtures end up on one chain.

This isn't really difficult. What's difficult is for you to figure out how to best get DMX to both your intels and your conventionals, and I think you're not going to have any issues with that now.