Mixing Moving Fixtures with LED PARS

Scott,

Please clarify your situation. What do you mean by "in line with the 4 moving heads?" They should be "in line" in the sense that you will want to run a DMX line from your controller to your first fixture, and then run a line from that fixture to the next and so on until all 8 of the fixtures are connected in a line of DMX cables.

But iff by "in line" you mean that you are running both a moving fixture and an LED Par can on the same DMX address, that is something you should not do.

You are obviously running the moving heads in 6 Channel mode. Even if the Par Cans happen to have a 6 channel mode, it is highly unlikely that the channels will line up correctly. For example, its unlikely that the channel for dimming happens to be the same channel for both fixtures. In short the signal that you want to send to the moving heads will be entirely different from the signal that you want to send to the LED Pars. If they are on the same address, one of them is going to get the wrong message.

Definitely run the LED Pars on different DMX addresses from the DMX addresses being used by the moving fixtures. If you want to be able to have have each LED Par do its own thing, then set each LED Par to a different DMX address and have those addresses outside the range of addresses being used by the moving heads (65 - 118).

Make sure that you know the number of channels each LED Par is using. Many LED pars have options with respect to the number of channels - the more channels used the more control you will have over the pars. And make sure that the DMX addresses don't overlap. For example, you are running your moving fixtures in 6 channel mode - so the DMX addresses are 6 numbers apart. The DMX address for your first par can could be 119. Unless you set all your LED Pars to 119 (and have them all do the same thing), you must set the DMX address for the next LED Par far enough above 119 so that there is no overlap. If you are going to run your LED Pars in 4 Channel mode, you would need to set the DMX address for the next LED Par at an address of 123 or higher. If you are going to run the cans in 7 channel mode, setting the DMX address at 123 wouldn't work because the signals would overlap.

Hope this helps.

Hobson,
Thanks for your time on this, greatly appreciated.
I have 8 channels for moving lights and 8 channels for par cans. I have 8 regular par56 on the can side (dimmer packs) and on the moving light side I have 4 intels (1,17,33,49-6 CHANNEL) and wanting to add 4 LED Pars. I hooked them up using address 65 and it works but I need to only 1 channel to change color and I need this channel to operate not effecting the intels. This is where my question lies, can I use another channel to operate address 65 only? channel 1-6 for intels and channel 7 or 8 for address 65.

Sorry if this is still not explained in details, newbie. I read the manual for the operator Pro board I have but I believe my lack of knowledge is clouding it up a bit. I think when I add the channel to the address I select the address first, then the channel button is pressed with it blinking and then save.

Regards,
Scott

OK. I think I understand your situation and question. Like all controllers the DMX Operator has some quirks you will have to work with. It is an ideal controller to do what you had been doing - using a dimmer pack on up to eight incandecent par cans. For what you want to do now, it is not that great.

The DMX O uses the first 128 channels to control moving lights. It give you only 8 possible DMX addresses [129 - 136] for the par cans. With LEDs you will need at least 4 channels to control dimmer, red, green and blue.

I hope someone can tell you differently, but the best I can come up with is that it will work OK if you can live with having two of your LED Pars doing one thing and the other two doing something else. With the possible exception described below, it won't be possible to individually set each can.

To do this you will need to set the DMX address on two of the par cans to 129 and the other two to 133. Set the cans in 4 channel mode. Assuming that in 4 channel mode the dimmer is channel one and the red, green and blue are on channels 2, 3 and 4, sliders 129 and 133 will control dimming, 130 and 134 will control red, and so on.

A possible exception to the above would be if your cans have a 2 channel mode with a dimmer and macro. The macros will let you set the color, strobing, sound mode, etc., and the other channel will control brightness. If your cans have this, put them in two channel mode and set the DMX addresses to 129, 131, 133 and 135. This will work pretty well and will allow you to individually control each par can.

Good luck

Hobson

I'm way late seeing this thread but I'm wondering if there is a simpler solution to this problem. He says he has 4 moving lights, some conventional pars with dimmer packs and some new led pars. As I read it he has his 4 moving lights on channels 1, 17, 33 and 49 and then he has assigned his new led fixtures to 65, 81, 97 and 113 which should be open. I'm assuming the traditional pars are on the par can side using 129 to 136.

Is it possible that he is just not turning off fixture buttons 5, 6, 7 and 8 for the led pars before attempting to control the moving lights? I don't have the operator pro, I have the 192 but it seems to work that as long as i haven't included the moving fixture in a chase or scene that I have running for the led pars, I can turn off the fixture buttons for everything except the moving light and then use the faders to go ahead and control the moving light. The led pars continue to do their thing following the programmed scenes and chases in the background while I play with the moving light.

Under this logic if he can put the led pars in 4 channel mode he should be able to add 4 more led pars that could be controlled individually before he has to start doubling up on dmx addresses.