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Cheap lighting controller with fade between scenes

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kevinmcdonough View Drop Down
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    Posted: 25 December 2015 at 1:04am
hey

Just finished an install in a local school with a pile of par cans and a few spots, all linked to a fairly basic Disco Dave style controller. Had to keep it simple for the staff to be able to work day to day, and something like this was a good option with some basic scenes programmed in to save the staff having to do any actual programming.....




It wasn't this exact model by any means, but very much the same style of having 12 fixtures each with 16 fixed channels, the ability to save scenes and then chain these scenes into banks etc. 

Everything worked fine and is all set up, but while it wasn't a problem for the school at all and they don't care the only thing that I personally didn't think was great was that while the controller has a "fade" fader, this only controls the fade time when your running a chase. There doesn't seem to be a way to make it fade when you just manually change from one scene button to the next, it's just an instant jump. 

Googling this a little, this seems to be common behaviour and most of these cheap controller seem to run from a similar chipset and work in a similar way: the fade and speed control only affect the chases, and you can just have it fade when you manually select the different scenes you've saved.

However I have another possible job coming up, and I'd like to find one that that would work this way?  Obviously a much more expensive and complicated desk can do whatever you want, but this then becomes far too complicated for the school staff to run themselves. So something pretty cheap and very similar to the above, nice and simple, but where it can fade between manual scenes not just snap. 

k
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kevinmcdonough View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote kevinmcdonough Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 January 2016 at 1:14pm
shameless bump WinkLOL

Edited by kevinmcdonough - 04 January 2016 at 1:14pm
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MattStolton View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote MattStolton Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 January 2016 at 1:41pm
I know exactly what you mean.

However, I have not found a budget solution, only have to put something "better" on, which means money.

If it is just dimmers, some of the simpler Jands desks or Zero 88 offer traditional twin preset or wide modes, with fade control between scenes, but they all go for larger chunks of wedge.

However, once you have to waggle a mirror or yoke, or even multi channel LED ParCans, only the real deal desks, the type with scroll wheels of some nature, will cut it.

Dedicated laptop and software and dongle? May prove cost effective? Have a school we did, only 5 heads of LED Floods, but 7 ch per head, and they went down the laptop route, which they sourced and softwared to their choosing. Seems OK.
Matt Stolton - Technical Director (!!!) - Wilding Sound Ltd
"Sparkius metiretur vestra" - "Meter Your Mains"
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kevinmcdonough View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote kevinmcdonough Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 January 2016 at 1:53pm
hey

Yeah I may suggest to them Chamsys and a DMX dongle, set up a nice easy execute page for them with some simple settings, as an alternative to a controller. 

Problem is just making it idiot proof enough that I'm not getting a call asking to come down and look at it every other day because they've pushed a wrong button or changed a setting and now it's not working properly.  I have used wall panels from Artistic Licence before but again, £300 odd a pop just for the control is more than these places expect to pay. 

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote kedwardsleisure Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 August 2016 at 9:00pm
The Stageline DMX1220 will do all that. If you want a 'manual' fade there's a 'vision mixer' style fader which you just slide up and down to fade in the next scene/fade out the last. It will go through the scene stack this way if you like.

Kevin

North Staffordshire

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