DMX House lights?

[Choecn]

Hey guys,

Not sure if this is a bit of a strange question, but i was thinking about the house lights for the renovation of our hall, and i wanted to make them dimmable by DMX, that may sound simple, but i also want them to be able to be controlled (only on/off, no dimming required) by a switch on the wall next to the main entrance so that you don't have to fumble in the darkness till you get to the lighting desk to turn on the house lights.

Is there a way to do this with a normal light switch? or would i need to put one of those little preset DMX buttons on the wall? (that would be a pain as i would have to supply power to the button as well?)

Using a hard wire switch could i just locate this on the power to the dimmer pack? or would nothing happen because there is no DMX input to the pack?

Ideas would be great! so basically i want to be able to dim houselights from the main lighting console but also turn the lights on and off at another location.

thanks!

[waynehoskins]

Switching power to dimmers (did you mean pack or rack?) = bad idea.

No, you're talking about an ETC architectural control rack in addition to your main rack. Or even the old Teatronics MD288 racks could accept architectural analog inputs, and those have been around for 20 years.

Not a good way to do that with a wall switch.

Drive over to www.etcconnect.com and take a look at what they've got.

[waynehoskins]

Forgot their architectural series name, but then I remembered it: Unison. If I recall right you require one or more Unison panels and then a Unison rack which combines architectural panels and theatrical DMX down to a single DMX signal, usually Last Takes Precedence (LTP) if I recall right, which goes to your Sensor racks.

[tpichler]

We just finished our new worship center with a Unison rack. We have a manual button panel located in the back of the room. The panel has 8 buttons and uses a single cable which provides power and communications. We have our system configured so that the button panel controls a few presets stored in the Unison architectural dimmer controller. When the Unison controller detects a valid DMX signal it will completly surrender all control to DMX. When the DMX is removed then it goes back to whatever preset the button panel asked for last.

When the DMX is on the button panel has no effect on the lights.

Then we use a DMX 1x8 splitter that has a power switch to disconnect the DMX when the technical people are not there.

If we want to program a new look for the manual button station we just use our normal DMX software and then use the Unison controller panel to tell it to store the current values.

[benwilhelm]

You can find a wall mount DMX controller like this one:
http://www.fullcompass.com/product/317742.html

You can program looks and it operates when your console is off and overrides when the console is on.

A hard wire switch really isn't a good idea in addition to dimmer packs or racks. How you handle the packs/racks is up to you, but I really think a wall mount DMX unit like that one would be a fabulous answer.

Ben

[Gracetech]

Their are a ton of options out their so to help steer you better i need to ask a few questions. What dimmers are you currently using or your going to be using with your house lights? If you currently don't have have a dimmer for your house lights what type of wattage load is on each circuit? Do you want one control button to turn on house lights and turn them off or do you want multiple looks on the pannel?

crt

[Choecn]

Thanks for the replies, so many options!

But i guess i should clarify a few things, currently for house lights there are just a bunch of fluros, thats it, so everything else is up for discussion, i'm hoping to get some halogens installed, or some other lights that are dimmable.

Currently for our stage lights we have a couple of these packs

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....MEWA:IT&ih=005

could i just get a few more of these for the house lights since it says that they can handle inductive loads?

and maybe something like this for the fluros?

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/NEW-4-CHANNEL...QQcmdZViewItem

It's only a small hall ~30 x 50 feet, 19 feet high and we don't have an overly huge budget to consider a full architectural system.

I'm not sure of the wattage required, that is still a question at this stage. For the control button we only really need it to be on and off, basically for non-technical people wishing to use the hall for a meeting or something, any dimming or "looks" can be done from the main console.

I like the idea of the DMX wall panel that benwilhelm suggested, but with something like that do i need to supply it with power as well as a DMX cable? (sorry i'm still new to all this)

thanks all

[Gracetech]

Well you could always use a smartpack from ETC and wire the emergency contact to a switch which will do what you need and relatively cheaply. I would urge you to stay away from individual packs as they are usually mounted close to the stage and can inject noise into your audio system.
I also wanted to mention that you can dim fluorescents with the aid of dimmable ballast. Most ballast only dim to 20% but their are two that i know of that dim to 0%. Just throwing stuff out there.

crt

[benwilhelm]

yes, that unit does require power to be run to the wall unit. It accepts a wide range of voltage from like 9-15 I believe. It is DC rather than AC so that makes it simpler. You can just run an extra cable to it with like bell wire or mic cable. Installs I've done with it, I've used a bell transformer to power it. You could use a wall wart type transformer too. Just run both the data cable and power cable to the booth.

Ben

[waynehoskins]

Originally Posted by Gracetech

I would urge you to stay away from individual packs

Agree 100%. I'd recommend getting "real" dimmers from one of the standard names (which include, but are not limited to, ETC, Strand, Colortran, Teatronics, Leprecon, and maybe possibly even NSI) (and which exclude names like ADJ, Elation, Chauvet, and possibly even NSI depending on who you talk to).

My first guess, not knowing what you need it to do, would be either one or two Sensor 12s.

But that brings up a good question: what do you need the rack to do? Traditional church? Rock and roll? How much houselights? How much individual control? You want to do theatre stuff?

If you're only doing pretty much traditional stuff, maybe one Sensor 12 would do it.

Also, while you indeed can dim dimmable fluoro ballasts, I'd be willing to bet that they're not what you want.

[bladeaudio]

We use a system by Vista (I believe) that gives us several wall switches around the room that control the flo's which are on Rosco relays that are DMX controlled. We then also have incandescent lights that are dimmed through some Rosco dimmers.

The vista system lets us program what operation occurs when the wall switch is used, so you can assign what channels are turned on to what level when the switch is pressed.

I believe that our vista wall units recieve power through the control cable that is routed to a central control unit.

[Choecn]

hi,

So what is the difference between individual packs and "real" dimmers considering that 2, 4 channel packs would suffice for our houselights? because the price difference is vast and the budget is not.

I had a look at dimmable ballasts for fluoros and they really seem like more trouble than they are worth, on and off is good enough for the fluoros

I found a 2 preset DMX controller at my local lighting store that i can mount on the wall so that seems like a good idea, in the end if it turns out to be too much trouble to implement controllable houselights (as deemed by the building committee) we'll just default to a normal on/off lighting system, it's an old building...