Programming the Stairville DMX desk.

danieleng204

Hi Folks.
Ive got the following.....
A Stairville DMX Master 2 desk.
8 X Led 56 par cans.
2 X Moving Heads 250MVH.
In relation to the par cans on their own...
All I can do at the moment is set all the Dip switches to 1 and then I can have all the lights go red, blue, green, clear etc etc etc.
Thats grand but how do I get them to change to one light being green, two lights being red, one light being clear, three lights being blue etc? As in mix them up so that they're not all red or all green. I know I have to do something with the Dip switches but not sure. I had Dip switch 1 up on the first light, dip switch 2 up on the second light, dip switch 3 up on the third etc etc etc, all in sequence but cant seem to work it.
Then the Moving Heads on their own...
Plug them in and its sound, Ive got what I want, all the colours, moving them up down left right the whole works so Im happy enough with them.
So is it possible to connect the 8 Par cans and 2 Moving heads all up together? What do I link up first, second, last etc?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!!

DBSound

For this desk, each 'fixture' will take up 16 dmx channels. So your scanner buttons on the left (1-12) will each take up 16 dmx channels. So if you want to set your 250mvh movers as scanners 1 and 2, set the first 250mvh dmx channel to 1 and the second 250mvh to 17.

Then, your first par can will typically be scanner no.3 and need to be set to dmx channel 33, the second par can will be scanner no.4 and set to channel 49 and so on.

Setting the dip switches does not work as simply as that.
First dip switch has a value of one, Second is 2, Third is 8, Fourth is 16, Fifth is 32 etc. . .

So if I wanted to set a par can to dmx channel to 33 I would flick on dip switches 1(1) and 5(32)

note: dip switch 10 usually has to be set to 'on' as this is usually used as an on switch

When you select a 250mvh from the scanner buttons, the first fader will control the pan, second tilt, then colour, gobo, dimmer (not sure which order).
When you select a par can from the scanner buttons, the first fader will control red, second green, third blue, and fourth is the dimmer

That should get you started anyway. The manual for that desk is fairly good though so its probably worth a read

danieleng204

DBsound thanks a mill.
The Dip switches on these lights only go as far as 8 though. It says 8 has to be down on all the lights and then set all the other ones as you said! So how does dip switches 1(1) and 5(32) = 33? I know the 32 + 1 = 33 but how does 5 = 32? And when connecting them up what comes first? Should I go out from the desk to MVH 1, MVH 2, PAR CAN 1, PAR CAN 2 and so on to the end or does it matter?

DBSound

No problem. Its to do with binary notation. 1, 2, 2 to the power of 3, 2 to the power of 4, 2 to the power of 5 etc. (couldn't figure out how to supercript! ) There's plenty of free phone apps or websites with 'dipswitch calculators' out there anyway. It doesn't matter, once they're all linked together in series you can configure the dmx addresses whichever way you want.

danieleng204

Cool. Thats great. Gonna try it out tomorrow and see how I get on. Think Ive got it now. Thanks again!

Irish Wedding D

Hiya,

I started learning DMX and the best description I got was:

DMX is like a television set, you have a cable coming into the house with 512 channels and once you programme the device to read the information you want - you'll understand it better. Just like your tv has be tuned, you need to tell the dmx unit which channel you want to recieve information from.

There are great programmes to help you with the dip switches and how they work. I still get confused with the dips but then - most dmx devices now come with led panels for changing the dmx channel on your device.

You dmx controller manual will be the best friend you'll ever have for programming, just follow the step and dont assume and you'll be able to programme your favourite scenes in a few hours....

Ruairi Finnegan
www.irishweddingdj.com

studiorat

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dmxcalc/id285187693?mt=8

DMX Calc. Works out the dip switch positions for DMX addresses. There's a free one knocking around too.

Irish Wedding D

too true, actually - if theres anybody that has a reasonably good knowledge of dmx, i'd love to meet them and go through a moving head programme. i have to get my head around a few things and all the courses seems to be day which doesn't suit at the moment.

If theres anyone in north dublin that could spare an hour, i'd love a bit of help in getting the basics in creating a moving head programme sequence...

Thanks - IWDJ

PM me plzzzzz