Moving head or Scanners

frankspencer

Hey guys,Getting into DMX more these days,looking at getting some moving heads or scanners for my mobile setup.

What would you recommend..personally I want my light on the dancefloor etc..but moving head has more scope.

any views let me know?

sweetie

I think moonflowers are the best personally as scanners and moving heads are primarily designed for haze or smoke.

frankspencer

I have both a haze and smoke machine,Just like the added features on the scanners and heads gobo,strobe, etc

ironclaw

I have 6 moving heads and rarely use all of them. Heads are great if you have a massive throw distance or a stage. If your in the tight confines of a community hall or pub, they ain't great. They'll put light in a small-ish circle and won't illuminate the whole area.

Ideally if you really want heads be sure to invest in very good ones (Cheap won't do) with plenty of colors and gobo's. And secondly invest in some form of a wash in the form of a lightbar, par cans or a moon flower to fill the rest of the floor. Lastly, remember the space and weight of movers. They are heavy yokes and if your using them in a mobile setting any more than 2 is a total chore. I generally bring three in a tri configuration and its tough work getting them up a stairs. The effect versus space might also be a consideration. You'll get 10 par cans in your car for the space of 4 medium sized movers.

This is my lightweight set up when I'm in a confined space. Unfortunately I don't have a photo looking the other way to get an idea of the illumination.



On the upside they are damn impressive if you program them right and I would encourage you to run them on DMX in a good program sequence.

frankspencer

I am aiming to move solely into weddings.I have a very bright par bar that throws great colour out,Looking at getting to grips with DMX first.
Not into the software that is available..just a small dmx light board will do me

The_Honeybadger

frankspencer wrote: »

I am aiming to move solely into weddings.I have a very bright par bar that throws great colour out,Looking at getting to grips with DMX first.
Not into the software that is available..just a small dmx light board will do me

For weddings you want moonflowers IMO, which will focus the light on the dance floor area. You don't want movers throwing light all over the place and dazzling elderly relatives who have no interest in the disco. Couple of good moonflowers and some colour wash will do the majority of weddings IMO. If you are good with dmx then that is a great help as the inbuilt programmes can be hit and miss on a lot of the moonflowers.

ironclaw

frankspencer wrote: »

just a small dmx light board will do me

Careful there. A mover could need up to 16 channels and a Moonflower anywhere upwards of 8. A small DMX board will quickly run out of channels. Also you'll want to set presets and most of the smaller units can't do this.

You'd be far better off getting a USB DMX Dongle. The AmericanDJ myDMX is a great piece of kit starting out. You literally have unlimited number of presents, very easy to change parameters, it has predefined profiles for lights and it will run loops / sequences.

I use a full sized board but thats owning to the theatre work etc that I do occasionally.

frankspencer

Does mydmx have all the profiles of most dmx fixtures?

ironclaw

frankspencer wrote: »

Does mydmx have all the profiles of most dmx fixtures?

It has quite a few and if you Google hard enough (I might have a link somewhere) there is a DropBox folder with every light fixture under the sun. Either way most lights are just a small variant on another. Very few are specific enough that a generic profile won't work. Easy to edit anyway.

frankspencer

thanks...what do you mean by presets?