Affordable Solution re Presets for Relay & DMX

Here is my situation:

I sell and install stage lighting in a lot of public elementary schools. The two important things for these schools when buying a system is that it is 1. economical, as they don't usually have very large budgets, and 2. easy to use, because there are a dozen different people that want to be able to quickly turn on stage lights, but they don't know how to run a console. In the past, I have installed preset button stations so that they can easily bring up a stage wash, or podium spot, etc.

Now that I am selling all the schools LED fixtures (CS PARS and Spots), the issue I am having is mixing the affordable relay solutions with a preset button station.

The Colorsource Relay is one of the best products that has ever come out for schools as it provides affordable DMX distribution and LED fixture power control. It has made LED lighting systems a real possibility for hundreds of schools that just didn't have the money to purchase a relay panel, pathway splitter, DMX cable distribution, etc.

The Echo DMX Scene Controller is ALSO one of the best products for schools as it provides the ability to install preset button stations without having to spend thousands on an architectural control processor. 

Unfortunately, I can't think of a way to make these two devices work together... Sure, the EDMXC will control the onstage fixtures no problem, but it is always outputting DMX, so the CS Relays will not shutdown the fixtures.

My only thought is to provide a switch to power off the EDMXC and/or CS Transmitter. It isn't ideal though... 

Does anybody have any ideas of cost effective ways to achieve this solution? Think of the children! Will someone PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!! 

Thanks!

  • Have you considered putting the CS relay in DMX Mode instead of Auto Mode and using channel 512 to explicitly control whether it is on or off?
  • Hi Adrian. Are you aware of a very new product ETC released call Foundry? This might be what you are looking for. It's more architectural in style, so it's meant for permanent installs. These are distributed relays, 0-10v and 600w dimmers that are output power products controlled by DMX. And by controlled I mean the actual distributed units each have their own DMX address so you can control if the power to them is on or off. You would still use some Echo Button Stations and a DMX Scene Controller to capture stored looks and replay them. What you would do is make the OFF Button also put the DMX Value for the Foundry unit at 0. Additionally, make sure that stored look has a DMX value for the power to the fixtures stored. On the console side you would now have to park these DMX values at full in the board is the trade off over the CS Relay that just automatically turns on. For more info check out: www.etcconnect.com/.../Foundry.aspx
  • Hi Chris, thanks for the reply.
    I have heard a bit about the foundry products, but haven't looked into them in too much detail.
    That does sound like a good solution.
    I'm guessing the foundry units aren't wireless, so it doesn't save me on running DMX cable, but I could use a wireless DMX receiver to control the relay. Depending on price, this could be a possibility. Thanks for the suggestion!
  • sk8rs_dad, this is a thing?! I was unaware they could do that. It sounds like that is exactly what I need to do. I will have to look into it further. Thank you for the info.
  • Yeah, you can configure the ColorSource Relays via RDM including mode, address, and a few other features.

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