NON-ETC Lighting fixtures

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this, if not, can the mod please move it to the appropriate forum, thanks. Anyway, our church has an ION board with a universal fader wing. I'm not 100% sure on how all of our lighting rails are wired. I know that they all have replaceable twist lock, electrical style plugs like those made by Hubbell. All of the lighting fixtures are standard white lights. They have the ability to put colored gels in front of them to achieve different colors. Our pastor wants to install 5 multi color, LED lighting fixtures to provide seasonal color  washes onto various parts of the stage. I know that ETC offers some that fit the bill but are priced WAY out of our churches budget. I know other companies make similar fixtures but what I need to know is whether or not the ION can truly control them to their fullest capabilities. The LED fixtures I'm speaking of have XLR capabilities, both in and out. Is that all the ION needs is an XLR interface, or is there more required? Thank you for your advice!

  • speaking strictly from a controller point of view, those new fixtures would have to support DMX-512 standard (those are usually the ones with XLR connectors) and you would need a datasheet telling you in which order the colors are controlled and if there are additional features like color macros and strobe. if you get instruments from  well known manufacturer, chances are that the Ion already has a profiles for this type of light, if not (provided you got the datasheet and thus know how to control it) you can write your own profile or use a generic one.

  • They are Chauvet Colorado 1's and they are DMX. Are Chauvet fixtures already supported?

     Is there a data sheet that lists supported brands of lighting fixtures? I know that Chauvet offers stand alone controllers for very reasonable pricing, I was just hoping that the ION could handle them to save us that step.

     



    [edited by: wll-i-am at 11:54 AM (GMT -6) on Sat, Aug 17 2013]
  • Yes, the ION supports them, and I believe they're already in the fixture library, but I am not certain as I have never looked for them.

    -Tim

  • The full line of Chauvet Colorado's are in the library already.  When you patch them, make sure you select the correct mode for the fixtures.  The Colorados have several modes/profiles depending on the features you want to control.  Consult your manual for more details.

  • JP is totally correct about having the Chauvet's in the fixture library.  I have been using those fixtures for awhile now and I tend to patch them as generic RGBw fixtures.  The color picker is not limited as it is when using the Chauvet profiles.  Also I recommend setting a custom dimming curve as the units naturally have that wicked bump on tendency at normal low DMX settings. 

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