Chan v DMX for Multichannel Devices

Just look at the patch tab, that has the channel and the address of each each fixture

Totally embarrassed by this! Can't seem to find the Patch Tab. Attached are two cropped jpgs; 1 shows the Tombstone display and the other is what I see in Patch. Note the Address in the latter is null. The book says this will appear blank if not patched which confuses me because I can the MAC in Capture and even (at this moment) turn on its beam. It's early Monday so I'll hive off to search the videos etc but if you had a quick answer it would be helpful. Thank you   

The "attached jpgs" don't seem to be displaying at the moment for me.

If you cant see it when pressing the plus to add tabs to the display,  you can use the shortcut.

Press and hold TAB and key 12 and then release TAB

if I understand that correctly with my mediocre English skills, are you confused about what channel in Eos means? It's not the DMX channel, it's a fixture ID. So it's a sort of lamp ID, like in your case the Martin MAC250. So channel 12 can be any other lamp, you can specify it in Patch table: By typing address address (in nomad alt+A alt+A).
I hope I could help you.

Ouch, sorry about that. My problem is not is seeing "12 Patch" its the blank Add part. I think I started wrong with a new [1 to 1] show file. Watching a video of patching now so will start with a new NOT 1 to 1. The presenter is showing how to manually assign say a 5 channel device to address 101 thru 105, Thing is I thought adding a fixture from the lists on the left this would all happen automatically. Hmm! I'm obviously on a new adventure path here. Being a legacy dimmer only place has left me ill prepared to venture to MPDs

Not worry. I'm quite happy about "Channel" (A numerical assignment etc . . } and Address - one of 512 addresses within a particular universe. And the number we plug into a dimmer or fixture on the bar. My problem is/was seeing where the CH maps to a Address. I can manually do this by making a new (none 1 to 1 patched) show file and then manually assigning Chs to Addresses. But in a 1 to 1 file and after patching a MPD can't see actual DMX Univ/Address.

Not to worry. These things can get quite complicated and I am chugging along with videos. But you help is appreciated. Your English better then anything I have! (Using Element 2 by the way)

i'll try to clear up the Eos terminology, because i think that's your only bigger obstacle

Channel: is the number you use to tell the console which light you want to control. no matter how complicated the object is that you're trying to control, it's always just one number. a dimmer takes one channel number, a color changing LED takes one channel number, a moving light takes one channel number.

Address: is one slot of information in the DMX world. multiple addresses can be (depending on circumstance) automatically or manually assigned to one channel, but the same address cannot be assigned to more than one channel.

when you select a channel and then tell the console which type to use (in your case the Mac 250) it already knows how many addresses need to be collected by this one channel. you don't need to worry to tell the console that all in all the fixture needs e.g. 20 addresses and that the first is Pan, the second Tilt, the third is a color wheel. the console already knows.

so your confusion is about No.12: you expect address 12 to belong to channel 12. that was like this when you chose the 1:1 patch. but then you said 11 should be a Mac 250. the console knows this will need more than just address 11. so if you tell the console to use start address 11 it will have to steal address 11 and the consecutive e.g. 19 addresses from where they are patched right now (remember: each address can only be assigned to one channel) and assign them all to your channel 11. the stealing only happens after a confirmation.

in your patch display your should see in the Address column for your channel 11 not only "11", but "11-30" (not sure about the 30, depends on the mode of your fixture and how many addresses it uses). this shows you that not only address 11 is assigned to your channel 11, but all addresses between 11 and 30.

It is sometimes hard to put into words. I understand the difference between Channels and Addresses. Your last para says I should see DMX addresses. Let's say I put a 5 channel MPD at CH10 so I should see 1/10-1/14 in the address column. I'm not! I

The problem may be that I added a MPD to a show started with a 1 to 1 patch and my question was; knowing we were taking up 5 DMX addresses starting at CH10, wanted to see the DMX address of subsequent Channels to be able to set up the subsequent fixtures.

Now, using a new NOT 1 to 1 show file and following the video I see exactly what I want though this is restricted of course to the manually patched channels, ranges whatever.

So, back to original; if I patch a MPD into a 1 to 1 show file 1/ Should I do this? (It seems to work) 2/ If I can, how do I see the DMX Addresses. Thanks.  

what are your first two columns in Patch? Channel, Address, or Address, Channel?

ah, and did you ever tell the console what the start address of your channel should be AFTER you changed the type from Dimmer to the MPD?

Following an example in this picture:

ueliriegg said:

Channel, Address

So Channel 1 is patched to a fixture that starts at address 1, as you see. So Channel 1 uses adresses 1 to 6. Channel 2 is patched to another fixture that starts at adress 7. So it uses adresses 7 to 12.

In a 1 to 1 patch the adresses from 9 to 48 are stolen by channels 1 to 8, so they are unpatched. You can repatch them with any free address.

OK I get what your issue is.

When you repatched 11 as a fixture that needs more than one address,  it (after warning you to confirm) unpatched channel 12 as that was previously at DMX address 12 which was now being used by the MAC250.

You can just type in a new address for it ie in patch screen chan 12 at 40 and that will patch it to address 40.   If instead of that you did   chan 12 at Next then it will work out the next free address and use that so it will be 30 or whatever depending on how many the MAC250 took.

Hope that makes sense

Getting there. Can you see the attached Patch3.jpg? 1st off - if I use a none 1 to 1 show I can add, delete single channel dimmers and MPDs and see the DMX address range fine. The problem occurs if I have 1 to 1 show file but want to add a MAC 250 (requiring 11 DMX addresses) to CH10 at a later date. My thinking was that in adding the MFGs fixture profile the program would 'clear' 11  channels and therefore the next channel (11 in this case) would show address 1/21. But it doesn't. It shows 1/11 (Which is would be the 2nd address for the MAC. Maybe I should delete the 11 channel's address data before adding the profile. Thank you for your patience. In the month or so we have used the ELE2 I've learned a lot.

the only step missing is telling the console which start address to use for your Mac. you assumed it would just keep the same address it had when it still was a dimmer. that would be correct *if* the additional addresses weren't assigned yet. but they are. so your element would need to steal all those additional addresses from the other channels. and by doing that it would automatically unpatch the 20ish following dimmers.

so just type (in Patch) Chan 10 @ 1/10 Enter (read the confirmation) Enter

Right, I used Chan 10 @ 1/10 for the MAC 250 and see the Address as 1/10 - 20

Great, thanks. I really need now to go back and do a lot of this stuff and make some good notes, watch videos. And, would you believe it, "Element Level 1: Essentials" is using, as an example the 'MAC 250' !