Partioning

As follow up:

I see that the Ion/Eos partitions Channels, not addresses, so.... question sorta' answered in part.

I also see that a Sensor CEM+ can assign dimmers to a Room, so...

How does the rack/dimmers "know" to only listen to a address call coming from a space, when the connection is Net3 ?.  An how do I do what I want to avoid and accomplish as stated in the first post ?

Thanks

SB

If you have 2 different venues with 2 different consoles, I would not recommend trying to use partition control to limit the output.  Eos/Ion have a built in output limition function found under the network tab in the shell.  This will stay with the desk and does is not effected by the show file. Simply remove all addresses by selecting the {remove} button below.  Next select the address you wish to have the console control and select {Add New Range} 

Just to add a note...

You will probably want to assign 2 different address ranges for any movers, or Multi-attribute fixtures you might be using.

`Steve

The dimmer racks themselves can also be partitioned to only respond to certain addresses - whether they be sACN, EDMX, DMX whatever...

The ML and multi-attribute device issue adds another element.

I'm assuming that any such devices probably want to be on different universes - such as Univ 2 for the Theater Reh. room and Univ 3 for the Music Reh. room, so that the 2 consoles address patching and disabling in shell doesn't allow talking to a universe in another space (same as dimmers)

This means that the Ion that sends on Univ 3 HAS to be a 1536, as unless I port it thru a Net3 Gateway and put it in another EDMX range, the 1024 ain't talking to nuthin on Univ 3.

Hmmm....

More ammo for not going the shared dimmer rack idea.

SB

Jeff Mabray said:

The dimmer racks themselves can also be partitioned to only respond to certain addresses - whether they be sACN, EDMX, DMX whatever..

Jeff

Do you know where in the CEM+ manual you saw that ?. 'cause I went thru the manual yesterday and only saw the ability to partition/assign dimmers to rooms, activated as presets internal to the CEM and I presume, then driven by a button box preset type activator that ETC can provide as a system not needing Unison or a Console.

I didn't see any method to to allow the rack to only have certain dimmers respond to call up from a DMX source in a particular room.  The CEM doesn't know where the source is, just that there's data for certain dimmers/relays to activate.

Thanks

SB

It would depend on how the system is laid out, but you can assign each dimmer to a specific sACN address if you want.  So for instance, you could assign several dimmers in a rack to respond to sACN universe 1 and others to respond to sACN universe 2.  to make this as easy as possible, the inputs in each space would probably need to be DMX plates tied to a gateway or a single port gateway.  This way you set the sACN input address and it is already patched to those dimmers.  The other option is to use a direct net input to the system from the console and then use the sACN addressing option in the shell discussed above.

If spending a little less on dimmer racks and sharing them between spaces gets you more other toys to play with, it may be an idea well worth considering.

The Output Count limitations on Eos, Ion and Element consoles are a limit of patched Output Count, not the specific numbers used.

You can patch an Ion 1000 to any 1024 addresses, but you can't have more than 1024 addresses patched at the same time.

So you can easily patch one Ion to addresses 1 thru 1024, and the other to 1025 thru 2048 with both of them being Ion 1000s.

(You will probably want to change the rear DMX ports of the second Ion to start at 1025 and 1537 though)

Going back to the original question:

The "Rooms" in Sensor+ are to do with the SmartLink architectural system - designed for when you just want a couple of button stations to turn on house lights or work/cleaning lights in the space.

For patching 'shared dimmer racks', you'd patch Venue A dimmers into Universe 1 and Venue B dimmers into (eg) Universe 3. Hard-line DMX could be DMX A for Venue A and DMX B for Venue B.

In the rack, if you patch a dimmer to address 0 (zero) on an input, it unpatches it from that input so it cannot be controlled by it.

You then use the 'allowed addresses' funtion in Ion to limit the Venue A Ion to 1 thru 1024, and the Venue B Ion to 1025 thru 2048.

Richard and Jeff - a thanks for the info.

And if I'm following what Richard is saying, a 1024 Ion can patch to ANY EDMX addresses in the system, as long as you don't exceed the 1024 count.  That's very good to know, as the 2 shared spaces will have some ML's that I can assign to start anywhere, using 2/1 for one space and having the "other" console configured in setup to not address that universe, then do the reverse for the first space (3/1).

The individual Ion's can then simply have a shell address limitations for appropriate dimmers residing on U1. 

Only issue I see is the need to re-configure the Music Reh. room Ion - which is to be the "floater" console, serving as the "designer remote" for a main recital hall, as well as backup for 2 other spaces, needing it's addressing changed in shell each time it's moved to a different space.

I'll give a look at the Ion currently residing in the road house to see how easy it is to configure.  If it's anything like the Advanced Input Patch of Net2 then I might be OK with this.

And if anyone at ETC see's issues with this, please correct me, as I'm basing my suggestions to the consultants on this info and understandings.

Thanks again

SB

I know it's very old-fashioned of me, but you *could* run hard-line ye-olde-schoole DMX from each venue to the DMX A and B ports of the racks, that way you would never have to worry about affecting the other space. A Sensor dimmer can be easily set to only "listen" to one port or another.

-luke-

"I know it's very old-fashioned of me, but you *could* run hard-line ye-olde-schoole DMX from each venue to the DMX A and B ports of the racks, that way you would never have to worry about affecting the other space. A Sensor dimmer can be easily set to only "listen" to one port or another."

No need.  The console ability to partition in Settings will probably be fine.  The facility will have 3 performances spaces (2 are really enhanced rehearsal spaces) all with Ethernet.  Almost no actual DMX cable anywhere, which is fine by me.

SB