Creating fixture profile for a winch

Hi Alex,

Sorry for the delay in responding to your post.  The Eos family of consoles are not intended for operation of winches or other hazardous devices (pyrotechnics, life safety, etc....) via DMX control.  There's nothing stopping you from using parameters that are "close" to the parameters needed by the motor in a user personality, however we have safety concerns about using this console to control these types of devices, and we cannot provide you with a factory created profile.

Hans

Hi Alex,

Sorry for the delay in responding to your post.  The Eos family of consoles are not intended for operation of winches or other hazardous devices (pyrotechnics, life safety, etc....) via DMX control.  There's nothing stopping you from using parameters that are "close" to the parameters needed by the motor in a user personality, however we have safety concerns about using this console to control these types of devices, and we cannot provide you with a factory created profile.

Hans

As an end user (rather than employee) of ETC (and other manufacturers') equipment, I hope I would be at liberty to embellish Hans' safety comment.

I would not trust any lighting desk to operate potentially dangerous machinery/effects. The main reason for doing so is the physical way in which the digital protocols work. It doesn't take much for errors to appear on a data line - and one of those errors could trigger Bad Things (tm). It's one thing to have a few irritating flashing lights, but when winches operate erratically and unexpectedly, it could be fatal.

Not wanting to be a killjoy - but my advice is to please use equipment and methods designed for the purpose!

Also, not an employee of ETC and speaking as an end user of both winch systems and ETC products...winches do not run on any sort of similar control system...so to me that would be a major factor, that could be in jeopardy at any time, especially if you were trying to convert.

As David stated, a lighting desk is for lighting. And no matter how good the Eos series is, it is still running software, and no matter how good the best software is there are still bugs, and it can still crash. 

Winches, can potentially hurt/kill people if used incorrectly, and therefore my recommendation would be as well, to stick to the control methods that the winch system was using previously.

Jared

Hi,

This is a comment to everyone really.

I truly truly understand the safety implications. It is mainly why I asked for help with a profile because I found that I was struggling when trying to build my own. If I had got one element of the profile wrong then as you all say disaster would occur.

I don't like the idea of collaborating lifting devices with lighting. Lifting and winching is a fine and specialist art that requires dedicated equipment to control the lifting device. I will talk to the people in charge of the show, showing them these comments and suggestions and suggest using a separate manual console with a separate line of DMX, (they are winches that use DMX as the protocol to control them). So that whilst they are controlled using a lighting desk they will be separate from any cues, tracking or DMX data reflections etc etc and controlled manually.

Alex

I think you may have misunderstood the reason for our concerns.

The ANSI E1.11 DMX 512-A standard contains the following paragraph:

1.5 Classes of data not appropriate for transmission over links designed to this Standard
Since this Standard does not mandate error checking, DMX512 is not an appropriate control protocol for
hazardous applications.

This is the reason why we're all very nervous about the idea of using any DMX512 controller to control a winch, regardless of the make, model or what else said console might be controlling.

This paragraph is stating that the DMX control signal itself is 'unreliable' and therefore the safety of potentially hazardous effects must be ensured by other means.

Some examples:

• DMX-controlled flame effects.
  • DMX is only giving 'fire now if safe' commands, and there are separate dedicated controls for 'safe to fire' and any other safety implications (eg max flame size, pilot light etc).
• DMX-controlled LASER projectors.
  • The LASER is set up so that it can't point a hazardous beam at anyone/anything no matter what happens to the DMX control signal.

In all cases the 'unreliable' DMX control signal is only responsible for the artistic result, while the safety is ensured some other way.

Even for 'normal' luminaires, DMX controls the brightness/colour/focus etc of a light, while safety is provided by things like circuit breakers, thermal cutouts, mechanical stops, not putting it too close to flammable material, rigging it appropriately, unplugging before changing lamps etc.
- Basically, you, the installer and the manufacturer do various things to try to ensure that it's not dangerous for a dimmer or moving light to go haywire.

I can't find a manual for this winch, but from your description it uses DMX values for position, speed and also for setting max and min travel.

As you cannot rely on any DMX values for safety, you should probably assess and control the risk based on the assumption that this winch could be commanded by DMX to move to any position at any speed at any moment.

So before deciding to use a winch under DMX control you must be prepared to explain (in a court of law if necessary) why you considered it a safe thing to do, bearing in mind that any competent prosecution would bring up the above paragraph from the DMX 512-A standard.

If you can't give good reasons why the winch is safe regardless of the DMX control signal, then please don't use it at all - find another way.

I'm not weighing in on the safety of DMX for winches, but here's the manual for the product:

http://www.wahlberg.dk/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=PlrtbixCs3E%3D&tabid=167&forcedownload=true