ION flipping fixtures

I think you're not used to moving yoke/moving head fixtures.

I would recommend putting one of these moving head fixtures next to you, put a sticker on the 'top' of the head and on one side of the yoke so you can see how it moves.

Put another sticker on the wall and try to see how many ways you can point that fixture at that sticker.

With a moving yoke type of fixture there are (almost always) at least two ways to point it at a given location on stage - one using a positive tilt angle and another with a negative tilt angle.
- For many positions there are more than two, eg there are usually 65,536 ways to point the fixture directly away from its base! (0° Tilt)

The "Flip" command says "Use another way to point in this direction". You are flipping the entire head around the other way.

If you point one fixture at the wall using a positive tilt angle and another at the wall using a negative tilt angle, increasing the tilt of both will make one of them move up the wall while the other moves down!

Another way to think of it is that for half the values of Pan the fixture head is actually upside down.

hi richard

i agree, that your theory certainly works for flipping tilt. i usually don't do that. but flipping pan certainly makes sense to me. and whatever angle the head is tilted to, the pan direction shouldn't be influenced... so, if the pan flipping doesn't work, i would consider that quite unpleasant...

ueliriegg, you've misunderstood what Flip does.

Flip is a fixture thing. It flips the entire fixture around to use different Pan/Tilt combinations where the fixture still points in the same overall direction.

Perhaps an example:

• Point at something.
• Now turn around and face in the other direction while still pointing in the same direction.
• Both your shoulder (tilt) and your feet (pan) have changed values!

That's what flip does.

- It's a bit more complicated on fixtures that have more than 360 degrees of Pan because there are often more than two Pan values that can give the same overall direction.

ah, richard, sorry, my bad... rtfm...

No matter, I think you were probably thinking of the "Invert Tilt", "Invert Pan" and "Swap Pan/Tilt" options.

Those select whether turning the encoder clockwise should give clockwise or anticlockwise movement, and whether the encoders should be totally swapped over.

hey jeff

sorry about the confusion. i tested it with my offline editor which is set to a different language... i think what you might be looking for is the "invert pan" function in the patch (under attributes). but be aware that this will change your already recorded positions. it's something you want to do before recording the first cue. if you have recorded all positions of the movers you want to invert as paletts, the time needed to re-focus might be worth it. your call...

As I read through all the comments I started feeling like JOB.  He was inflicted with terrible disease he didn't deserve and all his friends gave him blame he didn't do.  Ehhhh.

It's true i am not used to working with moving fixtures. Only since 1990's so there's always a lot of room for new knowledge.  Unfortunately I have been using the same console for the movers all those years and that console has the ability to change pan and tilt.  They call it "reverse" and it is done fixture by fixture because they are installed in a variety of positions; hanging, sitting, forward, backward, etc.  Maybe I've been doing something wrong, but I always hang all my FOH movers with whips right and always sit my stage fixtures with whips back.  Some fixtures have the whips coming out different positions so I just make sure everything is proportional and siting the same way at each venue; to the best of my ability.  For example the Robe Wash 575's have their whips coming out on one side of the handles and the set up screen on one side where there are no handles.  Anotherwords whip and handle on side A, set up screen on side B, second handle on side C and fans on side D.  Their 575AT spots have the whips coming out on the opposite side of the set up screen.  Or whips on side A, handles on sides B and D and set up screen and fan on side C.

So when I was using Flip on my new ION I just assumed it was the ETC equivallent of Invert or Reverse and not seeing any change on Pan I decided to inquire as to how to do that.  I'd sure like to see that as one of the soft key selections when holding down the encoder rather than having to do it through patch.

Yep I know once it's in cues and is changed it's changed where it shouldn't be.  Thats why I am trying to get everything sorted out before putting this new ION into service.

Thanks. Ill go to Patch now.

Sorry, I think we've confused you further instead of helping!

Quick summary:

Flip

This is a programming command.

It tells the console "Use another way of pointing the fixture in this direction". It's useful when programming when you've accidentally rotated the encoder clockwise instead of anti-clockwise to get somewhere.

Important: There is only one "Flip".
You can get this softkey by holding down Pan or holding down Tilt, and both methods give you the exact same command.

Patch: Invert Pan, Invert Tilt, and Swap Pan/Tilt

These settings invert the direction of rotation of a fixture's Pan, Tilt and finally completely swaps over Pan and Tilt controls respectively.

You might want to adjust these settings if the fixture is hung with the 'whip' the other way around, sat on the floor or hung sideways.

They change everything (including stuff already programmed) because if you have pre-programmed (in another venue or visualisation) with the fixtures hung 'whips right', and find they've been actually been hung 'whips left', you might want to Invert that for everything you already did to avoid completely re-programming all your positions.

These Invert and Swap Pan/Tilt settings are the options you were looking for originally.

Richard,

Thanks and no one confused me any further.  All that happened is my question got turned around to something I wasn't asking.  So yep, found the setting in patch and took care of it and off and running creating pallets before any actual cues or other are created.

Also correct me if i am wrong but should; (and i know it will happen) fixtures end up a wrong way and invert needs to happen, I would just need to update the focus pallets and all the cues will be correct.  Right????  :-)  I would have to update them anyway for each venue because locations are always different.

Because of the variety of set ups traveling from one venue to another, doing a different show most every time and a variety of different types of applications I normally have to do a lot of tweaking anyway :-)  I was just confirming that as in my last console, all I really need to do is tweak my focus palletes and all the cues will still be good to go.

awesome, thanks.  soo simple