Right Arm personality for an Insight 3

Hi,

It all depends what mode you are running it in. mode 0 to 8

http://www.internetapollo.com/Products/View/2852.aspx

All the setting are on page 3 of the manual on this link.

Carl

Thanks for the info.  I'm in mode 6, which should be the 16bit + speed.  I've put in those values (the 5 channels listed above out of the manual) and it didn't work.  I called Apollo and he said something about home needing to be at 50% for pan course & fine, as well as tilt fine - but it needed to be 0% for title course.  I can't get the personality editor to recognize the difference in home percentages for tilt course vs tilt fine.  I've played around with various different settings in the editor but haven't hit on one that will work.  I'm very frustrated, partly because no one whom I ask can tell me how to get the thing working.  I have a feeling that I've got some setting wrong in the editor, but can't be sure that that's the problem.

-Centaura 

Have you tried controlling the device without using any personality or the fixture patch?  Try controlling the parameters as normal channels on the Insight 3 -- as if they were dimmers.

The simplest way to do this is set the device to DMX start address 1.  Then on the Insight 3,  change levels yourself for channels 1-5 (assuming a 1-1 patch).  If this controls the fixture correctly, then the problem is likely in your personality.  If this does not control the fixture properly, then there's some problem with the signal getting from the Insight 3 to the device.

Finally, have you checked all cables and termination?

1 Pan Coarse, 2 Pan Fine, 3 Tilt Coarse, 4 Tilt Fine, 5 Speed.

Unless you require a very smooth movement over a long path, ignore the speed channel by leaving it at zero. (We can come back to this once you get the movement functioning.)

With the pan and tilt channels set as 16b parameters, they will show on your display as 0-65535.  50%= ~32768.

I have neither an Expression3, nor an Apollo Right Arm available to test, but here is a personality that I hope will work for you. Let us know.

I went ahead and read the Right Arm manual (I've never used one.) The speed channel is not discussed there at all, and just mentioned on the Spec sheet. Did the factory guy tell you how to use it? Your description of the motion suggests that you have the Speed (or more commonly, and vividly, MSpeed) channel set wrong.

Since the manual doesn't explain how to use Speed, I may be wrong, but usually to get direct (i.e. numerical, encoder, or submaster) control of a unit with an MSpeed parameter, you have to disable MSpeed (with a certain value they provide) while you position the unit. They you have to (tediously, usually) change the value at the right time, and provide the new position value in a zero count fade. Otherwise you get little, no, or back-again motion.  As I say, it's not in the manual, so I might be wrong.

And unless that special value happens to be zero, you may not get a good test when not using the personality, if you can see what I mean. 

Thanks all for the advice.  I'm off to a staff meeting, but will try some of your suggestions out afterwards.  

-Centaura 

Well, I've been sent another personality from Apollo and that hasn't helped my problem.  I have realized that I'm not terminated, which the Apollo tech said wasn't a concern 'most of the time' but I'm still trying to hunt up a terminator just in case.  I've also gotten myself a tour this afternoon of another theatre in town that has some, so I can see how they have their board programmed.  I haven't tried operating it on just channels yet, that will be my next step since once I figure out how to use it on my Insight, I then get to figure out how to use it with a small Strand board where I'm sure that it will be controlled with just channels.

Right now I'm still at where I was - I send it input from the board, after a multiple minute wait it reacts with a move, and then it immediately returns to the point where it started from and won't react again to the next input from the board.

 Here's my next stupid question.  In the Insight manual, in the patching a moving fixture instructions:

 5.  Enter the number of the desired DMX port.  Press [Enter].  The cursor remains in the DMX512 start field but moves to the right of a slash inserted in the field.  Enter an address for the fixture within the DMX post (1-512).  If entering a range, picking the DMX address assignes a sequential address at that port to every fixture in the range.

 When its asking for the desired DMX port, what exactly is it asking for?  I had thought it wanted the address of the fixture, but then on another read through it sounds like it wants the fixture address as the second number.  Right now I have it at 1/1 - what should the first number be if the fixture has an address of 1?

-centaura 

Hi there -

The Insight 3 has three DMX output ports labeled (I think) 1-512, 513-1024 and 1025-1536. These correspond to DMX ports 1, 2 and 3. So, if you have your fixture addressed at 1, and you have it patched to 1/1, you need to connect it to the DMX cable that connects to DMX port 1 (1-512). If you patch to 2/1, you need to connect the fixture to the second port (513-1924), and so on. Make sense?

Regarding the naming conventions... DMX addresses only exist in the 1-512 range, so to get more than 512 you need a second port. If you have a mainly dimmers-only installation (more than 512 dimmable circuits) then the convention has been to name the circuit for the 513th dimmer "513" and not "2/1". When moving lights entered the DMX world, confusion ensued because you cannot address a fixture at 513 or above. So, you have to do some translation sometimes depending on the type of equipment you want to control and how your console names those DMX outputs.

Hope this helps - 

Sarah

Thank you for your explanation.  I've made progress!  I plugged the unit directly into the back of the board, and I have full control of it.  It seems that I've had everything set up correctly in the board.  So, we're now looking into how our DMX is wired.  We've had some problems with that in the past, but in regard to road shows plugging into our system and conflicting with our board if we have it out.  Thanks everyone for the information and explanations!

-centaura 

Just as a follow-up for those who were very helpful, it turns out our power distros were bad and we've had to send them in for repair.

 Then I tried to use it on our small Strand board - only to find out that its monitor was broken!

 At the end of the day, we've decided to get some, its just been an adventure getting there.

-centaura 

The speed channel is discussed in the manual found here and shipped with every Right Arm.  Page 3 of the pdf (which is page 14 of the printed version) explains the speed channel as follows:

It is as simple as it sounds.  The unit does not use MSpeed.  The Right Arm, as with all Apollo products, is designed to be "Plug-n-Play".  All you have to do is address the unit and you are off and running whether you are using a personality/profile or not.  However, if a personality is not properly set up, it can cause problems.