Intelligent Fixtures

There are many different types of Intelligent lighting fixtures. The wash fixtures are most used to flood a large area full of light and normally have soft edges. An intelligent spot has similar features such as lots of colours, filters, effects and gobos. RGBW strips have many different effects as well they have built-in colour presets, effects, and chases. They are also RGBW which means they can make lots of different colours. These fixtures can be used to backlight or front-light a stage, they can also be used to light a cyclorama which can be used to create an atmosphere in a production.

Rigging

The process of rigging an intelligent fixture onto a bar is relatively simple. In the photo, I am tightening the clamps to make sure there is no chance of the fixture falling and potentially injuring someone. To rig the light, you would first attach the clamps to the fixture making sure there tight. You would then with a partner pick up the fixture with both hands as the lights can get very heavy. Then you want to make sure that the light is resting on the bar securely and you will then attach the safety cord and then tighten the screws as seen in the picture.

Attaching Cables - DMX and Power

After rigging the fixture, you will need to connect the DMX and power. In this case, I will first attach the power cable, but it doesn’t matter which way you do this. To attach the power cable, you must first pull back the slider on the lead making sure you insert the power cable into the fixture the right way, you will hear a click once the power cable has been plugged in correctly. You can see this being performed in the photo on the left. The next thing I need to plug in is the DMX, to do this I will follow the same process as before but instead with a DMX cable and plug it into the DMX IN port otherwise it won't work. Once I have done this you will see on the screen on the fixture it will say DMX signal present, and you will know you have done it correctly.

Patching

To patch the fixtures into the desk I will select patch on the desk which you can see me doing in the photo on the right. Selecting patch will bring me to a menu giving me all the channels that are available to me. To start patching I must first identify the fixture. For example, if the fixture was called a Phillips show line spot, I would search that into the desk, and it would be able to identify the make of fixture.I then after that type into the desk Chan 1/1 this means that I have put this light in the first channel, and I have also told the desk it is in DMX universe 1. After this, I would get two numbers E.G., 1-53 meaning that this fixture takes up 53 data lines this is very important as each DMX universe can only provide 512 data lines.

Addressing

Once I have this number I would go over to the light and change the address to the specific number. For example, if the number was 1-53, I would put the number 1 into the light as its address and you would then have control over the light you can see this happening in the photo to the right.

Operation

The photo on the left shows the desk that i am currently using. It is an ETC ION. You can only use this desk to programme once you have patched and addressed your fixtures. To programme the fixtures you have patched you will need to select them on the desk. Once you have done this you will be able to use the encoder wheels, these wheels have lots of different functions. One function could be Pan and tilt, you would find these options in the Focus button on the desk. Another useful button could be colour, when you click this button the desk will assign the encoder wheels cyan, magenta and yellow or on the very right there will be a wheel that lets you scroll through lots of colours. Also another button that can help with programming is the Form button. By clicking this button the encoder wheels will come up with the functions that let you change the form of the beam these include: Zoom, edge and iris. Zoom will change the width of the beam, Edge will change the sharpness of the beam this will decide weather you want a hard edge or a soft edge and iris will change how big or small the actual beam is. Finally, the intensity wheel that is on the bottom right of the desk, this wheel controls how bright or dim you want your fixture to be.