Moving Head Lighting

[Dukesy 0]

Am considering a couple of nice lighting effects to place on the floor - moving head style lighting.

If you have this type of lighting, what are the effects like, where did you buy and if you have any example photos in use, please can you share!

 

Cheers

 

 

[Dream Catchers 0]

I have 4 moving heads, 2 Showtec and 2 Stairville.

They give great coverage.

I have the Showtecs running via DMX using Free Styler and have programmed a few chases for them so I can use them effectively for first dances etc.

The Stairvilles I just let run S2L and they run wild, with a full dance floor.

I do prefer the Showtecs though as they are discharge and the Stairvilles are only 250w elc's.

 

I haven't got any videos of them as my camera is poop when it comes to video, everything goes in and out of focus.

 

Jim

Edited March 6, 2009 by JimBoylan

[Dukesy 0]

Thanks

[UKHero 0]

Hi Dan

 

I have 4 Mini Legends.. There great when DMX'd but do to much of there own thing when S2L... You say to put them on the floor? I find they are much better up in the air shinig down you get more use out of them IMHO.

 

 

Nik

[Dukesy 0]

Hi Dan

 

I have 4 Mini Legends.. There great when DMX'd but do to much of there own thing when S2L... You say to put them on the floor? I find they are much better up in the air shinig down you get more use out of them IMHO.

Nik

Cheers for that.

I see what you are saying, but not all venues have ceilings to set-up ihigher rigs, and am considering reducing the size of the set-up.

 

 

[Bouncy Dancefloor 0]

im always weary of putting moving heads on the floor

 

i did it once and i was paranoid, someone almost kicked one of them whilst dancing and once people were dancing, the effect was pretty much lost

 

also there were children wandering around and i had to keep an eager eye on them to ensure they didnt put their fingers into the yolk part when moving, as they look rather tempting to a young child

 

what i use now is a few of the LEDJ Colour bursts, they cost abo £30 each, i made up 2 pieces of wood, sprayed them black and screwed 2 to each. They sit on the floor and i tend to point them across the floor, they look great. They can also be used for uplighting purposes on the same board. Kids cant get hurt by them and if kicked, they only cost £30 and because they are LED, they wont be affected too much

[defcon4 0]

JimBoylan,

 

what dmx dongal do you use?

 

[Dream Catchers 0]

I use a Velleman VM116 (or K8062 in kit form)

They are about £60 from Maplins or ebay.

Free Styler comes with drivers for it too.

 

Jim

[gadget 0]

I also have the Velleman K8062, and its not a very good USB->DMX adaptor/dongle to use, and has some major latency issues... I often see chase patterns 'skip' on the dmx dimmer packs, even when I know that freestyler is doing them correctly. According to what I've read elsewhere, the more channels which are set to a value higher than 0, the slower the DMX bus/timings get.. In fact if all DMX channels are set to full, the bus can slow down to about half a second or so for one refresh...

 

Apparently the next version of freestyler *should* give you the option of limiting the number of DMX channels in the universe, which should help this box out (I need no more than 64 channels, with 8 led pars, 4 spinmasters and DMX dimmer for Pars)...

 

I've posted about possible latency issues before (http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/index.php?showto...7&mode=flat), but only recently I've found others have come accross similar issues mentioned above. For the life of me I can't find the websites which mentioned this..

 

Cheers,

 

David

 

[edit, correct url]

Edited March 9, 2009 by gadget

[norty303 0]

They are about £60 from Maplins or ebay

 

Really for a professional show you should be using a reliable piece of kit.

 

The Enttec Pro interface is only just over £100 and is a proven reliable performer that works with most of the free software out there.

[Dream Catchers 0]

No doubt some DJs will be using DMX desks that cost several hundred quid, some also use interfaces that cost an arm and a leg too.

I can understand people who use DMX in theatre and TV productions needing pin point and split second accuracy, however, let's be honest about what we use DMX for.

We are talking about moving a red heart slowly across a dance floor, or maybe having our ImpossibLed's changing from red to green to blue. Nobody will notice if there is a time lag of a few hundred milli seconds.

 

Jim

[Dukesy 0]

im always weary of putting moving heads on the floor

 

i did it once and i was paranoid, someone almost kicked one of them whilst dancing and once people were dancing, the effect was pretty much lost

 

also there were children wandering around and i had to keep an eager eye on them to ensure they didnt put their fingers into the yolk part when moving, as they look rather tempting to a young child

 

what i use now is a few of the LEDJ Colour bursts, they cost abo £30 each, i made up 2 pieces of wood, sprayed them black and screwed 2 to each. They sit on the floor and i tend to point them across the floor, they look great. They can also be used for uplighting purposes on the same board. Kids cant get hurt by them and if kicked, they only cost £30 and because they are LED, they wont be affected too much

I know what you mean. Same can be said of the Bose, Par-cans or of any of the 'kit' being kicked really. Grrrrr….and then some!

For some of my rig set-ups, I accept that usage of such lights would be totally inappropriate, but for other set-ups, totally cool.

I'm still keeping my eye out for a decent sized / effects moving head light.

 

[superstardeejay 0]

I agree with Pete, children may actually try to ride a moving head or stop it moving. I've repaired stuff that's been subject to this.

 

 

[Dukesy 0]

I agree with Pete, children may actually try to ride a moving head or stop it moving. I've repaired stuff that's been subject to this.

Personally, I don't let anyone / kids behind my rig work area so not an issue, but I agree with your point. smile icon