Smoke / Snow Machine Controls

[Dean Clough]

Hi I'm new the QLC world, so go easy on me.

I need to create a small show with a couple of rgb par 56 cans, also i have some strip lighting to be controlled via the dmx decoders, but i need to control smoke and snow machines via dmx but to be controlled separate from the lights.
Is this even possible?
I need to say control smoke for 3,5,10 second bursts on a say on a manual control button (on screen) or can i create a 'Auto' where i can switch it on and off as required, but also say i toggle the auto on, and say there is a 5 minute gap between bursts of 5 seconds?

i know both the smoke and snow machines work on 1 channel dmx mode, so will no doubt have to create a new profile for each.

Looking forward in using the software, ill be using it on a macbook pro, with a enttec dongle, and currently using 4.8.2 version of QLC +

[david garyga]

> I need to create a small show with a couple of rgb par 56 cans, also i have some strip lighting to be controlled via the dmx decoders, but i need to control smoke and snow machines via dmx but to be controlled separate from the lights.
Is this even possible?

I suppose you also want to control each light separately ?
This is the exact same thing.

> I need to say control smoke for 3,5,10 second bursts on a say on a manual control button (on screen) or can i create a 'Auto' where i can switch it on and off as required, but also say i toggle the auto on, and say there is a 5 minute gap between bursts of 5 seconds?

I'm not sure there is a question here, but you can do all of this.

[Jano Svitok]

There is no predefined thing for smoke machines. However:

- create two scenes - Smoke OFF and Smoke ON.
- create a chaser with the two scenes, set it to loop and have individual step times.
- create a frame, with a button for the chaser, and two speed dials, one for each scene.
- for the ON dial, disable everything except +/-, center dial and second, for the OFF, lean +/-, center dial and minutes. Set them to control the respective step.

This is theory - but it seems it doesn't work. Until I find how to adjust time with speed dials, you have to create separate button for 3, 5, 10 second bursts.

See attached workspace.

[Dean Clough]

Yeah ill need to control the lighting also. But want to control the smoke/snow machines as separates.

I was originally looking at My DMX 2.0, but that will only allow you to output to all fixtures at once on the 'live' screen, so you can't control individual items as it doesn't support the multi scene play.

[Dean Clough]

Thanks for that workspace, i have however managed to create a little 'something' by creating a new scene for each of the 'Auto Smoke, 3 second, 5 second, and 10 second bursts' then setting a fade and hold time, then within that scene, i've created a sequence with the same names and added steps, with hold times, then dropped all the buttons into one solo frame.

It seems to work how i want it to via the viewer etc, maybe its a bit of a long winded process?

[Dean Clough]

I've attached a few pics of how i done it.