Q Light Controller+

Hi,
I'm relatively new to QLC+ (great application by the way), although I'm pretty familiar with DMX lighting and lighting control in general.

I've bought myself a bunch of cheap fixtures off eBay mainly to help me learn QLC+. I have a friend whose band has a few DMX lights which they've been controlling using a standalone controller desk. I'm looking at whether I could replace this with QLC+ on an old laptop or Raspberry Pi or similar.

So, I'll probably be contributing a few fixture definitions in the near future when I have them straight.

Anyway, to the question:

One of my cheap fixtures (A RGBWA LED moving head) has the master dimmer and the strobe on the same channel, as follows:
0-134 Master intensity
135-239 Strobe speed
240-255 Full intensity

Can anyone suggest a sane way to approach this in QLC+?

One of the issues, for instance, is that if I include the master dimmer in a Channel Group, it assumes the control is a pure dimmer and so triggers the strobe at some levels.

I have tried using the Channel properties configuration and successfully configured a modifier for the channel which, effectively remaps the dimmer values to 0-134. This works well.

However, I then have the issue I can't access the strobe feature.

Note this isn't a production system. It's a lab so I've got this kit to learn. I do realise I could implement strobes using sequences, and this also has the advantage of allowing the strobe effect to be synchronised across multiple fixtures. I was just wondering if there was some trick I was missing.

Cheers,

Keith

You could f.i. use 2 sliders and restrict the values they work with...
slider 1 intensity: 0-134
slider 2 strobe speed: 135-239

I hope that if you send 134 to your fixture that this equals full intensity otherwise we'd have to come up wth a thierd solution...

Have fun

Thanks for the input.

I was more thinking of the situation where I wanted to use Channel Groups or similar to group the master faders.

I think the ultimate answer is to avoid cheap fixtures which has this sort of dumb channel setup although that is easier said than done as, often, you don't get to see the manual up front.

In fact the "manual" for this fixture is piece of A5 paper with a vague description of the channels - it's taken a fair bit of work and experimentation to find out what the channels actually do. I don't actually mind in this case, as it's a lab and the whole point is experimentation and I've learned quite a bit from doing it, but someone getting this to build a production rig from it would probably, and rightfully, be annoyed (with the fixture, not with QLC+)

Cheers,

Keith

I think this is actually a fairly common set up --

My RGB pars are set up the same way.

Without verified, I think you can implement some "shadow" dimmers with special
threshold cannel properties to limit each to the desired ranges, place them in a loopback
universe an attach the feedback to the real fixtures.
This said, you can use all functions to work with the "shadow" fixtures without running
from the dimmer mode into the strobe mode.
HTH.

Interesting... when I get a chance I may have a play with this.

Cheers,

Keith