Q Light Controller+

The (amateur) theatre group I'm associated with is looking to migrate to computer-based sound & light control.

On the software side, QLC+ is a high-scoring candidate (board decision pending).

On the hardware side (that is computer to DMX, not the fixtures), it's another story ...

On the internet (and on this forum) there is a lot of information on various computer to DMX devices, but some looks outdated, also some devices (anyma ?) appear no longer to be on sale.

The high-end devices claim "isolation protecting the computer from unwanted voltage spikes from DMX chain", but what is the added value of this ? Is this like insuring your bike against it catching fire while riding it ? Or is it like insuring your house against fire ? In other words, what is the probability of such a 'voltage spike' ? Has anyone already experienced such a thing ?

On the 'Open' devices (FTDI chip based), there seems to be a 'flickering' issue that occurs occasionally (with solution though) and no 'spike proctection'.

Given our requirements (1 theatrical production per year with 5 'mission critical' performances where technical issues really are a show stopper, no technical skills to go DIY), which computer to DMX device would you, experienced users, recommend ?

One last request: please don't turn this into a device bashing vs promoting discussion, I'm just looking for arguments to present to our board so that we can decide what amount of money we are willing to invest and what risks we are willing to take.

Thanks for your feedback.

http://dmxking.com/usbdmx/ultradmxpro

Works like a charm

From the stability side, I think the best you can get is ArtNet node (DMX King eDMX, Enttec ODE). With (wifi) router it's easy to integrate to a computer network,
and/or use it over wifi when needed (and you can risk it ) In case of failure or when you don't need/want full computer, you can have an app on your smartphone.
With ethernet based devices, you don't have to install/uninstall any drivers since ethernet is built-in in all computers.

Next in row are DMX KIng ultraDMX, Enttec USB DMX Pro - where the device has its own processor, so the timing is not dependent on computer.

Finally the cheapest category is Enttec Open DMX and clones where the computer must be fast&precise enough to produce proper DMX timing.

I started in 2010 with Open DMX clone, and I didn't have problems with it. I used Freestyler&Windows then and in 2011 I switched to QLC and later QLC+
Last summer (2014) I was given eDMX, and I use that since then without any problems.


I don't know much about isolation. It should mean that if there is short circuit somewhere, high voltage will not get to your computer data (USB/ethernet) ports and further.
I don't know how real this situation is. I suppose it depends on your electric installation, types of lights etc. Nevertheless, if you have good backup, you can survive computer/data loss.


I'd suggest you consider some hw controller or touch screen to go with the computer or something that will give you faders and buttons instead of keyboard and mouse.
Good examples are: simple lighting desks that either have MIDI output or any desk if you have DMX device with input line; Behringer BCF200 if you want motorised faders;
Korg nanopad2, Korg nanocontrol2, Akai apc40/apc20 and many more.

Our local theater group uses a venue with 96 channels of electronic dimmers (2400w per channel) so we have lots of power. The dimmer rack is normally plugged into an ETC Express 96 board which gives us 192 channels of DMX control, but with our recent purchase of 16 very modestly priced moving lights, we needed much more. So we moved to QLC+ and decided to purchase two inexpensive KedSum USBDMX Pro (clone) "dongles" from Amazon for about $50 each (http://www.amazon.com/KEDSUM%C2%AE-DMX5 ... =sr_1_sc_2 ) They have 5-pin connectors (they claim "pro" status, i.e, they do both input and output, so you might need a 5-to-3 pin adapter) and they are compatible with Enttec Pro. So far we have had nothing but success with them (although sometimes you have to reset your computer when you reconnect (which we do everynight) in order to get it to recognize the USB connections).

We have them both hooked up to a Lenovo laptop (modestly high end laptop, quad core processor running Ubuntu Linux 14) each driving one universe. The first universe drives the existing 96 dimmers and the second drives our direct DMX intelligent light string (16 lighting units of about 300 total channels plus a hazer). The inventory includes:

8 Yiscor "headbangers" (equivalent to the Stagg Headbanger which is a 70W 7-LED RGBA moving wash head). These were priced at about $700 for four in a package ( http://www.amazon.com/YISCOR-Lighting-7 ... ef=sr_1_49 ) so a total of $1400.

4 Chauvet 350 Spot LED, a terrific 75W LED spotlight with most controls you need including autofocus but no zoom or shuttering, a gobo wheel, a color wheel (but not RGB so be aware the color choices are limited unless you try to replace the colors in the color wheel... not recommended for the fainthearted...), some other effects like gobo shake and rotate, prism, and of course the autofocus which is really cool for making the gobos look however you want - and the gobos are replaceable very easily! These are awesome lights for $850 each at Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Chauvet-Lighting- ... ref=sr_1_1

2 Chauvet 250 Spot LEDs - these are the baby brothers of the 350s, the major differences are power 50W vs 75W and no autofocus... these ran about $500 when we bought them but they have gone back up in priace and to be honest, I think we all wish we had spent just a little more money and gotten 6 350s instead. The autofocus is more than worth the cost difference, IMHO.

2 Yiscor "Mini4s" which have 4 little moving spots on each unit for very tight (but not very effective) pin lighting. These cost us $350 each and honestly we would rather have our money back LOL. I might have gotten two or 4 single units to place where I needed them, but the four on a single bracket is really only useful in rock concert settings (we did use them in JC Superstar our current show which led us to this purchase but we probably won't ever use them again).

We also have a Chauvet Hurricane Hazer 2 for haze to see the light beams. Suggestion for theater: do NOT get a standard hazer if you are trying to illuminate beams, it tends to put out WAY too much volume, the Hurricane puts out just a fine mist which is almost invisible except when the lights hit it and only uses a small amount of fluid per hour compared to a normal fogger/hazer.

The total cost of our lighting upgrade was amazingly low: $3400 for the 350s (at $850 each), $1000 for the 250s at $500 each, $1400 for two 4-packs of headbanger wash lights, $700 for the mini4s (waste of money for theatrical use) and $300 for the hazer. $6800 total plus $100 for the dongles and we used an existing laptop. That is about the cost of two Martin Mac 600s a few years ago. Of course the Macs are a much higher end piece of equipment, ditto for any of the new ETC Source 4 LED units. But for a small community theater, this is a HUGE upgrade of capabalitity for very little money. And QLC+ is one of the ways we were able to save a lot (THANK YOU ALL IN THE COMMUNITY FOR MAKING THIS WONDERFUL PRODUCT AVAILABLE!)

All of this was put to use in our recent production of JC Superstar (I will post some pics soon, the effects from this equipment was pretty amazing). Don't shortchange time though, the learning curve is STEEP for moving lights if you've never done it before and I will have some ideas on this to post since I don't see many people talking about how to plan a production and set it up. Most people seem to "wing it" (or so it seems). Theatrical lighting with moving lights takes a lot of time and organization but if you do it wright, it will be worth it.

Oh yes, and those dongles are running like champs, driving 96 channels on one universe and about 300+ channels on the intelligent lighting universe (although we only make use of about 200 of the channels since we aren't doing much gobo stuff or fine XY movement, etc.).

Its been quite an experience but it was worth it and everyone is very happy with the result. Feel free to ask me questions if you have them.

LOL, to specifically answer your question, the dongles we bought are more than adequate I think. If you need only one universe, you might want to buy a second one as backup (they are cheap enough), and if you are running two universes, you can probabloy just have one spare on hand.

Virtually any good modern laptop or desktop can run this software and run it well. You can even buy a low-end Linux "brick" for about $200 if you don't have a laptop or spare desktop to use. The biggest thing which I think is important is having LOTS of screen space. You need it for your virtual console especially if you do a lot of lighting (which we did in JCS).

The risks are not in the hardware (at least not IMHO). The risks are in the time it takes to learn the system. If you just want to fade lights up and down, why bother? Any cheap old lighting system will work (although you can also use QLC+ that way if you don't have a cheap old lighting board. But if you want to do moving lights and color changes and special effects, it is REALLY REALLY important (I can't emphasize that enough) to actually do a LOT of hands-on experimaenting before you do your first show. We didn't have time for that (because we just made the decision about 3 weeks before the show opened when we realized that our ETC Express 96 wouldn't cut it to handle all the intelligent lighting we wanted. So we spent a LOT of painful hours (some of them late into the evening, night and even the sunrise) trying to figure out things we ultimately realized we needed to know but didn't. The old saying "if we knew then what we knew now" applies here... We still would havedone it but we would have done it a lot more easily, I think.

But I highly urge you to do it. It is so amaazing to see what you can do that before was virtually impossible. I hope the pics I postin a few days will be of interest to many.

Best,

Jon