Laser Control Rigs

[JD3]

Anyone care to share pictures of their control rigs?

I heard someone on here built theirs into a pelican case.
Id like to do something like that to simplify setup and make it more plug and play.
maybe mount the fb3's inside with a small jumper add a ilda header to the side of the case kind of like a bulkhead fitting.

[Insanity]

Here's mine...

Mine's not in a Peli case, but in an amp case...

I use a combination of Pangolin LivePro for the usual stuff and DMX for custom boards which control X Flip, Y Flip, Red/Blue Flip, Projector Blanking, RGB Intensity and servo's for gratings.

From the front are 3 QM2000.Net's and a DMX Merge. This merges DMX signals from one of the QM2000.Net's and from an Enttec DMX Pro connected to Chamsys MagicQ. Those signals then leave the merger to a splitter/amplifier inside the box. This splits into 3 DMX outs going into the ILDA cables and 1 DMX 5 pin out on the back of the rack for haze machines etc.



Around the back is the Powercon in and DMX out on the left. On the right is an Ethercon in, which carries Ethernet and eStop signals from the Front of House controls, Ethernet breaks out to the switch and off to the 3 QM2000's and eStop is patched into the 3 ILDA's.



So from the rack I need to run 3 ILDA cables to the lasers, an Ethernet and a DMX to Front of House.

At FOH, the Ethernet goes into a little distro that breaks out to my laptop & eStop and the Enttec for DMX. Then for control I have the laptop running LivePro and Chamsys, a touch screen to operate Chamsys and a Pangolin Performer & APC40 to operate LivePro. There's also a Korg NanoKontrol in there, but that's currently not doing anything...



With that little lot, I can control pretty much anything.

Cheers
Mark

[JD3]

NICE!

I have FB3's Velcro'd to the back of my laptop haha. And an APC-40 to control beyond.

I need more toys.

[norty303]

Mark, interested in your breakout of the Ethernet to your eStop. Can you share how you do that?
Is this something Pangolin provide functionality for or something you've created?

[Insanity]

Just uses the Interlock pins 4 and 17 on the ILDA connection...

So at FOH I have a little distro box, Ethernet comes in from the laptop to one input socket and patches to the output socket pin 1 & 2 transmit, pin 3 & 6 receive. eStop connects to another input socket and that patches to the remaining four wires in the Ethernet, which I bonded together to make a pair of doubled up wires. At the stage rack is an Ethernet in, the same bonded pairs go to ILDA 4 & 17 through one of Dave's (LSP) breakout boards. The other two pairs are patched as Ethernet and go into the switch... So eStop doesn't pass through the switch... Breakouts have optical amps to allow daisy chaining...

[norty303]

Thanks Mark. It was the bit about the 4 unused pins on the Ethernet that I wasn't aware of. I guess they get used for PoE and other implementations

[Insanity]

Thanks Mark. It was the bit about the 4 unused pins on the Ethernet that I wasn't aware of. I guess they get used for PoE and other implementations

Spot on mate... UTP was supposed to be a multi purpose cable for telecoms, data, etc... So yeah pins 4, 5, 7 and 8 are redundant and can be used for other stuff like POE or eStops , unless you are carrying Gigabit Ethernet, then all 8 are used....

[norty303]

Cool, makes my idea of running my FB3's over cat5 plausible, with a little relay box for the eStops (I run my interlocks on 4/17 too). Only thing I need to check out is whether the proprietary use of the cat5 by Startech (its not ethernet) for their USB extender leaves at least a pair free.

[JD3]

anyone else have pictures?

[danielbriggs]

Some old photos:

WiFi box used only for "roaming" alignment/zoning with the laptop/iPad during setup. Cat5e for showtime.