Lighting
It all starts off with the heart of the system - a Boot Camp iMac running Light-O-Rama (the show software). I use the Light-O-Rama program to create a “sequence” AKA a timecoded show. The software looks like a spreadsheet attached to a song timeline, in the boxes, I can tell when I want each channel do at what time in the song, such as shimmer/strobe or dim up/down (I can drag across multiple boxes to make the dim take longer, as well as set custom percentage values that will correspond to the voltage output on the controllers or DMX control values). All the Pro lights are hung from Box Truss or Ladder Truss attached by U-brackets. We use a USB to RJ45 converter to create what is called an “LOR network” This has a CAT6 cable (computer internet cable/ethernet cable) and sends serial data to my Light-O-Rama controllers. I have 3 types of controllers that run on this network: One is what's called a “dimmer pack” and the other one is an LOR to DMX converter. The standard Light-O-Rama controller (dimmer pack) runs off the CAT6 cable coming from the USB converter and standard 120 VAC coming out of an outlet; it has 16 of what are called "channels" per controller, each channel is an individual dimmer. Yes, it's the same principle as the dimmer you have in your house for chandeliers but this uses a TRIAC, which converts the low voltage signals from the computer to be able to control the high voltage that the lights use. Every channel has a light string or something else that plugs into a standard outlet and that's how all the standard style (incandescent) lights are controlled. Another controller is a pixel controller, which outputs SPI signal to all of the RGB pixel nodes. All the other lights use the “LOR to DMX512” controller which allows me to convert 512 LOR dimmer signals so that they work with stage lights like the RGB wash lights on the house, effect lights, moving heads, fog Geysers, scanners and lasers. I also have plenty of DMX dimmer packs that do the same thing as the Light O Rama 16 Channel controller but instead of having the 16 channels all in one controller, I can spread out by 4 channels per unit, allowing me to use fewer extension cords when the controller is closer to the lights. All of these fixtures and the dimmers connect using an XLR 3 pin DMX cable. Some of the graves use LED strips or modules that run off of a low voltage transformer, and is controlled with DMX via a DMX LED decoder - which allows me to have 30 channels of 12VDC control (its not limited to just LEDs). Our logo is projected using an ETC Source Four with a custom fabricated metal gobo.
Technical equipment used: