Problem with custom rgbw LED

[robt]

Hi, i've been trying for a few weeks now to get the FX section in the sequence editor to work with an RGBW LED that i made. I've read through the manual quite a bit and also through forums, i can't seem to find the problem, i'm pretty sure i must be missing something basic because it really doesn't look like a complex thing(!)

I'm using RGBW led emitters that i bought, coupled with 600mA 4 ch dmx controllers (it's just a small PCB that takes a 12V power IN and has outputs for ground, R, G, B and W. It has DMX ins and OUTS.)

The actual hardware tech part i'm sure is fine- i made a simple fixture in fixture creator and i'm able to get the LEDs to work just fine with the sequence editor.

But when i try to use the FX part of the sequence editor, i get nothing. But it's not at all clear (to me, but i'm slow!) what i'm supposed to do to make an "FX". I start with LEDs on, with LEDs off, try selecting multiple fixtures before hitting generate, just a few, none, have used sine, cosine, all of the options in that dropdown as well intensity, cyan/red, and all the other options in that dropdown as well. Maybe i just don't understand the wiki page for the FX function, it doesn't make sense to me.

I always get the same exact results- i end up with a sequence of 11 steps, but nothing changes over time.

I've tried everything i can think of. What i am hoping to do is make "shimmering" type effects- very similar to what you see in the FX wiki page:
http://www.freestylersupport.com/wiki/c ... equence:fx

right under where it says "Note: Some of the effects have pulse and inverse"

I was thinking that it might be a problem with the way i made the fixture- i've been trying to learn, but i might have missed something in there. I don't know if there's a way to upload attachments so i sent the fixture file to gdrive:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6OhhI ... sp=sharing

Does anyone have any suggestions? As far as the LEDs and controllers are concerned, there IS no cool effects, which is exactly how i like it- it's got 4 channels, there isn't a special channel to select strobing, custom color fade presets etc etc, it's just very simple and so the fixture def doesn't have much to it, but again, maybe i missed something?

Thanks for any help!

Rob T.

[spud1511]

Have you selected an attribute for the effect to happen on?
If so are the other attributes set ok?

For example, you apply a sine effect to the 'red' led channel, to see this you will have to ensure your master/intensity on those fixtures is also up (and conversely RGB values not zero if you were applying an effect to the master).
Then when you press the play button in the sequence editor to preview it, it *should* make something happen.

[robt]

To select an attribute, you mean the second drop down that contains things like pan, tilt, iris, etc right? I made the fixture defs so that there are only four sliders, one for each RGBW (there aren't any other options, modes etc.). I've tried applying the effect to every attribute in that dropdown, but nothing does anything.

What i've been doing is open the sequence editor, then select a fixture or multiple fixtures (they're all identical), then raise one or more channels to make a color on one or more fixtures, then click on FX and try different combinations of options. I'm not sure what you mean by applying the effect to the master?

If i can get anything at all to happen, i'm sure i can figure the rest out, but so far i must be missing something completely. When i hit play after having "generated", nothing at all happens- the same fixture or fixtures stay exactly the way they were originally.

Thanks!

[Partyman]

Many of the items have to do with movement (saw, cosine,...) since you have nothing that moves they will have no affect. The other items like cascade, flip flop, and chase work with the lamp or intensity channels (which you dont have on your fixture) so in reality you cannot use the effects generator with the fixture you created unless you add a intensity or shutter channel.

Rusty

[robt]

Ok, and that means an adjustment to the fixture def i think, hopefully it's not too involved, i wasn't sure how to do that. At least i have some idea what direction to go, thank you!

[robt]

I guess i don't know how- in the fixture creator, there is one place to put an intensity channel, and then also for min and max values.

But on this LED controller, all four channels are intensity channels- the dmx controllers for the LEDs don't have other channels for other functions, macros etc, only four channels- one for each colors' intensity, so i guess the FX functions must not work with these LEDs

[spud1511]

No need to change the fixture file...
Look down those options you described, the channels for red, green, and blue are already there, just use that!
(Don't worry about the cyan/magenta/yellow tags - that's for fixtures that derive their colour from CMYK 'darkening' from white instead of RGBW 'brightening' from black - like ones that use filters in front of a white lamp)

[robt]

There is one for simply, "color", I don't see any in the list for red green blue or white, i'll hook everything up and try it today, maybe i missed that one somehow, that would be so great if it works.

[robt]

I tried but still can't get it to work.

I start with 6 fixtures (all are the fixture def that i put a link for above). I have a sequence that has 4 steps- all fixtures start at red, then all fade to G, then B, and then W (4 steps). I selected half of the fixtures, opened the FX window, left the top dropdown on sine and changed the bottom dropdown to "color" and hit generate. It added steps onto the sequence- the first four stayed as they were, the rest have all of the fixtures on white fir every step, so no change. I tried also changing it to intensity, to shutter on/off and all of the other ones, but i keep getting the same results.

Partyman above suggested that i need to make intensity channels for it to work and i was trying to figure out how to do that, but couldn't. Is it possible to make each channel an intensity channel so that the FX function will work for he colors independently? If not thats ok too, but i don't see how to make a channel for intensity, i looked at the manual and a few tutorials again, i'll keep trying.

Thanks:)

[Partyman]

Make a simple 3 step sequence. set all channels to fade and select global scene and fade time. set the scene time for 5000. First step red 255 green 0 blue 0, second step red 0 green 255 blue 0, third step red 0 green 0 blue 255. save. You don't want to add white into this fade
This will give you a full color fade, you can then adjust the scene time with tap or set to whatever you like. If you want a chase instead of fade set the colors to snap instead of fade.

Rusty

[robt]

Ok, i have a basic sequence set so all fixtures are red in scene 1, all green in 2 and all blue in three, so when i play it, everything fades from red to green then to blue. Can i use this to set an FX function up? I tried it but i get the same thing, i used the intensity channel with the other dropdown set to sine, i just get more scenes added to the sequence, but all of the scenes have all of the fixture one constant color.

I'm usually able to figure things out without much help, but it doesn't seem to make sense, from everything i read it looks like the fx function would make it simple to set it up so the leftmost fixture is one color and it fades over time to the other fixtures in sequence while fading out the previous fixture

Like this:

http://www.freestylersupport.com/wiki/_ ... -pulse.gif

[spud1511]

So I have just done a quick test with a dozen led pars that while I had them setup for a photoshoot in a venue.
All I done was;
select the group (eg all the led pars).
Open the sequence editor, and click FX.
In the FX window I left the first box as 'sine' and clicked 'distribute evenly' box - to spread the timing of the sine wave peaks between the lights - if you leave it off they all go together.
I then set the second box to 'cyan/red' (I'm just interested in the red- it doesn't matter about the cyan bit, that's what would count if it was a CMY light instead of RGB).
Click generate button, and close FX window.

Press play/preview in sequence editor and watch them make twinkly red prettiness [emoji4]

Hope this helps.

[robt]

I still couldn't get it to work. Thanks for trying to help, maybe it's something to do with the fixtures- they don't have an intensity channel for example, and if that's how it needs to work... I went back to the fix editor and made channel 1 the intensity channel just to see what would happen, but it also didn't do anything. I wish i could get it to work though, i really had a lot of cool things planned, i'll keep trying though. Thanks!

[robt]

I have it working now, i think the problem is there is no intensity channel, really what you were saying before, i just thought there must be something besides "intensity" that would operate on the color channels directly.

The LED/DMX controllers have four channels, one for each color RGBW. You can set the color using those but there is no 5th channel to control overall intensity, and that's what the FX function uses. I was using the "intensity" option in the dropdown.

So, i re edited the fixture def and in the part that lets you define intensity channel and min/max values, i made channel 1 the intensity with 1-255 the min and max, then tried again. It works. Of course it won't work right though because it's not really the intensity channel it's controlling- it's just the red channel, so it won't work right.

Does anyone know if it's possible in freestyler to simulate an intensity channel so that the fixtures will still work right? i.e., if i could make the fixture def have 5 channels instead of four, and somehow make the 5th channel value increase/decrease all channels equally at the same time. Does anyone know if that's possible?

Thanks for taking time to help this far, i don't think i would have gotten this far.

[robt]

But then, maybe it's that i just don't know enough about how to work with freestyler yet. As long as i've been trying to learn, i still haven't been able to find another way to auto-change dmx channels over time. I saw that there is a way to use shapes to get movers to move over time. Is there a way to map shapes directly to color channels to have them change over time as well? i.e. if you could map a sine wav to red, a different to blue, and different ones to the other color channels and change their amplitude/frequency independantly over time, it would be possible to make some nice effects without taking very long. Except for the FX function, the only way i've seen so far is to make manual changes, one scene at a time.

[spud1511]

Hi robt,
I didn't use intensity channel on FX, no need to change fixture. I used "cyan/red" in the second drop down box.
I could have equally used the one with green or blue.

[robt]

Ok, i'll try that as well, thanks!

[Jan_K]

Hej

I lost a bit track in all the posts.

If the fixture file you are using is the one in you original post then you have an error in not defining the RGB cannels.

FX only works on the channels in the dedicated fields.

This means that it is not sufficient to write red in the channel description.
You have to check on "Enable CMY/RGB" and then check on "RGB values"
Then you have to config the RGB channels.

4chRGBW_JK.pff

/Jan