14
Operation
s e c t i o n 4
O P E R A T I O N
This section describes the RoboScan Pro 918’s controllable effects and the options for customizing them for your
application. Selecting options from the menu is described in the previous section.
M
A R T I N
R S - 4 8 5
C O N T R O L
The Pro 918 may be controlled with the Martin 3032 controller with version 2.04 or later software. While the Pro 918
is not officially implemented in version 2.04, it may be set up and operated as a MAC 500.
For the fixture to respond, the protocol setting (
P S E T
) must be set to Martin (
M A R T
) or automatic protocol detec-
tion (
S P E C / A U T O
) must be enabled. If automatic protocol detection is enabled, send one dummy command
before sending real commands.
D M X - 5 1 2
C O N T R O L
The Pro 918 has 4 DMX control modes with different channel requirements and characteristics. Mode selection will
depend on the controller and your programming preferences.
Tr a c k i n g c o n t r o l
Tracking is available in all 4 DMX modes. With tracking control, the controller calculates the positions along the path
between an effect’s starting point and it’s ending point. It uses the fade time to calculate the change (delta) of each
update or refresh, which the fixture “tracks.” For smooth movement with any fade time, the Pro 918 has a filter algo-
rithm that looks at several position updates (samples), and calculates the ideal speed.
This algorithm is adjustable to compensate for controllers that calculate position changes unevenly. In most cases the
default settings work well.
If movement is not satisfactory there are 2 parameters that can be adjusted. The first is the calculation method used and
is selected under
S P E C / T R A C / M O d E
.
M O d 1
, the default, calculates speed based on the absolute value of the
change in DMX; it is the best choice with controllers that calculate intermediate positions that are close to the line of
travel.
M O d 2
uses the real value of the DMX delta to calculate speed and is better if the intermediate positions stray
significantly from the line of travel.
The second parameter is the number of position updates used to calculate speed. The level is adjustable between 1 and
10 under
S P E C / T R A C / C A L
. Increasing the number of samples increases the distance over which speed is calcu-
lated, making movement smoother but less responsive to sudden changes.
The ideal settings for both parameters will vary from controller to controller: experiment for best results. The real
value algorithm (
M O d 2
) is recommended when using the Pro 918 with the Martin Lighting Director system.
V e c t o r c o n t r o l
With vector control, available in DMX modes 3 and 4, the fixture is given just 1 position - the end position - and a
speed, which is set on a separate channel. For smooth movement, the fade time must be set to 0. With controllers that do
not have programmable fade times, vector control provides a way to set speed. Because the end point and speed are
known from the beginning, vector control results in smooth movement regardless of the fade time or the controller’s
processing power.
The speed channels allow vector control to be turned off, resulting in tracking control. In addition, they offer a “black-
out speed,” described below, and overrides of the PTSP (pan/tilt speed) and SCUT (shortcuts) personality settings.
8 - b i t v e r s u s 1 6 - b i t p a n / t i l t r e s o l u t i o n
With 8-bit pan/tilt resolution, the pan and tilt are divided into 256 equal increments. Finer position control and
smoother movement is provided in the 16-bit modes, which divide the full pan range into 6400 increments and the full
tilt range into 1280 increments.
S
T A N D
-
A L O N E
C O N T R O L
The Pro 918 has test and demonstration sequences that can be run from the control panel. See page 12 for details.
