How do the lighting riggers run intelligent lights that are far away from away each other?
Do they just have to get a long DMX lead and run it to the light before that one?
thanks
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We set up a large show with 8 moving heads and 60 pars on 120ft. of truss suspended from the ceiling of a college arena for the one Bridal Show we run. And to answer your question each head is about 40ft. apart, and yes they are just daisy chained with 40ft. cables. Now if you want to know what's really neat, ask us how we run 60 pars off of one cable. 
How do you run 60 pars off of one cable?
Now Bill you were there. Didn't you take notice?
How do you run 60 Par Cans off one cable?????????
OK, It is a 21 wire cable. This cable uses 20 wires as Hot's and one ground. These are soldered to Soca-pex Ends, and We have bars pre wired with 10 pars on it. The Soca-pex end attaches to one end of the bar, and feeds 10 of those pars. On the other end of the bar there is another Socapex end which feeds to the next bar. So it kind of goes like this.
Wire 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19 Feed The First Bar...
Wire 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20 Run straight bipassed to Feed the Second bar of 10.
Wire 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19 Still continue on and out and bypass through the second bar to the 3rd and so on.
Confusing I know. I'll try to post some pics. But we use a board that dims 20 channels, so when you dim channel 1 It will dim the 1st ParCan on Bars 1,3 & 5, And the channel 2 dimmer will dim the first Par on bars 2,4, & 6.....Understand? So there is one cable that goes from the light controller to the first bar. Then one that "jumps" from the frist to second, second to third and so on. So technically there are 6 cables, but it is daisy chained through the bars. We use the same concept on our Mobile Trusses (big) that we use for school dances. Each custom truss holds 4 pars, 8 pins, and 3 effects, and are fed by 1 single cable, and everything is pre-wired in the truss.
I'll try to post some pics tonight.
And remember you asked.
Wire 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19 Feed The First Bar...
Wire 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20 Run straight bipassed to Feed the Second bar of 10.
Wire 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19 Still continue on and out and bypass through the second bar to the 3rd and so on.
Confusing I know. I'll try to post some pics. But we use a board that dims 20 channels, so when you dim channel 1 It will dim the 1st ParCan on Bars 1,3 & 5, And the channel 2 dimmer will dim the first Par on bars 2,4, & 6.....Understand? So there is one cable that goes from the light controller to the first bar. Then one that "jumps" from the frist to second, second to third and so on. So technically there are 6 cables, but it is daisy chained through the bars. We use the same concept on our Mobile Trusses (big) that we use for school dances. Each custom truss holds 4 pars, 8 pins, and 3 effects, and are fed by 1 single cable, and everything is pre-wired in the truss.
I'll try to post some pics tonight.
And remember you asked.
ok, with that in mind.. i will be designing a stage in the near future with dmx lighting all over the place... the shortest run will be 100 ft... maybe... can i run 1 dmx cable for all the dmx devices or will i have to run maybe a sound snake to the general area then split into the channels for the lighting board .. this will be a permanent install... with all kinds of lighting for concerts and plays... ps it is for a church... 5000 seats...
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Soundman.....e-mail me drewmeistr6@yahoo.com Il help you out with all your lighting needs.
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