MartinLogan MAC 500/E - Manual (Page 9)

9 Operation
s e c t i o n 3
O P E R A T I O N
This section describes the MAC 500/E’s controllable effects and the options for customizing them for your application.
Option selection is described in the next section.
M a r t i n R S - 4 8 5 c o n t r o l
The MAC 500/E may be controlled with the Martin 3032 controller with version 2.04 or later software. To respond to
the controller, either the protocol setting (
P S E T ) must be set to Martin ( M A R T ) as described in the previous section,
or automatic protocol detection ( S P E C / A U T O ) must be enabled. If automatic protocol detection is enabled, send a
dummy command and wait 1 second to allow the fixture to respond before sending real commands.
D M X - 5 1 2 c o n t r o l
The MAC 500/E may be operated with USITT DMX512 controllers in 4 modes that combine tracking or tracking/vec-
tor movement with 8-bit or 16-bit pan/tilt resolution.
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 MAC 500/E has a filter
algorithm 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 MAC 500/E with the Martin Lighting Director system.
Ve 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.
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provides a way to set speed. Because the end point and speed are known from the beginning, vector control results in
smooth movement regardless 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
P T S P (pan/tilt speed), M O d E (studio mode), and S C U T (short-
cuts) personality settings.
When blackout speed is enabled, effects move at full speed. The dimmer/shutter closes while the effects move to make
the transition invisible. Dimmer/shutter strobe and pulse effects, however, override the blackout command.
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 32,768 increments and the
full tilt range into 45,567 increments.