u/MagazineOutrageous64

Pretty new to MA3, about four months on onPC with a command wing after years on a two scene board, so apologies if this is beginner territory.

Small venue house rig. The Robe and Chauvet fixtures that came with the room patched straight out of the library and gave me no trouble.

We added four more wash movers last year. What the room needed was movement and colour at a price a space our size could actually sign off on, since we run maybe two shows a week and nobody here was ever going to approve touring grade fixtures for that. We landed on four Betopper LM3715R, and those are the ones I can't find a GDTF for.

So I built one off the DMX chart. Main head as one instance, the outer halo ring as pixel subfixtures under it. It patches and addresses fine, and the ring lights up.

Where I'm stuck is the virtual dimmer. The ring cells ignore the master dimmer completely, so a fade to zero leaves the ring sitting at full until I pull it down separately. I've tried the relation both directions and rebuilt the instance twice.

Two questions for people who do this more than I do. Is a ring like that better off as subfixtures under the head, or as its own fixture type sitting in the same patch? And when the colour is obviously wrong in the visualiser on a hand built profile, do you chase it or just live with it and trust the real output?

Happy to share the file once it actually behaves, in case anyone else ends up with these.

Thanks

tech volunteer at a 300-seat non-denom church, been on the tech team about 2 years now. wanted to share how we added moving beam fixtures for our special events because i know a lot of smaller churches are in the same boat.

our sanctuary has a basic lighting setup. some par cans on a dimmer pack, a couple ellipsoidals for pulpit specials. works fine for sunday worship but every time VBS, easter production or christmas program rolls around, the pastor asks for "something more" and the answer is always "we dont have the gear."

last september the elder board approved a small equipment line item so i researched beam moving heads that could work in our space. we ended up with 4 CLB260 compact 9R beams from Betopper. main reasons: they fit on regular stands so no rigging or truss needed, each one is about 13lbs so anyone on the team can set them up, and four units came in well under what a single professional fixture costs.

VBS this june was our fourth special event with them. setup took maybe 20 minutes including DMX cabling. i preprogrammed 3 scenes: a slow color sweep for worship segments, a beam chase for the high energy kids music, and a static look for the drama sketch. the kids went absolutely wild during the beam chase portion, which was worth the whole purchase.

practical stuff: setup and teardown is fast. we keep all 4 on stands in a storage closet and it takes about 20 minutes to get everything cabled and addressed. the build quality has held up through 4 events now with different volunteers handling setup each time. nothing has loosened or broken which matters when you cant control who is moving things around.

if your church is looking at adding some visual impact for productions without a major investment, happy to answer questions about our experience.

So I've been running 4x LB150s as my main movers since last August. 18 weddings + a couple corporate gigs later, here's what I wish I knew on day 1.

Good stuff first. Zero failures. One had a sticky pan once after a humid outdoor reception in Charleston, fixed itself after 20 min in the AC. That's it.

Things I'd do differently:

- Stop running them in auto mode. Built-in shows are fine for warm-up but during dinner the strobe-y bits make the room feel like a club at 6pm. Plug into DMX, build 3 chases (warm wash / dance / first dance dim), call it done.

- Get the safety cables on day 1 not day 17. I had one slip a clamp at a venue with a low truss and now I don't go anywhere without 'em.

- Fans are louder than I expected. Not a problem in a 200-person ballroom but during the ceremony in a small wine cellar I had to repoint two units away from the aisle. Real take: don't put movers within ~6ft of any officiant mic.

- About 10 lbs each = my back is grateful. Two per case, all 4 fit in the CR-V with totems still going in.

Anyone else running these long-term? Curious if the pan motor noise gets worse past year 1, mine still feel quiet but I want to know what to listen for.