Week of October 11 – Lead up to LDI

Things have been getting very busy on the lead up to LDI. This is the biggest trade show of entertainment lighting technology and is hosted in Las Vegas. Mr. Doug Fleenor, the owner and head engineer, has decided to showcase their newest product, the DMX24DIM. It is a 24 channel dimmer which is meant to drive LEDs and other low wattage requirement loads, like Christmas lights.

What makes this rack unique and special is that the 24 channels are regular ungrounded 110volt sockets and it fits in a 1U 19” rackspace. It is really tight, as there is just enough room for a standard 110volt ungrounded power cord to fit into each of the connectors.



Since each dimmer is 24 channels, and the DMX 512 protocol can handle a total of 512 channels, Doug designed a display which will use 21 dimmers to show off the dimming capabilities.

I researched light weight 19” DIN racks, as I knew we would have to transport the display model all the way to the trade show floor, and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca has taught me that these racks are heavy when filled. ;) I came up with a very basic freestanding rack that didn’t need to be screwed down to the floor. Once the rack was filled with 21 1U DMX24DIM’s it was pretty heavy though, but manageable when 3 people carried it.

The plan was to have a single light bulb plugged into each socket on the back of the dimmers to make a cool display and light effects. We borrowed an iMac with fancy lighting control software installed from a vendor of DFD products. I set up a demo rig to verify that the software was working and everything needed was supplied. Unfortunately I couldn’t get much past a blinking “Hello World” light, since the software, costing tens of thouseands of dollars was anything but intuitive. (at least to me who never worked a lighting rig before) We packed it up since, the vendor will program it for us. The plan is to have a display of 12 lights wide, by 42 lights tall.

We were unable to find a commercially available candelabra base socket that was small enough to fit side-by-side in the rear of the dimmers. Thus, we devised a simple way to create the necessary sockets. DFD bought approximately 500 plugs, and 500 sockets, and the plan was to combine them into this:



INTO



We finished approximately 200 of them before our hands were too raw to continue, so Doug decided to do some more testing in the meantime. Unfortunately, when he began testing the new plugs, he found that the plugs were not designed to pierce the insulation of the socket wires, so instead they either went around the wires and made no connection, or shorted out and blew fuses.

With only a few days to go before LDI, we decided to amend our original plan and halve the resolution of the display. There were plenty of candelabra bases that would fit if we were to ‘checkerboard’ the rack of dimmers, but it wouldn’t look quite as impressive. A lot of show attendees were also confused about the 24 channels, when they could only count 12 bulbs per unit.

I and a few other employees came in on the Sunday before all of our trade show equipment was to leave for the Las Vegas Convention Center, to be set up in preparation for the show, and do some final testing and packing. We loaded up the large van and trailer with the road case and product that was to be meeting us in Las Vegas, and bit it farewell for a few days.

In addition to building the failed candelabra sockets, we also had to build the 21 dimmers which we would be plugging the sockets into. This turned out to be an amazing task as well, because it was the first time any one of us had built them, and we had to learn as we went. By the time all 21 of them were built, we had probably lost quite a bit of hair and sleep.