I had a nice visit to Brandeis University last week for a product demo for the faculty, staff and students. Here’s a pic of the Theatre Department’s TD, Chris Tedford, writing cues after the demo.

If you want to host a demo at your school or theater, let me know at ian@creativeconners.com.

Here at Creative Conners we’ve always sold many of the parts that go into our machines- winch drums, gearmotors, encoders, etc… But we didn’t have those items on our website, so a lot of customers didn’t know they were available from us. Well, that’s been fixed. We just put up a new ‘Machine Parts‘ page that has all the machine parts you can purchase from us along with the price and availability.

So if you’re looking to make your own machine and need some parts, or if you’re looking to replace some worn-out parts of your gear, this is the place for you. And if you see something you like, just give us a call or email me at ian@creativeconners.com.

For this month’s tip, we’re going to talk about your Stagehand and its firmware. Every Stagehand OEM card has firmware running on the microprocessor and every now and then we release a firmware update with new features and bug fixes. The current firmware version is Revision 10 which has been out for about 2 years, so if your Stagehand is newer than that, you should be all set. Otherwise, here’s how to find out what your current firmware revision is and how to update it.

The first step is to see what your version (Rev) you currently have. This is easy – simply unplug and replug your Stagehand. (If you’re using the Stagehand in a show, don’t forget to write down its position or park the unit at zero) The first thing you see on the LCD screen on the front of the Stagehand is something like:

Stagehand Rev 10
Hard Reset_

In this example, the version of the firmware is 10. If that’s what you see, you’re all set. If you have a lower number than 10, you should update your firmware. Here’s how:

(Huge warning: This does not apply to Stagehand FX’s! You cannot update your FX firmware and if you try, you will ‘brick’ it and you will need to send it back to us for a new firmware installation.)

1. Go to the Downloads page of our website.

2. Click on the Stagehand Updater 1.0 which will download a .zip file to your computer.

3. Click on the Stagehand Firmware rev. 10 link which will download the binary firmware file that you are going to load onto the Stagehand OEM card.

4. Launch “Stagehand Update.exe”

5. Make sure your E-Stop system is running and release the E-Stop button. You can’t update your firmware with the Stagehand in E-Stop mode.

6. Confirm that you have a network cable running between your computer and the Stagehand you wish to update (either via a crossover cable or through a network switch).

7. Enter the IP address of the Stagehand you wish to update (eg. 192.168.10.32)

8. Click the “Firmware File…” button.

9. Navigate to the Stagehand firmware file you wish to use (eg. “STAGEHAND_FIRMWARE_FINAL_REV10.bin”)

10. Press the “Update” button.

11. A few new windows will flash on the screen.

12. After the process is complete, the newly updated Stagehand should reboot in about 30 seconds. During reboot, it should display the new firmware revision number.

And that’s it, you’re now running the latest and greatest firmware revision.

Final note: If you have an older Stagehand, when you boot it to see what your Rev is, you may not see a Rev number. That means you have a Revision of 4 or lower. In that case, if you want to update your firmware, you would need to send the OEM card back to us and we will update your firmware here in our shop and send it right back to you. Once we’ve updated it to rev 10, you’ll be able to perform any future updates yourself using the steps above.

Our newest machine, Curtain Call, got a nice write-up in this month’s issue of Lighting and Sound America. Here’s a screen cap of the page (click to view larger):

You can read the whole issue of Lighting and Sound America by registering on there website here, and clicking on the Digital Edition link at the top right.

I had a chance to do a product demonstration for some of the colleges in the Amherst, MA area last week. It was a great time meeting the teachers and students and talking about automation. In the picture above you can see some of the students writing cues for the demo rigs with less than a minute of instruction.

Thanks to Rick Mauran and his students of Mount Holyoke College for hosting the demo (and bringing the donuts!) and to Amy  Putnam of Hampshire College and Jon Doyle of  Amherst College for coming by with their students.

If you’re interested in hosting a product demonstration at your institution, just drop me a line at ian@creativeconners.com.

A quick tip for our automation operators: Backup your files! Saving your Spikemark show file saves a local copy to your machine, and that’s great, but if your computer dies or gets stolen, your show files will disappear with it, and you’ll have to explain to everyone that you need to tech the show again. Besides those obvious scenarios, there’s always the possibility of screwing up your show file while editing, and then saving before you realize it was screwed up, and you can’t go back. So save your file to a removable storage media, like a thumb drive, and put it somewhere safe.

It would be great if you did this at the end of every day, but at least try to get it done at the end of tech and on opening night. Then you can enjoy those Opening Night Party drinks knowing that your show file is safe and sound!

Bonus tip: Did you know you can export your motor settings? Select a motor you want to save and go to File > Export Motor. Next time you bring out that same machine, you can import that motor profile as a good starting point for tuning and other motor parameters.

We’re running an ad in the April issue of Lighting and Sound America, which should be coming out at the end of this week. Here’s our ad- keep an eye out for it!

Our good friend Ben Jacobson from Mystic Scenic Studios sent us these photos from their shop as they get ready to head off to Orlando for a McDonald’s Industrial. 7 Pushsticks and 9 Stagehands. Nice road box, too. Have a great show, Ben!

This month we’re going to look at Max Speed; how to determine Max Speed, how the Stagehand interprets Max Speed and what happens when Max Speed is set too high.

The Max Speed setting in Spikemark limits how fast a motor can move in a cue. This value must be set no higher than the maximum speed the motor can physically attain when given full power. If you want to restrict speed during a show, you can set it lower than the motor speed at full power (eg. perhaps a winch can move at 5′/second but you want to limit cues to run no faster than 2′/second). To determine the Max Speed for a particular motor, first set your position scale. Then you need to run your piece at full speed, so get your machine ready and clear the deck. In Spikemark, navigate to the Manual Controls module of the Motor Settings pane, select a direction and then run your motor by sliding the manual slider all the way to the right, which will send a full-speed signal to the motor. In the Speed module directly above Manual Controls, the speed that the motor is running at is displayed. Note the speed when you have the slider all the way up. This is the maximum speed the motor can attain.

This speed (or anything lower) is what you should enter into the Max Speed field in the Speed module. (Sometimes we take a point or two off just to be safe) Now when you’re programming a movement, if you enter a speed value higher than the Max Speed, Spikemark changes your value to the Max Speed, since it can’t go faster than that anyway.

The important part of this month’s Spikemark tip is that the value you enter into Max Speed should never be higher than what is actually possible. We often get tech support calls from customers who enter an artificially high number because they just want the axis to move as fast as possible. The problem with this approach is Spikemark sends the cue to the Stagehand and the Stagehand calculates the total time the cue should take based on the acceleration and speed, even if the speed is not attainable. When the cue runs, the movement doesn’t complete in time because the motor can’t run fast enough, so the Stagehand continues to run the motor at full power until its target position is reached and then stops, but it stops without deceleration because it is racing to catch up with the programmed cue. And no one likes a movement that ends without deceleration. I like to think of it as a business man running late in the morning, racing for the train, and throwing himself through the closing train-car door as the train is pulling away from the platform; there’s nothing leisurely about the motion.

Of course, all of this only happens when Abort On Position Error is turned off. If Abort On Position Error is turned on, the cue will fail early in its life cycle, because it won’t take long for the actual position to fall behind the expected position and the Stagehand will abort the movement once the Position Error grows too large.

So the moral of this months Spikemark Tip is: Don’t set your Max Speed higher than it can run. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next month!

Last week we finished testing our new Curtain Call traveler winch and shipped the first two production units out to Geffen Playhouse. The truss and track was generously lent to us by Stage Machines. Here’s a video of the rig in action: