The early performance lights were very simple, only spotlights, downlights, light rain lights and some heavy mechanical rotating lights. With the development of electronic technology, simple voice controlled mechanical lamps have emerged, which can reflect patterns, change colors and change the projection angle. However, these lights are all operated independently, so it is impossible to achieve uniform and consistent beam movement. In the 1980s, there appeared a new type of lamp with the combination of lighting technology and computer technology, named computer lamp.
Computer lamps, also known as intelligent lamps, are widely used in modern performances. They have a wide range of functions, including light color change, three primary color combination change, light shade change, pattern combination change, pattern rotation change
Prism effect change, soft light effect change, lens aperture contraction change, lens zoom change, beam stroboscopic change, beam scanning movement and speed change, etc. In recent years, some computer lamp manufacturers have interconnected the computer lamp homo audio and video equipment, so that the computer lamp can project infinitely changing patterns and pictures, and produce more colorful stage lighting visual art effects.
Computer light is a leap in the history of stage, film and entertainment lighting. As a typical representative of modern lamps, people have a new understanding of lighting technology.
The computer lamp is equipped with a CPU (microcomputer processor), which can accept the signal sent from the console and convert it into electrical signals to control the servo motor to achieve various operation functions.
The computer lamp is composed of CPU system, servo actuator and electric light source.
(1) The CPU is the brain of the computer lamp. It processes the instructions issued by the computer lamp console to each server motor in the computer lamp. The CPU can also self check internal functions, set address codes, and adjust internal parameters or functions
(2) An actuator composed of multiple stepping micromotors operates specific optical components. Each stepping motor can act independently to drive the pattern wheel, color wheel, dimming lens, focusing, horizontal and vertical movement of light spot and other mechanical actions.
(3) The light source of computer lamp generally adopts gas discharge bulb, and ballast is installed inside the lamp. The output is high color temperature light (5000-6300K), while the light emitted by Pudi lamps is low color temperature light (2900-3200K). Therefore, the computer lamp is generally suitable for use as an effect lamp. Through the TV camera (color temperature is generally adjusted to 2900-3200K), a beautiful TV picture with strange lighting effects can be produced.
Due to the high cost of the computer lamp, its liquidity is created to save investment and improve the utilization rate of lamps. It cannot be fixed in the studio like ordinary lamps and lanterns, but according to the requirements of program production, the location and venue should be changed at any time. Frequent disassembly and transportation shall be carried out during the flow process. If you are not careful, the lamps will be easily damaged.
Computer lights can be programmed and controlled by several, dozens, or even hundreds of lights. They can change patterns, colors, and beam scanning according to the lighting design requirements. The speed can be fast or slow, and can create magnificent visual scenes according to the programming design.
The computer lamp uses DMX 512 control protocol to control the lamp body, beam pattern, color transformation and other actions. Compared with analog control signal, it has the advantages of more stable signal, flexible control mode, and less susceptible to environmental interference. Usually, one action of the computer light needs to occupy a communication channel. When the computer light changes color with one color wheel, it needs to occupy one channel. If two color wheels are used to change color, it needs to occupy two channels. The more functions the computer light has, the more channels it occupies. Therefore, the number of channels it occupies determines the performance of the computer light. The computer light with few functions only uses 4-8 channels, while the powerful computer light can occupy 38 channels or more. This high-performance computer lamp may occupy 2 or more channels for one action. For example, the horizontal movement of high-performance computer lights can be divided into fast horizontal movement and accurate horizontal movement. The stroboscopic of some computer lights can be divided into regular stroboscopic, random stroboscopic, slow light out fast light receiving stroboscopic, fast light out slow light receiving stroboscopic and other effects. Therefore, one stroboscopic function needs to occupy multiple channels.
Computer lights are often installed in the front light, top light, stage and other positions. Due to different power sizes, the use on the stage should be different, and the overall scale of the theater (such as use height, space, environmental illumination, etc.) should be considered.
1. Advantages of computer lamp
Compared with traditional stage lamps, computer lamps have many advantages, most notably:
(1) Several, dozens, or even hundreds of sets can be networked together and run automatically according to the pre programmed program to form various rapidly changing patterns.
(2) Each computer lamp can be individually preset for programming, positioning and precise control.
(3) The international DMX S12 data signal control is adopted, which is accurate, reliable, fast and simple in transmission network.
(4) The control mode is flexible, which can be programmed or real-time controlled.
(5) High color purity, rich color changes, generally up to dozens of colors, can effectively shade the stage, avoiding the shortcomings of traditional lamps such as color distortion by changing color chips and less color types.
(6) All bulbs are subject to linear brightness adjustment, with a good sense of intensity change. The service life of the bulb is up to 2000h, avoiding the trouble of frequent bulb replacement.
(7) Rich patterns, controlled by a three sided prism, can provide the stage with rich pattern changes and variable beam swing.
(8) The stroboscopic speed is adjustable, 1-10 times/s, which can be intuitively and effectively controlled according to the on-site situation.
(9) It can rotate the X axis 450 ° and Y axis 270 ° to quickly project the beam to any corner.
(10) It has automatic photoelectric detection and zeroing, which can ensure good synchronization, integrity and unity of the system.
2. Type of computer light
There are many models and brands of computer lights, which can be divided into lens scanning computer lights and shaking head computer lights according to the structure.
(1) Lens scanning computer lamp. The lens scanning computer lamp realizes the beam movement by swinging a reflective lens on the lamp head at the front of the lamp body. The lens is driven by two motors, pitch and azimuth, to complete vertical and horizontal swing. The biggest advantage is that the lens is very light, it is very convenient to control, and can produce very fast beam movement. The disadvantage is that the beam motion range is small due to the influence of the reflector axis. Therefore, it is suitable for suspension.
(2) Movable head computer lamp. The head shaking computer lamp moves the beam by rotating the lamp arm. The control element is installed on the lamp arm pivot, and the lamp arm is installed on the base pivot. It can continuously move left and right (horizontal direction), up and down (vertical direction). Its advantage is that the lamp body rotates to drive the beam movement, and the rotation range is large, which can achieve 360 ° rotation. This kind of movement effect can produce a visual sense of full charm on the stage. The disadvantage is that the power of the motor driving the shaking head is large, resulting in heavy lamp body.
With the progress of science and technology, this shortcoming has been gradually overcome, and the shaking head computer lamp has been developed by leaps and bounds. Their size has become smaller and smaller, their weight has become lighter and lighter, and their functions have become more and more comprehensive. At the beginning, they can only make simple color change effects due to technical limitations. They have developed into computer lights that, like lens scanning computer lights, can produce very rich artistic effects. They have become mainstream computer lights in today's theaters, television studios and various stages.
The moving head type computer lamp includes two types: the profile lamp and the dye lamp. The pattern computer lamp can create extremely sharp beams and clear images. Dyed computer lights mainly project soft, uniform and colorful light and shadow modeling.
3. Principle of computer lamp control system
The changes of light output by the computer lamp, namely the changes of beam movement, light color, projected pattern, light brightness, etc., are all completed by the step motor operating specific optical devices.
Each computer lamp is equipped with one or two CPUs, which receive the coded operation instructions issued by the computer lamp console, so as to generate beams of various colors and shapes and their movement in space.
For the convenience of control, the coding mode of the computer light console is the same as that of the digital dimming console. MX512,8bin quantization (0-255 level resolution) signal control protocol is used. Therefore, the digital dimming console can also be used as a computer light console.
The color wheel, modeling film, lens of the computer lamp, and the positioning signal of the reflector movement. Some only need a digital signal to correspond to a position (such as the vertical and horizontal positions of the reflector), and some need a group of digital signals to correspond to a position (such as the position of the color wheel, modeling film, etc.). These DMX 512 serial digital signals are automatically encoded and sent from the computer lamp console.
