Laptop control and UPS

[eytan]

I have two questions:

1) Is it possible to control the Venue system just with a laptop (without the D-Show control surface)? This way I could go out on a small gig just with the two racks and a laptop.

2) Is it recomended to have a UPS unit fot the Venue? Is there a certain type that works best? Where would you locate the UPS unit, on stage and then split the UPS output to both the Stage Rack and the FOH. Or would it be better to have two seprate UPS units, one on stage and the other at FOH?

[dstagl]

I have two questions:

1) Is it possible to control the Venue system just with a laptop (without the D-Show control surface)? This way I could go out on a small gig just with the two racks and a laptop.

2) Is it recomended to have a UPS unit fot the Venue? Is there a certain type that works best? Where would you locate the UPS unit, on stage and then split the UPS output to both the Stage Rack and the FOH. Or would it be better to have two seprate UPS units, one on stage and the other at FOH?



You can control it from a laptop, but I think you have to have the surface plugged in and powerd up--you don't need the sidecar, though.

We used a laptop for the first time, yesterday. The only issues I had were related to the wireless connectivity of the router we're using; I need to get a signal booster. Other than that it worked great. I was line checking stuff from the stage right after we plugged it in.

As far as UPS's go, I'm not sure what the best one is to use; our IT guy is getting us the same ones he uses for his servers. We're in a fixed install, and I'm installing two of them at FOH. The only reason I'm using them is in case of a brief loss of power. The stage racks come right back up if they lose power, but the FOH rack has an extended boot time when it's first starting up. It's not an issue when you first power up, but if we lost power during an event it would be a long time; I think it takes us 4-5 minutes to get everything going again. The FOH rack actually boots up pretty quick, but for a typical service I'll have close to 30 plugins running and those load up one at a time. This way if power in the room fluctuates and comes back on, we're only waiting the 5 seconds or so that it takes to reacquire the stage racks.

Dave

[Sheldon Radford]

Hi,

1) Controlling the console via laptop only is not a tested or supported configuration. Theoretically it will probably work, but if anything ever disrupted Ethernet communication you'd be stuck without any form of control. At minimum you'd need a Main unit connected (for the VGA connection) to configure the Ethernet option.

2) UPS were discussed on the Pro Sound Web forum recently (and I see you posted there. I'm including the link below for other folks who might not know about this excellent forum). Check out:

http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/8885/0

Our demo systems use the TRIPPLITE SmartOnline 2200 RT2U UPS.

When using a system with redundant power supplies, you should plug one power supply
from each component into the UPS and the other straight into the line current. This
protects the system from unintentional shut down, even if the UPS fails.

Sheldon

[dstagl]

Is there a recommended network setup to get the best wireless performance? I switched our router to a Linksys. Performance is a little better, but it still goes up and down. Any tips?

Dave

[Sheldon Radford]

Hi Dave,

We've been verry happy with the Belkin Pre-N (http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=184316) system. It outperformed the Linksys products in all of our tests.

The ECx Compato page (http://www.digidesign.com/compato/venue/ecx.cfm) has all the info on system requirements and tested configurations.

Sheldon

[eytan]

Our demo systems use the TRIPPLITE SmartOnline 2200 RT2U UPS.





Hi Sheldon,

I would like to get the Tripplite UPS and place it in the same rack with the FOH Rack (making it a 12U rack). Do I need to have a spacing between the FOH Rack and the UPS (for ventilation)?

[Sheldon Radford]

Hi Eytan,

I did a quick search on the Tripplite website and they don't make any reference to requiring additional space for ventilation. I believe our demo systems place the UPS on the bottom 2U with the Stage/FOH Racks immediately above, and have had no problems.

To be 100% certain, however, you should ask the UPS manufacturer (TrippLite) for their recommendation.

Sheldon