Oh the joys of show controls! The month of February will go over our show control and ServoMotor products- which is a pretty sweet family of hardware.
The series will cover the mini Brick 4 & 8 (show control), SER-DMX and the DAC-Quad (ServoMotors). This selection is excellent for show control, complex operations and, of course, super simple actions (ex. the mini Brick keeps certain lights blinking/flashing for years and years to the point that operators forget that it’s even using the mini Brick!).
Our smart and dumb brick system for control of analog hardware, digital hardware, and audio provides off the shelf solutions for almost any animatronic show application. Paired with one of the industry’s best programming software packages, PC MACS, these products easily control any electronics needed for a show.
We are one of the only companies that offers complete off the shelf solutions for professional animatronic control- and have done so for over 36 years. Our brick card systems control animatronic figures, stage, lighting, sound, and even special effects like fog, snow, and water fountains. These products have been used by some of the most popular, important and well-known theme parks and movies for years. Most of our equipment allows networking with their other cards through a DMX (RS-485) network. Many of our cards like the BR-Brain 4, SD-50 series and BR-minibrick8 can output DMX-512 data to command a show or animatronic figures. The programming is done up front, then downloaded to our cards so it can operate independently from a PC. If you wish to turn a PC into a show controller, the MACS-USB box is a full professional solution for programming or playing a large animatronic show.
A little teaser example to give you an idea of the strength of these products- way back in the ye olden tymes of the 1990’s, when VHS’s ruled the galaxy, a gigantic VHS tape duplicate factory ran off of *one* mini Brick 8. The whole factory. One mini Brick. Not only did it run the VHS in order to be fed, recorded and copied, it checked the signals at the beginning, middle and end of each tape. If the tape wasn’t sufficient, it would be dropped in a fix/trash pile, and if it worked it would be dropped in the ‘good’pile.
The DAC-Quad recently controlled a multi-ton, two-story tall unit for a production- basically acting as a live-control action swivel. It only required one little DAC-Quad for the whole job!
Next week, we will dive into detail about the mini Bricks 4 & 8! Then we will follow with some stories of the SER-DMX and the DAC-Quad to round out the rest of February. See you next week!
GilderBlog 