28 smartMAC user manual
The principles in stand-alone synchronized operation are as follows:
1. A scene contains a fade section, followed by a wait section.
2. Each fixture can be individually programmed with up to 100 scenes, and each scene can have its own
individual fade and wait times.
3. Scenes are numbered from 0 to 99.
4. In synchronized operation, one master fixture issues commands to the other slave fixtures to “go to
scene xx”, where xx is the scene number that the master will execute next.
5. If a slave has fewer scenes than the master, it will derive which scene to go to by dividing the number of
the scene it has been commanded to go to (scene 5, for example) by the total number of scenes that the
slave fixture has (4, for example) in whole numbers (no decimal places). In this example 5 divided by 4
results in 1, with 1 remainder. This remainder will be the number of the scene that the slave fixture starts
- scene 1. Generally though, when a Slave fixture reaches its own last scene before the Master fixture, a
“go to scene xx” message will result in the first scene being played.
6. If a slave has more scenes than the master calls, the last scenes in the slave will never be executed, as
is the case with scene S4 in the following example.
7. In synchronized operation, the wait time is determined by the master. Every slave fixture fades and waits
at its own rate and then remains in the “wait” state until it receives a “start scene xx” command from the
master.
8. A slave fixture will not listen for the next message from the master fixture before it has finished its current
scene. This may result in a slave skipping a scene if the slave has a longer scene time than the master.
Note that in the following example, the scenes in the slave run out of their programmed sequence
because scenes 0 and 2 on the slave are longer than the corresponding scenes on the master.
F=fade, W=wait Timeline =>
M0 M1 M2 M3
Programmed in Master F W F W F W F W
S0 S1 S2 S3 S4
Programmed in Slave F W F W F W F W F W
Result M0 M1 M2 M3
FW FWF WFW
S0 S1 S2 S3
FW FW FW ----F W
M=master, S=slave
F=fade, W=wait Time >
Programmed M0 M1 M2
Master F W F W F W
S0 S1 S2
Slave F W F W F W
Result M0 M1 M2 M0 M1
Master F W F W F W F W F W
S0 S2 S1
Slave F W F W
.. ..
FW
.. ..