What happens at startup

Originally posted by Forthekids I'm new to computerized lighting this year and am considering buying Aurora (vs LOR).  Something that is important in our display is turning on all lights with a single switch.  With a static display that is easy, but what happens with Aurora?  Can I turn on to a static display and later enable the sequence? We will be using D-light controllers.  I appreciate any advice.

With your lights linked to the controller.  Whether its Aurora or LOR, you will never just flip a switch and turn on your lights.   Everything will now be computer controlled.  The closest your will get now to a off/on switch is D-lights hardware utility program which lets your link to the controllers and test the functions,  On/Off, shimmer, fade, twinkle.  From there, you can just turn them on and off.  BUT as far as day to day running, let Aurora handle that.    

Just think of each controller as 16 off/on switches.  If you have 4 controllers, you just have 64 off/on switches and so on.  Now that is a bit basic since you can dim, shimmer, and twinkle as well, but that is the general idea.  When you create a sequence, basically you are just telling each of the 16 channels on the controller when to turn off and on.   I run a 30 minute static show before my animated show runs. As said above, I just create a 30 minute silent sequence with all my channels on.  Thats is my start-up sequence.

In the scheduler program "Borealis", it has a place to add a start-up sequence and a end sequence.  It will only play this sequence at the very beginning of your show and at the end of your show.  So like with my show, my 30 minute static sequence only runs once a night.   My other animated sequences will loop over and over until it reaches the end of the show time.  Then my end sequences will play.  For this, I have a short thank you to my crowd which ends the night out.  

So the computer sequence would already be running?  Our switch would just turn on the power to the lights which then read the already sequence?

I'm new to computerized lighting this year and am considering buying Aurora (vs LOR).  Something that is important in our display is turning on all lights with a single switch.  With a static display that is easy, but what happens with Aurora?  Can I turn on to a static display and later enable the sequence?