BLU-8 Programming & Labeling

muzicman82

EDIT: I reworked this post as I ran into a \"I know what I want to do but how\" scenario.

Here's what I would like to do. If it isn't possible, I'm open for other suggestions.

Client has a BLU-8 and a BLU-100. BLU-10 was out of the budget and found the BLU-8 to be much simpler to use.

I would like to set it up pretty much like Button Mode. I would like button 1 to be a \"Zone Control\" page so that the left encoder selects different zones and the right encoder controls the volume of that zone. Then, button 2 would be a \"Sources\" page, where the left encoder would select a source and control its volume. I do not want it to be a source selector that mutes the other outputs. Button 3 would be a \"Presets\" page to recall from some predefined presets.

The best I can describe what I am looking for is Encoder Mode with buttons selecting different encoder mode \"layers\".

Then the question would be how to label the BLU-8. The best I can figure is to print wider labels and do something like \"MIC 1 | ZONE 1 | PRESET 1\", and I could color each word differently so that the LED corresponds to which word to read.

Also, is anyone printing their own label sheets from the BLU-8 template? I found the DXF on the BSS site, but is there an EPS or DXF of the overlay with the LED cutouts and label space shown? I suppose what I am looking for is the file BSS is using to print the overlay sheets!

Thanks!

J.Luszczek

Can't do what you are describing. You will have to simplify your requirements.
How many zones and how many sources do you have?

If you are on Blu-8 budget, but need deeper controls, just have the customer get a netbook for $300.00 and make couple of control panels. Make up your lost profit on programming. When I ran into the same problem at a local restaurant- their old Xantech touch panels started dying- I had them buy a netbook and laid out all controls on two pages. It works great on wired Ethernet and even works reasonably well on wi-fi.

You could also suggest a touch screen Dell like this:
http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-duo/pd .

muzicman82

Thanks for the input.

I have something like 6 sources and 8 zones. I guess I'll have to figure something else out.

Dan Lynch

First of all, you can get a custom front panel for the BLU-8 from RCI Custom with anything you want engraved on it. If you decide to stick with the BLU-8, that may be the easiest way to label things and they're not very expensive.

How many presets do you want? You could return the BLU-8 and get 3x 9015 (BLU-6) to do what you want.

The first 9015 would be programmed to control the 8 volume controls using THIS METHOD.

The second 9015 would be programmed to do the source select and control the volume of the selected source. You could have it control the volume at the output of the source selector with a simple assignment, or use the method linked above to have it control the volume of each source before the source selector.

The third 9015 would be programmed to trigger the presets.

Personally, I would just call RCI Custom and have them build me a custom plate with all of the components needed. That way I could customize the engraving so it all made sense. The plate would need:
1x rotary resistor ladder and a pair of buttons to duplicate the first 9015
1x rotary resistor ladder and a pair of buttons to duplicate the second 9015
1x a group of momentary contact buttons for the preset triggers

You would be limited to only 6 preset buttons because you won't have any more control inputs. If you need more than 6 presets, you'll need to do the preset buttons as a resistor ladder too. If you do the buttons as a resistor ladder, then you can do LOTS of presets because you'll have 6 control inputs to use. That would allow 48 presets or 60 presets or some other big number I'm too lazy to look up right now.

Dan

p.s. and everything Jan said is correct too.