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GEAR HEADS<br />
OUT BOARD RCX SMART REMOTE<br />
Out Board Director, Dave Haydon, discusses the R&D process behind the company’s latest venture<br />
into user-friendly digital rigging control.<br />
What was the original goal for RCX SMART Remote rigging control<br />
handset?<br />
We’re fortunate that Out Board LV & DV motor controllers have become<br />
something of a staple workhorse for belt and braces tour, event and venue<br />
rigging over the last dozen or more years. In that time we’ve learnt how<br />
much lighting, staging, video, audio and studio riggers value their reliability<br />
and simplicity, but are also being faced with larger numbers of channels<br />
to manage at one time, and quite often more complex lift configurations.<br />
We had been servicing this demand with 16- and 24 channel variants of our<br />
traditional ‘analogue’ RC handsets that use straight multichannel 24Vdc<br />
control, but these were becoming increasingly unwieldy and inelegant in<br />
terms of heavy handsets, splitters and remote cables. RCX is specifically<br />
designed to deal with these higher channel counts in a more convenient<br />
and handy package. Most importantly, it can be retrofitted to every 6-, 8-, or<br />
12-channel Out Board LV or DV controller already out there in the field, not<br />
just for new purchases.<br />
What are some of the key features that were included in this new product?<br />
The RCX is digital with a robust serial comms protocol, but uses switches<br />
and LEDS for programming and display as opposed to a touch-screen, in<br />
order to make it more instantly familiar and straightforward for hardpressed<br />
riggers to learn and use quickly.<br />
There was a desire to move on from the expensive, heavy and trash-able<br />
24Vdc RC remote handset cables. RCX works with CAT5, ie standard off-theshelf<br />
IT cable, although we do equip the RCX SMART Remotes and interfaces<br />
with Ethercons so they are roadworthy, and most customers use them with<br />
proper armoured touring-grade Ethercon cables.<br />
Being digital meant we could create 16, 32, and 64-channel RCX units<br />
in relatively compact packages, and also add group Memories to make all<br />
those channels more manageable. And because what goes up must come<br />
down, the Memories are non-volatile and reversible, so you can pull the<br />
RCX out of the rack drawer at the end of the show, power it up, double-click<br />
a Memory button and all the channels in that lift will switch to Down for<br />
flying in. This also helps with bumping, where you can temporarily clear the<br />
selection to solo one hoist to bump it, then recall the memory to continue<br />
the lift, or you can double-click the Memory to reverse the lift then deselect<br />
a hoist and bump the rest in the opposite direction. These were subtle but<br />
crucial details came to us through discussion with master riggers we’ve<br />
been fortunate to get to know over the years.<br />
There’s also been a growing interest in Load Cell monitoring, partly due<br />
to the complex lifts and also evolving safety standards, so RCX provides<br />
a data path back up the control CAT5 interconnect that can take status<br />
data from load-cell computers and will instantly flag over- or under- load<br />
conditions on the RCX SMART Remote, by flashing the channel LED’s<br />
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