Keep your body parts, get automated
There have been many situations when I would have given my right arm to have the ability to refocus my conventional lights. I once did an outdoor festival where we had to focus the conventionals with the truss not quite to trim because it was a ground support system, and we didn’t have a tall enough ladder to reach the truss at trim. So we basically had to guess at the focus. Once we took the truss to trim, we had no recourse, so it was critical that the focus was right. It wasn’t. When the sun went down, it became painfully apparent that the talent on stage either had to grow a foot or so, or we had to come up with a way to refocus. Luckily, we got a break when there was a set change, and the dimmer tech ran out with a short ladder and a long pole, just long enough to nudge the lights.
Now, thanks to Apollo, you can have your Right Arm and remote focus of your conventional lights. The Right Arm is a DMX512-controlled auto-mated pan and tilt mechanism that is designed to accommodate a wide variety of gear, including lights, video cameras and projectors, weighing 40 pounds or less.
Physical Description
The Right Arm is surprisingly Spartan — it’s a one-armed yoke without the familiar base that houses the electronics and power supply in a typical automated luminaire. Since it has no lamp source, the only electronics it needs fit in the inverted-L-shaped housing of the yoke. The housing could easily have been manufactured by bending metal, but it would have been boxy looking. Instead, it has enough curves to make it look sleek and in-teresting.
The fixture pans on a shaft coming out of the base of the L, which also serves as the receptacle for the c-clamp from which it is rigged. There is a second L-shaped bracket that protrudes from the top inside of the L. It provides the tilt function by pivoting about a second axis. This tilt arm also serves as the rigging point for the device to be remotely focused. It, too, is a single-arm yoke with several mounting holes, an angle adjustment and a height adjustment. These are all part of the patented balancing system that keeps the instrument centered about its balance point.
Configuration
It’s very easy to rig a device to the yoke, and it doesn’t require taking the yoke off of the device to be rigged; it just bolts to the tilt arm, yoke and all. Once it is rigged, it needs to be balanced correctly so that it pivots about its geometric center or its center of balance, depending on whether or not it’s top heavy. Balancing the pan movement is a matter of selecting the right bolthole in the tilt arm, so that the center of the device and the pivot point of the pan shaft coincide. Balancing the tilt movement is accomplished by loosening the bolt through the tilt shaft and sliding the slotted tilt arm until the center of the device lines up with the pivot point of the tilt arm. If the device is top-heavy because of an accessory like a color scroller, then the angle of the tilt arm can be adjusted to compensate for it.
There is a four-digit mechanical push-button address switch on the side. But it does more than simply allow you to set the DMX512 address. It also provides 10 mode settings with various pan and tilt ranges (from 90 degrees to 340 degrees), 8-bit or 16-bit resolution and optional speed control. If you have a limited number of control channels, then you can choose an 8-bit setting with no speed control, or if you need more accuracy and you want speed control, you can set it to 16-bit resolution with speed control. You may even reduce the channel count without severely compromising the resolution by limiting the range of movement. For example, in mode 2 with a 90 degree pan and tilt range and 8-bit resolution, you get a resolu-tion of about two inches at a 30-foot throw. You might also want to limit the pan or tilt range in certain situations, such as when you are rigging from a balcony rail.
Connections
There are four cables coming out of a small junction box attached to the pan shaft at the top of the device. Three of them are fitted in a single strain relief, and one is by itself. The single cable provides power to the device to be panned and tilted by passing it through the chassis of the yoke and back out through the tilt shaft. From there, it is pig-tailed and terminated with a connector. After you rig your device, you simply plug it in. The other three cables are the power for the Right Arm and the DMX512 in-and-out. The power input is auto-voltage sensing, and it runs from 90 volts to 260VAC at 50 or 60 Hz. There is also an accessory port with two 4-pin XLR connectors, each of which provides DMX512 and up to 40 watts at 24 volts DC, presumably for color scrollers and similar devices.
Performance
When you power up the Right Arm, and it goes to its home position, it produces the familiar whirring sound like you would expect a geared motor to make. It doesn’t, however, click, clack or clang as many automated instruments do. The pan and tilt whirring noise is noticeable, but not quite as noisy as some moving instruments.
I used an Anidea Gadget to program and play back two scenes. I alternated between modes so that they would play back with and without speed control. In either mode, the movement is very smooth, and I could detect no steppiness, even in the slowest movements. The acceleration curve is smooth as well. I ran the playback overnight, and the next day, the focus was right on target.
I timed the pan at a top speed of 340 degrees in nine seconds and the tilt at a top speed of 270 degrees in eight seconds. But in all fairness, I don’t think this device was ever meant to be a “twist and puke” effect, or they wouldn’t have designed it with the internal gearing that they did. It is more likely that it was designed to be an accurately positioned remote focus unit that operates as silently as possible.
In top speed, there is a slight bit of vibration that sounds like the mechanism is resonating at certain speeds. That might be attributed to the plywood base that I rigged it to. I didn’t have the luxury of setting it up in a theatre with proper rigging.
Conclusion
The Apollo Right Arm is a clever approach to automating the pan and tilt function. It’s flexible when it comes to rigging options, and it’s easy to use. The pan and tilt is smooth and accurate, and it is relatively quiet, especially in the slower speeds. It provides all the functionality that you need to refocus conventional lights and other devices. And it sure beat a short ladder and a long pole.
What it is: Automated yoke for remote pan and tilt.
Who it’s for: Anyone who needs to refocus any device under 40 pounds.
Pros: Very smooth, quiet movement, especially at slow speeds; accurate; easy to rig; easy to use.
Cons: Minor resonant vibration noise at higher speeds, probably attributed to the plywood base it was rigged to.
Retail Price: $1,195
