Pharos appoints LightLife as German distributor

May 1st, 2012

We are pleased to announce a product and service agreement with LightLife to be our distributor for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Tim Edwards, our technical sales manager, comments, “LightLife are a fantastic company with significant project experience and contacts within the DACH region. With offices in Cologne, Berlin and Vienna they are well placed to provide expert sales and technical support for our increasing volume of projects in this key territory.”

Managing director of LightLife, Antonius Quodt, adds, “This partnership is a milestone for our clients of today and tomorrow. Pharos Controls has a distribution concept which is based on close proximity to those architects and creatives involved in the specification of projects, and we are looking forward to providing local assistance with pre-planning and advice for the most complex of lighting and media control projects.”

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Pharos at PLASA Focus

April 16th, 2012

PLASA Focus is taking place at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds on Tuesday 17th and Wednesday 18th April.  Pharos will be there showing our latest control solution, the Touch Panel Controller.

Please drop by stand S-D15 where Tim will be happy to discuss your projects and demonstrate our new RIO DMX-out functionality!

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ARC Show Innovation Award for the Touch Panel Controller

March 1st, 2012

The award winning Pharos Touch Panel Controller

We’re delighted to announce that the Pharos Touch Panel Controller (TPC) has won an award in the inaugural ARC Show Innovation Awards.

The award winners were announced by ARC Show curator Durham Marenghi this afternoon during the final day of the ARC Show at the Business Design Centre, London. The TPC won a Highly Commended award, which was presented to Pharos by Keith Theobald.

The new TPC received lots of attention on our stand at ARC this year, as people admired the combination of an advanced lighting controller and a touch screen at a competitive price. Thanks to everyone who came to chat to us!

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Pharos sales team update

February 3rd, 2012

The Pharos sales team has been growing in recent months, with Tim Edwards’ promotion and the hire of Paul McLean.

Tim Edwards

Tim is our new Technical Sales Manager, who brings with him the knowledge and experience from four years of Pharos technical support. His understanding of installation requirements will be invaluable in supporting our dealers and installers at all levels of the bidding and sales process.

Tim is also responsible for Pharos customers in the UK and central Europe, and acts as the primary contact for Pharos dealers in the Asia Pacific region.

Paul McLean

Paul has joined us after over 20 years experience in the industry, spending over a decade with Telmaco, Telvin and later EVC providing design and project services for many major installations in Greece and the Middle East. He has also offered product support for a wide range of manufacturers, including Flying Pig Systems, High End Systems and ADB, as well as design and programming services for several live events and high profile TV productions.

Based out of Athens, Paul is our Sales Manager for Southern Europe and the Middle East. Paul will be the main point of contact for our distribution partners and key specifiers in these regions.

Thomas Ladd

For the Americas, Thomas Ladd continues to look after this important region from his base in Boston, building new relationships and supporting projects.  Thomas also provides advanced programming for certain projects as well as technical training courses for Pharos programmers.

Supporting them from the London office is Cascade Snowman. Cas is our Sales Coordinator and deals with all customer quotations and purchase orders, shipping and accounts.

To make it easier for you to direct your enquiries to the sales team we have created a new email address; please feel free to send any sales communication to sales@pharoscontrols.com.

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Pharos TPC makes The ARC Show Innovation Awards shortlist

January 25th, 2012

Pharos Touch Panel Controller

With a month to go until The ARC Show in London, the finalists have just been announced for the inaugural ARC Innovation Awards.

The judges have recognised fifteen products for consideration, including the Pharos Touch Panel Controller.

If you are planning to visit the show you can register on line. Visitors to the show will be able to vote for their favourite product in the innovation awards.

Hope to see you there – you are most welcome to drop by the Pharos stand, M1!

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Pharos plays its part in London’s New Year celebrations

January 20th, 2012

The spectacular pyrotechnic and lighting show for the Mayor of London’s New Year’s Eve festivities, produced by Jack Morton Worldwide, is an extraordinary collaborative effort involving multiple control systems at multiple locations incorporating multiple disciplines – all perfectly synchronised for this most time-centric event.

Jack Morton Worldwide © Mark Livemore

In Durham Marenghi’s stunning lighting design, temporary Arena Color fixtures and high power searchlights installed by Stage Electrics and supplied by ELP/Syncrolite are integrated with the permanent lighting installations on the London Eye and County Hall.  At the climax of the event, the lighting is synchronised with the fantastic midnight firework display, designed by Darryl Fleming of Kimbolton Fireworks.

Year-round, 640 Philips Color Kinetics ColorCasts illuminate the Eye, supplied by Architainment Lighting and controlled by two Pharos LPC 2s.  The façade of County Hall is floodlit with Philips Color Kinetics ColorReach Powercore LEDs, also supplied by Architainment and also controlled by another Pharos LPC 1.

This is the sixth New Year’s Eve that Pharos has been involved, ever since the London Eye lighting refit in 2006. In the afternoon of 31st December, the discrete Pharos systems are uploaded with special programming for the event, their internal clocks are synchronised with a GPS timecode receiver, and then they’re left to perform by themselves.  Programming is accurate to a hundredth of a second and is in step with the ChamSys lighting consoles and the fireworks controller.

Jack Morton Worldwide © Mark Livemore

Naturally the focus is on the breathtaking midnight sequence but the show design includes lighting for the whole evening during the build up to the celebrations.  Pharos Technical Product Manager Simon Hicks has programmed the Pharos systems for Durham for the last five years.  He explains, “This is the time when we can really show off what we can do with the Eye – for the rest of the year the lighting is mostly static with a few subtle effects to mark certain occasions.”

Durham has also commented that, “Lighting is used to complement and enhance the firework display as well as creating an exciting and dynamic atmosphere of anticipation before the midnight chimes of Big Ben to entertain the 250,000 people gathered in Westminster to witness the event and the millions who enjoy the broadcast on the BBC.”

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Screencast: Manipulating Fixtures on Pixel Matrices

January 13th, 2012

Tips on rotating fixtures within pixel matrices, and how to split a composite fixture into individual nodes.

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Cristo del Pacífico

January 5th, 2012
Cristo del Pacifico Opening Ceremony

Cristo del Pacifico Opening Ceremony

Cristo del Pacífico is a mystical monument located in Chorrillos, Lima, Peru. The 122ft (37m) high statue, representing Jesus Christ, is a farewell gift from President Alan Garcia to the country of Peru and the city of Lima. The iconic sculpture provides city beautification and it has already become a part of everyday life for all residents of Lima through its dynamic, colour-changing design.

Pharos Designer in action

Pharos Designer in action

Cristo del Pacífico speaks to the city through a wide palette of colours, changing its appearance according to a carefully designed schedule. The Pharos LPC tracks over 50 dates, dynamically changing the lighting to commemorate religious and national holidays as well as significant anniversaries of historical Peruvian and world events. 16 powerful Philips Color Kinetics ColorReach fixtures, mounted at both the sculpture’s base and on two lighting towers, bring out the sculpture’s depth and beauty.

The lighting system is also comprised of a wireless broadband connection to the Internet, a Panasonic IP camera mounted on one of the lighting towers and a custom iPad web interface. LED-LS designed, engineered and programmed the system with remote management in mind – utilising Pharos Installation Manager and the live IP camera, they can view the installation from anywhere in the world, control the lighting and make programming changes.

The inaugural lighting of the monument was on 29th July 2011 when President Alan Garcia presented his gift to Peru, making use of the iPad interface to officially light up the statue for the first time in front of thousands of people, who were then treated to a spectacular fireworks display.

Statue overlooks the city

Statue overlooks the city

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Pharos controls Philips’ festive greeting

December 20th, 2011

Philips Color Kinetics EMEA used a Pharos LPC 40 to control their 2011 Christmas message at their HQ in Eindhoven, Netherlands, comprising 6000 pixels of Philips Color Kinetics iColor Flex MX. Bas Hoksbergen and Denis Carcagne of Philips worked on the mapping and the content using the Pharos Designer software, making use of the Dynamic Text timeline preset.

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KiNet PSU Discovery

December 20th, 2011

With a Pharos control system, you can discover and patch KiNet power supplies with ease. The discovery system allows you to pre-patch fixtures onto KiNet power supplies offline, and then associate discovered power supplies with the patched power supplies when you’re ready to commission the project.

Using discovery to find KiNet power supplies on the same network as the computer running Pharos Designer is a simple process. In the Patch view of Designer, select KiNet from the tabs of different protocols. You’ll see something similar to the screenshot below:

KiNet Tab Selected

KiNet tab in patch

Let’s first take the case where you are starting a new project. If your power supplies are on the same network as Designer then you can discover them now by clicking the ‘Discover’ button. When discovery is complete, click on the ‘Show Discovered’ button to see a table of discovered power supplies. Select the power supply you want to add to your project by pressing the button on the left of the table row and click ‘Add Selected to Project’. Alternatively, you can click ‘Add All To Project’ to add all of the discovered power supplies to the project at once. You can now patch your fixtures to the power supplies.

KiNet Discovery in progress

KiNet Discovery in progress

Now let’s say you’ve patched fixtures to power supplies offline but don’t know the IP addresses of the real power supplies. For this example we have created a new power supply by going to the Patch view of Designer and clicking on the ‘Add’ button in the Protocols tab on the right of the application window. It is crucial that you select the correct type of power supply in preparation for associating later. We have patched a 2×2 iTile to the power supply, which we have named ‘iTile’ for reference.

Adding a PSU offline

Adding a PSU offline

With Designer on the same network as the power supply, click the ‘Discover’ button as before then select the discovered power supply that you want to associate. Select the pre-patched power supply from the Power Supply list (‘iTile’ in the case of our example) and click the ‘Apply Selected to Power Supply’ button.

Linking discovered PSUs

Linking discovered PSUs

It’s worth noting that if you have multiple network interfaces active on your computer, Designer will ask you which interface you want to use to discover power supplies. Every time you click ‘Discover’ the table of discovered power supplies will be emptied and then repopulated with the power supplies on the chosen network interface.

For more information on patching in Pharos Designer, see this page on our online help.

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