The Ayrton Cobra is making its debut at LDI this year—a fixture that has been wowing crowds and lighting designers alike all over the globe. Many articles and conversations on the topic have covered the nature of laser sourced fixtures and the implications they have for live entertainment—but the emergence of Cobra in North America marks a new technological approach to managing these fixtures in your rig. One that will have been well worth the wait.
Until now, safety for moving head laser fixtures has relied on remote protocols over a live network with safety parameters designated by a lighting console or other software that is also running the live show or playback. While this works of course, it doesn’t prevent errant data or hardware failure from inadvertently causing the fixture to do things we wouldn’t want it to do. It also makes live programming with laser sourced fixtures just that bit more stressful—“What are these fixtures doing in every moment of my show and have I pathed them safely from point A to point B?”
Ayrton has worked closely with the industry’s leading laser safety engineers to develop a more robust method for ensuring the safe operations of these fixtures and meeting the significant safety requirements of the Food and Drug Administration (the federal agency that regulates lasers and laser-sourced fixtures in the US).
This close cooperation led to Ayrton implementing a new proprietary set of hardware features inside of Cobra, (designated Cobra 2) which exceed the safety requirements set forth by the FDA. These features will ultimately allow Cobra 2 to be used at a reduced minimum operating distance, and improve the fixture’s overall versatility for the designer. The added hardware comes in the form of additional PCBs and they perform three crucial functions:
Firstly to allow the fixture to operate in scenarios where minimum safe distances would otherwise be exceeded, it’s necessary to implement blanking zones, or sections within the fixture’s range where the fixture’s output should be reduced or completely off to avoid the audience, airspace, and/or hazardous or dangerous objects, such as surfaces capable of producing unintended reflections. Creating and updating blanking zones can be done through the lighting console, but this leaves the possibility open for the zones to be overridden during programming, creating unnecessary challenges from a liability standpoint. To reduce the odds of unwanted changes to these zones and separate them from the artistic process, Ayrton has developed software that allows blanking zones to only be set via a separate network connection, connected to the fixtures directly, which cannot simply be overridden via the fixture’s own menu or the console. This creates a much safer and robust layer of assurance that the blanking zones are always in place and cannot be overridden by those not authorized to do so.
The second crucial safety function the hardware performs is monitoring the data input and comparing it to actual fixture performance in real-time. Quite simply, on each fixture, the new hardware receives and monitors incoming control data, matching it with the physical actions that data is causing the fixture to perform. If, at any time, the requested performance and the real world output of the fixture don’t match, the new hardware will shut the fixture off and show a safety error until resolved. For example, if the fixture receives instructions to pan, but some malfunction were to occur, causing the fixture not to pan (or the pan sensor to fail to report) for whatever reason, the safety hardware, realizing the incoming data versus actual output don’t match, would intervene and shut the fixture down as a failsafe.
Thirdly, Ayrton has developed yet a further industry first whereby certain parameters have secondary hardware failsafe circuits monitoring the individual parameters and feeding this information back to the proprietary safety circuitry monitoring the entire system, mentioned in point two above. This secondary hardware failsafe system at an individual parameter level will allow the Cobra 2 to operate within shorter minimum operating distances when certain conditions are met.
Always committed to the brighter future, Ayrton’s new Cobra 2 was developed to make safe (and rules compliant) operation of laser sourced fixtures easier and more reliable at the fixture hardware level. This automated hardware safety handling sets a new standard that hopefully spreads throughout the industry to ensure that legitimate concerns over safety don’t hinder genuine technological progress. The Cobra 2 and the phosphor laser source it utilizes represents a genuine step forward in efficiency and power, with capabilities unmatched by LED or lamp source fixtures. Laser source technology will very much be a part of the future of live entertainment experiences, and it will be to the benefit of designer, programmer, operator, and owner alike if we as an industry can swiftly adopt and adapt to ensure safety and stunning looks go hand in hand.