EtherCAT and PC-based control on concert tours with the Fire Snake
Image Engineering, based in Curtis Bay, Maryland, designs spectacular pyrotechnic effects for top bands. Music, lighting, lasers, and fire combine to fully immerse the audience in the concert experience. To be able to synchronize the special effects in real time and to stop them at the touch of a button any time, the company relies on the integrated control and safety technology from Beckhoff.
Image Engineering plays a starring role behind the scenes of some of the most outrageous concert productions of the past few years. The most notable of which were Disturbed’s “Take Back Your Life” rock concert tour of 2023 and Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s 2024 winter tour, "The Lost Christmas Eve." The Image Engineering team say they push the boundaries of special effects technology by integrating advanced automation and controls into their projects. The company’s growth has been driven by an engineering-centric approach. “The company’s owners are all engineers, and since the beginning, engineering has been central to who we are,” says Ian Bottiglieri, Vice President of Operations, Image Engineering. “That sets us apart from our competitors in the live event space.”
The Fire Snake concept developed from the need for never-before-seen, jaw-dropping pyrotechnic effects by top-billed band Disturbed. Other than the typical lighting, the fire effects were going to be the only stage equipment to provide key visual effects. “I remember sitting in our conference room having conversations with the band and asking, ‘All right, where is the video screen going to be?" recounted Nick Hock, Director of R&D and Installation/Integrations, Image Engineering. “And their answer was, ‘There is no video screen. The fire will be the only visuals for the show.’”
While it was up to Image Engineering to work with the Disturbed production team to provide the visual experience for the Disturbed tour, they also had to ensure that the Fire Snake operated safely and reliably in numerous environments, temperatures, and orientations – and the timeline for project realization was less than four months.
A trial by fire for engineers
Image Engineering poured a tremendous amount of R&D into every aspect of the Fire Snake. This included exactly how to safely feed the appropriate amount of propane at a pressure of up to 22 psi and maintain a steady pilot light no matter what orientation the Fire Snake is in. The Fire Snake design required replacing traditional burn bars with advanced, responsive burners that could provide more dynamic fire effects. The resulting linear burn system is capable of creating a 3.35 m (11-foot) wall of fire with proportional control for variable height and shape up to 1.20 to 1.80 m (4’ to 6’). In addition, two large burst valves can produce rolling fireballs.
The Fire Snake had to be compact and modular to make it easy to transport, assemble, and integrate with existing stage structures from show to show. It was crucial for the automation and safety systems to manage complex fire effects, and provide safety assurances to local officials. After various meetings with the Beckhoff entertainment industry team, Image Engineering decided to work with the automation experts to bring the Fire Snake to life. They would leverage advanced PC-based control technology with the integrated safety technology TwinSAFE backed by the EtherCAT industrial Ethernet system, because of its superior flexibility in comparison with conventional control technology.
The Fire Snake comes to life
On the Disturbed tour, the Fire Snake had to actively move and change shape according to routines that synced up with the flow of the setlist. When the band first started playing, the Fire Snake rig would slowly come to life and build into more dynamic movement. For that purpose, five segmented Fire Snake units are bolted to a custom truss structure with five winches to change the degree of angle for each unit. A little bit more than a centimeter (half an inch) of clearance between each unit allows free movement yet maintains a continuous, unbroken look to the linear fire effects.
Image Engineering’s Touring Accumulator System (TAS) manages the propane from liquid to vapor and feeds it to the effect heads. When adjusting Fire Snake units by 45 or 50 degrees, fuel and fire behave differently and the control system has to maintain the effects and safety. “The Beckhoff system provides the flexibility to not only meet the baseline standards for flame effect systems such as those outlined in the NFPA 160 standard for fire effects but exceed them in many local jurisdictions across the U.S.,” says Nick Hock.
The Fire Snake features numerous safety measures to ensure trouble-free performances, which are integrated into the control platform via TwinSAFE I/O terminals. One e-stop can halt the entire rig, and the operator can see all safety-relevant status information with a glance at the control console. “It was extremely reassuring to local fire marshals to see a safety system demo and witness the entire Fire Snake shut down to a controlled stop at the push of a button,” Hock says.
Installed in the Fire Snake’s shippable case control boxes are CX5140 and CX8190 Embedded PCs with directly attached EtherCAT I/O as primary and backup controllers respectively. EtherCAT and Safety over EtherCAT (FSoE) establish real-time communication and synchronization throughout the entire system including safety devices, and equipment used for lighting and other stage effects. “Real time performance is critical for us, because we have to keep perfect time with the band’s music and lighting,” Nick Hock says. “If we were out of sync even a couple milliseconds, audiences would notice. A proven technology like EtherCAT ensures that the Fire Snake keeps perfect time with the music.”
Therefore, the Fire Snake utilizes various EtherCAT I/O modules – supported by TwinCAT software – to connect flexibly with devices from other networks such as DMX and OSC. For example, Image Engineering uses the EL6851 single channel DMX interface to trigger the Fire Snake’s flame effects.
The show must go on
Since its completion, the Fire Snake met the requirements for rapid setup and dismantle during multiple tours for Disturbed and Trans-Siberian Orchestra. For example, Image Engineering was responsible for bringing multiple Fire Snakes on the road to 56 Trans-Siberian Orchestra concerts in just 40 days on both the East and West Coasts of the U.S. – at the same time.
The Beckhoff system's ability to operate reliably in extremely high ambient temperatures became another critical benefit on the road, especially for concerts in the summertime. “The heat resiliency of the embedded PC hardware is impressive,” Claire Bowman, Associate Director of Engineering, Image Engineering, says. “We've used other embedded systems before that had performance issues on rooftops in Las Vegas when the temperatures reach as high as 49° C (120°F). However, the Beckhoff system always performs without fail.”
In addition to extreme climates, unreliable power in different cities was also a major concern for Image Engineering. “We experienced serious power quality issues on our rig at different stops on the tours,” Bowman says. “This was causing major performance issues at the worst possible time. But with troubleshooting help from the Beckhoff team and the PS2001 power supply with built-in EtherCAT interface, we were able to solve it and establish reliable power supply no matter the quality of the incoming feed. We also installed a large CU8110 capacitive uninterruptable power supply (UPS) to make sure that our power distribution was good.”
“We now have outstanding troubleshooting capabilities with EtherCAT,” Nick Hock says. “We can simply look at the Fire Snake’s HMI and see which nodes are properly connected and those that require troubleshooting. EtherCAT precisely localizes the exact source of any issue in the system. Previously, problem resolution often took hours, it now takes just minutes with EtherCAT and TwinCAT.”
With a user-friendly programming environment integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio®, TwinCAT 3 significantly reduced Image Engineering’s software development time. “We can create robust systems that are also relatively easy to program – especially because we don't have to create our own building blocks to do basic functions,” Claire Bowman says. “These building blocks are already there for you in TwinCAT’s software libraries.”
Compared to when the company relied heavily on their own embedded board development, the standard PC-based control hardware has dramatically cut their hardware development time. “We were able to have 90 percent of the products working immediately with very little rework that we needed,” Ian Bottiglieri says. “In addition, the ease of programming and setup reduced development and commissioning time by nearly 50%.”
Encore for the Fire Snake
The Fire Snake received universal acclaim from audiences, performers, and industry experts. “The band members of Disturbed loved it and the audiences reacted very positively to it as well,” Nick Hock says. “Everyone just fell in love with it.” In 2024, the recognition culminated in the honor of a Parnelli Award for Pyrotechnics Special Effects Company of the Year for Image Engineering’s sister company, Image SFX. The Parnelli is the most significant honor live event companies can win in their industry.
The collaboration with Beckhoff enabled Image Engineering to push the boundaries of what was possible in pyrotechnics. The Fire Snake can now be deployed as a standard solution or highly customized to suit individual productions. It can also easily integrate with other stage control systems used throughout the entertainment industry.
