Short answer: The show had 146 firing events with about 344 individual products (cakes, shells, mines, comets, etc.). I had 10 modules of 32 cues each. This is not a straightforward answer, so I'll try to explain the setup I had at this time. The way my old system worked, I could only trigger cues at the same time if the modules were clones of each other. This is similar to what you find with systems from places like remotefiringsystems.com or www.pyrodirect.com/electronic_firing_systems. The closest analogy I can think of is being at a bar/restaurant with lots of TVs and you limit yourself to using 1 remote control at a time to change the channel. If you want only certain TVs to respond, they have to be set to work with the same remote, but you can't really change the channel on only one of those (pretend putting the remote super close to only one TV didn't help). My setup was 10 modules with 32 cues each. My far-left firing position had, for example, one mod for that specific position ("Left") for when I only wanted to trigger from that position, one mod that was a mirror with the opposite side ("Left/Right") for when I wanted to trigger 2 things at once, and one mod that was part of a set ("Left/Right/Center") when I wanted to trigger 3 things across. It all depended on how many things I wanted to have go off at the same time and from how many positions. I did this because, if I ever wanted something to fire from the left and right positions (for example), I didn't want to have to leave an empty cue on the center module. It took me a LONG time each year to sort out how to balance everything. I was using Finale Fireworks, so that helped. There's nothing wrong with this type of system, but I'd hit the point where I was going to have to build a bunch more of these modules to scale the show. I decided to go a different route, sell my system, and buy Cobra, which lets me fire from as many mods as I want at the same time.
How many mods you use in your shows
Short answer: The show had 146 firing events with about 344 individual products (cakes, shells, mines, comets, etc.). I had 10 modules of 32 cues each. This is not a straightforward answer, so I'll try to explain the setup I had at this time.
The way my old system worked, I could only trigger cues at the same time if the modules were clones of each other. This is similar to what you find with systems from places like remotefiringsystems.com or www.pyrodirect.com/electronic_firing_systems. The closest analogy I can think of is being at a bar/restaurant with lots of TVs and you limit yourself to using 1 remote control at a time to change the channel. If you want only certain TVs to respond, they have to be set to work with the same remote, but you can't really change the channel on only one of those (pretend putting the remote super close to only one TV didn't help).
My setup was 10 modules with 32 cues each. My far-left firing position had, for example, one mod for that specific position ("Left") for when I only wanted to trigger from that position, one mod that was a mirror with the opposite side ("Left/Right") for when I wanted to trigger 2 things at once, and one mod that was part of a set ("Left/Right/Center") when I wanted to trigger 3 things across. It all depended on how many things I wanted to have go off at the same time and from how many positions. I did this because, if I ever wanted something to fire from the left and right positions (for example), I didn't want to have to leave an empty cue on the center module. It took me a LONG time each year to sort out how to balance everything. I was using Finale Fireworks, so that helped.
There's nothing wrong with this type of system, but I'd hit the point where I was going to have to build a bunch more of these modules to scale the show. I decided to go a different route, sell my system, and buy Cobra, which lets me fire from as many mods as I want at the same time.