"Vsync" for DMX512?

Stevens R. Miller said:

Just checking: do you mean the "DMX USB Pro?"

Click to expand...

Apparently I misremembered the name. Didn't remember the price jump being that much.

If you're a software developer on any stripe, starting with a smart dongle is probably the best approach, for the same reason that we teach kids to drive before we teach them stick.

If more than doubling the calculated frame rate doesn't solve the sync issue (Nyquist frequency), I would try doing all the timing calculations inside the hardware and use the software only for basic commands like scene changes.

A quick fix that doesn't involve starting all over would be to connect an Arduino or Teensy via USB, then use a smoothing algorithm before sending DMX. Or if the program won't recognize this hardware, then just receive DMX, smooth, then send new DMX.

Neither of these methods will solve the 8-bit steps issue in the dimming hardware but can be solved with hardware that smooths or 16-bit mode DMX, as discussed previously. You can try putting capacitors in parallel with the LED's, but that could potentially damage the hardware if the caps are too large or if the ESR is very low.

Edit: Actually, with current-limiting hardware, a large cap with low ESR and long calculated lifetime might work really well, but I don't want to promise anything and then you let the smoke out while trying.

It looks too late to edit. Anyways I misused the term Nyquist frequency. It's not really the same thing here.