7-pin DMX

As has been stated before, DMX over Ethernet is still proprietary to each individual lighting manufacturer. While the most common Art-Net, freely open licensed by Artistic Licence is true TCP/IP, every manufacturer recommends only lighting being on any one network. ACN is supposed to change that, but I'm still not convinced running pyro, motion control, or any other life safety/mission/time critical data being run over ethernet is a good thing. Art Net supports up to 64 Universes of 512 channels each, and the grandMA has been tested up to that, via 16 NSPs. The September issue of Lighting&SoundAmerica has an excellent article on ACN and ETC's implementation, by John Huntington, author of Control Systems for Live Entertainment, Third Edition. Focal Press, 2007. (Shameless plug for my friend John).

Gafftaper, the new Martin Stagebar54 LED striplight has only RJ-45 connectors, but currently is a DMX-only fixture. So you need an A5M-to-RJ45 adaptor at the beginning, then you can daisy-chain using CAT5 cables, then need an RJ45-to-A5F at the end to terminate or continue to standard moving lights. ColorKinetics/Phillips ColorBlaze48 and 72 striplights allow you to use all CAT5 cables, but only with a proprietary controller.
 
icewolf08 said:
As for power and data in the same cable, for moving lights it is probably a bad idea. A mis-wired scroller cable can cause hundreds of dollars of damage. A mis-wired high voltage/data line would cause thousands of dollars of damage, and maybe some unwelcome pyro effects.
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Are you forgetting VL Series 200 cables, commonly known as "superlamp" and PRG's S400 series (where power and data runs through one multi-cable)?
 
icewolf08 said:
Ummm... Yes... I have never worked with them, and I won't now for fear of blowing them up!
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Well, many would say there are many worse things you could do besides "blowing up" a series 200 fixture, or module. As to the S400, it's actually idiot proof. Plug an L6-20 box into a 120V module and it won't pass power. Likewise with an Edison box plugged into 208V. I've seen a few times when a conventional Socapex-type multicable got plugged into a 208V moving light distro instead of a dimmer rack--the lamps are really bright, but not for very long. The worst was when a show lost 6x CYX 2Kw Fresnel lamps, and the spares package only included 3! Oops. "I swear it wasn't me, I told you to label the cable..."

I learned/remembered today that Versatubes use symmetrical 6pin XLR for certain data runs. Also Load Cells used in rigging.
 
icewolf08 said:
Is DMX due for an overhaul? Probably not.
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We just did a major overhaul in 2004. The standard is now called:

ANSI E1.11-2004--Entertainment Technology - USITT DMX512-A - Asynchronous Serial Digital Data Transmission Standard for Controlling Lighting Equipment and Accessories

Couple that update with the approval of another standard last year:
ANSI E1.20 - 2006--Entertainment Technology--Remote Device Management over USITT DMX512

and one can imagine that DMX512 is a thriving standard that is not going away at all!

Why?

Network connectivity like ACN is not suitable for all types of target equipment. The reasons vary:

1. Not enough processing power for full ACN in small, lightweight products (fog machines, scrollers, etc)
2. Ethernet network topology may not be friendly to a particular application. For instance, it may be preferable to daisy-chain DMX devices rather than use the mandatory star configuartion of Ethernet.

So, how do we deal with that? A very good topology uses ACN gateways, with multiple DMX/RDM outputs. This allows DMX/RDM to be used as the "last mile" short-haul connection. Rather than using opto-splitters (which now need to be bi-directional and intelligent to turn the DMX data link around for RDM), we move onto the ACN network through a gateway. This device allows many of the features of ACN to be used on non-network DMX/RDM devices.
Finally, there's another draft standard everyone should know about, that is about to go into second public review:

BSR E.1.31--Lightweight Streaming Protocol for Transport of DMX512 using ACN

This standard, sometimes known as Streaming ACN or sACN, gets us back to a very simple Ethernet protocol for moving DMX. It is simple enough that very lightweight embedded processors can handle it. Many ETC products speak this protocol already (Draft 1), and you can expect for it to become ubiquitous through out the industry. It offers significant advantages over ArtNet, since it is fully TCP/IP compliant and routable.

ST
 
Fiber optics... Two very nice things come to mind. 1) Glass does not conduct! 2) Something poetic about controlling lights with light.

I like the concept, and Ethernet over glass is a pretty worked out concept. There is one downside... Ever splice glass? I have. It's a pain in the you know where! Welcome a new tool into our toolbox; The Cleaving tool! I suspect all cables will be pre-made for awhile. There's more good on the upside; Thanks to Verizon and other FIOS labs, there is almost no length limit to the cable. Run it from your board, out around the football stadium, and then up to your truss if you want. Also, you can overdrive a fiber and passively split it several hundred times. In other words, one fiber hits a truss and goes into an passive optical splitter and feeds 124 lights. Nothing needs to have power, and optical splitters don't crash. The technology is well proven. I am on a FIOS link right now. I am at the far end of a seven mile glass fiber that has been split 15,376 times. (124 x 124 two descending splits) Those little brown boxes out on the poles are the passive optical splitters. (no electronics.) And yes, the data can go both ways or I would never be able to upload anything! Another alternative would be the backbone split. Much like the standard DXM, each fixture could be looped. Light does not care how it is split so having a passive splitter in each light would work as well. With a hot fiber, you could again chain many fixtures without concern of order. There's a lot of options.
I am glad to see TCP/IP protocol is being used for the BSR E.1.31 There is an entire world of options out there if you are using it. If the developers of a new standard do not use it, we should check for the presence of a Swiss bank account because someone paid someone off!
 
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JD said:
Fiber optics... Two very nice things come to mind. 1) Glass does not conduct! 2) Something poetic about controlling lights with light.
I like the concept, and Ethernet over glass is a pretty worked out concept. There is one downside... Ever splice glass? I have. It's a pain in the you know where! Welcome a new tool into our toolbox; The Cleaving tool! I suspect all cables will be pre-made for awhile. There's more good on the upside; Thanks to Verizon and other FIOS labs, there is almost no length limit to the cable. Run it from your board, out around the football stadium, and then up to your truss if you want. Also, you can overdrive a fiber and passively split it several hundred times. In other words, one fiber hits a truss and goes into an passive optical splitter and feeds 124 lights. Nothing needs to have power, and optical splitters don't crash. The technology is well proven. I am on a FIOS link right now. I am at the far end of a seven mile glass fiber that has been split 15,376 times. (124 x 124 two descending splits) Those little brown boxes out on the poles are the passive optical splitters. (no electronics.) And yes, the data can go both ways or I would never be able to upload anything! Another alternative would be the backbone split. Much like the standard DXM, each fixture could be looped. Light does not care how it is split so having a passive splitter in each light would work as well. With a hot fiber, you could again chain many fixtures without concern of order. There's a lot of options.
I am glad to see TCP/IP protocol is being used for the BSR E.1.31 There is an entire world of options out there if you are using it. If the developers of a new standard do not use it, we should check for the presence of a Swiss bank account because someone paid someone off!
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You could just get a fusion splicer... for around 15 grand. We had 2 at where I used to work (the company mainly installed fiber). They are rather amazing to watch.
 
There is two types of 6-pin cable, Neutric standard as I call it and what is industry for Switchcraft standard. One of the two - forget which is about 20 degrees off center from pins aligned to on center. Dual channel Clear Com for instance will use the Switchcraft Standard plug - though it as opposed to Link does not use all the pins (even Neutric will have a code such as NC6-FPs in the last digit recognizing “switchcraft standard.”), other things that use it are ETC Link system and Motion Labs motor/hoist control sensor cable which uses the opposing system.

On seven pin cable, that’s a newer type of plug for something my memory doesn’t serve me on but I stock for some very new type of control system. Very modern in use if XLR plug type in style - only came out in the last few years.

Having to stock all these types of cable/plug is a pain in the rear but there really is a 7-pin XLR cable/plug.

By the way - on the concept level at least... 5-pin DMX cable will work for dual channel Clear Com systems. Break off the center male pin on what ever is using 6-pin on the clear com and a 5-pin DMX plug will fit and work fine with it.
 
5 pin dmx is used to seperate 2 different universes. you simply split them into 2 three pin dmx cables on both ends. and bam you have 2, 512 universes.
 
Conner8809 said:
5 pin dmx is used to seperate 2 different universes. you simply split them into 2 three pin dmx cables on both ends. and bam you have 2, 512 universes.
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The scheme you are suggesting is NOT in compliance with ANSI E1.11-2004--Entertainment Technology - USITT DMX512-A - Asynchronous Serial Digital Data Transmission Standard for Controlling Lighting Equipment and Accessories.

Furthermore, can you name any manufacturer or device, with the exception of certain Avolites consoles (and the Lex#DMXUSS referenced above), that supports using pins 4&5 as an "alternate universe"?

Another point: around here the consensus is there's no such thing as "three pin dmx cables." If XLR3 connectors/cables MUST be used to carry DMX, we call them "data" cables/connectors, not DMX.
 
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I have a number of 4 channel dimmer modlues that use 6 pin XLR for the analog control input. They use five pins in the same configuration s the 5 pin XLR and have a sixth pin in the centre. At least it stops anyone connecting a DMX signal to them.
 
I am sure that can be overcome with the simple addition of a battery back up for the small switch. You wouldn't need it to last long, so it could really just be a board with some cap's on it.....
 
OK, the hog III was the first console to come out with only eithernet on it. I was thinking the same thing as far as installing a small switch on the fixture, what if the switch is powered by PPOE, but you would have to implement it kind of weird system to where if the node is not powered up power will have to feed back down the line to the node that is not connected. And i have always kept systems with PPOE seperated from systems that do not require it becuase i have never looked into how a switch that does not support PPOE will take PPOE. I dont want to blow anything up.
 
jmabray said:
I am sure that can be overcome with the simple addition of a battery back up for the small switch. You wouldn't need it to last long, so it could really just be a board with some cap's on it.....
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That is extraordinarily complicated and unnecessary. KISS is the object - Keep It Simple. Remember as well that many manufacturers cannot be bothered to even provide a 5 pin connector on their movers - High End comes to mind, still using 3 pin XLR, so what are the chances they are going to want to install an Ethernet switch PLUS battery backup !.

A post on this thread from last Nov. by Steve Terry well describes how Ethernet will go everywhere but the last mile, for good reason and there will probably still need to be either a DMX run on "5 pin DMX cable" from a node, or a different standard over Ethernet that allows daisy chaining fixture to fixture.

Steve B.
 
I really don't think it's that complicated, to be honest. With the advent of the new protocols, there is going to have to be some different things done. It will be interesting to see how each of the manufacturers deal with it, however.

If it is true that you still have DMX as the last mile, we would really be throwing out a lot of good features that ACN can be used for.... While RDM might make up for some of that, it won't do it all and then what's the point of ACN?
 
SteveB said:
Remember as well that many manufacturers cannot be bothered to even provide a 5 pin connector on their movers - High End comes to mind, still using 3 pin XLR, so what are the chances they are going to want to install an Ethernet switch PLUS battery backup !.
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Most of highends gear comes with 5 pin dmx. The only exception are some of the older fixtures that were designed to run off of Lightwave Research Protocol (LWR), which was very close to dmx but used xlr. Those fixtures were the I-beam, Trackspot, and Studio Spot/Color 575. The problem now is if they were to switch to 5 pin on their studio spots it would be crazy trying to figure out data runs for a show wondering if some of the fixtures are 5 pin and others are 3 pin. At one time we had some studio spot 575's that were 5 pin, and it drove everyone crazy because they were odd balls.
 
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