JonCarter
Well-Known Member
A DMX newbie here with a question for all the DMX gurus on ControlBooth: Why do some instruments use more than one DMX "address"? If the DMX "address" is the actual address assigned to an instrument, I would assume that the instrument would wait for its address to come down the line and then accept all the instructions sent to that address and do whatever it was told. (Change intensity, change color, turn left, pan down, and whatever else was sent, assuming of course that the instrument could do these things.) Is a DMX "address" really the address of a piece of hardware, or is it the sequence number of a "time slot" in a sequence of 512 time slots after a start bit, each containing ONE instruction, and the instrument waits the time from the start bit until its "address" (time slot) is reached, then executes the one command at that address?
And another question: Let's say we have a dimmer has DMX address "001." The last cue left our dimmer at a level of 6. (Or 6/10, or 60%, or 60, or whatever we're going to call it.) The next cue is to move this dimmer to 9.5 over a 30 count. (That's about 30 seconsds.) Does the control board send a command to the dimmer to "move UP 35 points over 30 seconds" or does the control board send incremental commands to the dimmer for the next 30 seconds, each one telling it to move the necessary fractional increment (depending on the frequency of the control signal) so that the result is a 35 point increase over the 30 seconds the designer has called for? In other words, is the "thinking" done in the control board or in the dimmer?
And a last question (for now): How about he names of some good books on the subject? Thanks!
And another question: Let's say we have a dimmer has DMX address "001." The last cue left our dimmer at a level of 6. (Or 6/10, or 60%, or 60, or whatever we're going to call it.) The next cue is to move this dimmer to 9.5 over a 30 count. (That's about 30 seconsds.) Does the control board send a command to the dimmer to "move UP 35 points over 30 seconds" or does the control board send incremental commands to the dimmer for the next 30 seconds, each one telling it to move the necessary fractional increment (depending on the frequency of the control signal) so that the result is a 35 point increase over the 30 seconds the designer has called for? In other words, is the "thinking" done in the control board or in the dimmer?
And a last question (for now): How about he names of some good books on the subject? Thanks!