Submaster panel for USB-DMX dongle...

[Ravenbar]

Last year I built a couple USB-DMX dongles Just to play around with them. For mu usage, I like to have a physical submaster bank to use with it.

Don't want to spend a lot to buy one so I'd like to build one. Seems I'd need something like a bank of linear potentiometers/buttons feeding into some sort of processing device(Arduino or similar(Not sure an Arduino has enough inputs/outputs for what I want to do)).

Seems with the popularity of the USB-DMX dongles, someone would have came out with something that.

It might be possible to adapt an old Lighting Methods analog board as well. I've got a couple of those out in the garage, although they are a bit too bulky for what I want.

 

[dbaxter]

You might take a look at a PYLE PMIDIPD30 USB midi unit as a starter. That would give you the mechanical part of sliders and case. Program your Arduino to accept midi and output DMX. It's not clear from your note, however, how you want to go from slider to light levels to say much more. We use the Pyle to run our submasters in conjunction with our lighting software - works great.

 

[Ravenbar]

You might take a look at a PYLE PMIDIPD30 USB midi unit as a starter. That would give you the mechanical part of sliders and case. Program your Arduino to accept midi and output DMX. It's not clear from your note, however, how you want to go from slider to light levels to say much more. We use the Pyle to run our submasters in conjunction with our lighting software - works great.

My basic theory was that the Arduino would compile the fader data into a signal that would then be transmitted via USB to the computer, which would then output to the USB-DMX Device.

 

[dbaxter]

My basic theory was that the Arduino would compile the fader data into a signal that would then be transmitted via USB to the computer, which would then output to the USB-DMX Device.

Ok, I was just offering that the Pyle unit provides a midi signal via a USB connector. It's not clear what the Arduino would add to the solution. Seems like the program on the computer translating what the Arduino puts out could just as easily be a program translating midi.

 

[Ravenbar]

Ok, I was just offering that the Pyle unit provides a midi signal via a USB connector. It's not clear what the Arduino would add to the solution. Seems like the program on the computer translating what the Arduino puts out could just as easily be a program translating midi.

If the Pyle unit would do what I need then great.

MY thinking on the Arduino would be that it would translate the signal from the analog faders into a signal the computer could interperete.(MIDI or something else).

I haven't done a lot of thinking on how it would function. I just know I want a physical submasters fader wing, that plugs into my computer via USB, and that has more than 24 submasters, for use with a USB-DMX dongle. And I don't want to spend a lot of money to get it, as it's for personal usage.

Program I use is QLC+ as it's the only software I could find that works on Linux, which is what 99% of my computers use.