Keep in mind that the XLR-4 is commonly used in the video industry as a
power connector for 12VDC, so you may wish to stick with the standard pinning for those which I believe is pin 1
ground and pin 4 +12V. I assume you would then be using pin one also for the
DMX line Shield? or will it be unshielded, which in theory should be fine. Personally I would use an RJ 45 for
power and data ala
PoE, use the same pins for
power as
PoE and require a
home run for each light, back to a splitter box that actively splits out to the lights and accepts a XLR-5 in and
thru for standard
DMX lines. Does this push cost up...well yes some. however cat 5 is cheap, and compliant, and so is that method of splitting. OR just have that box do all the
DMX and
send only the
voltage to
power the leds to the
fixture.....I could see a
fixture now that is only slightly larger than an RJ45
jack.
Personally I like the XLR-5 because with the exception of some stereo mics, I have not encountered much else that uses it. The XLR-3 invites one to use improper cables, and the same may be true for the XLR-4 (any you would encounter would either be for r dc
power or some proprietary interface, neither of which are likely to be the correct type of cable and in the dc
power case may only have pins 1 and 4 wired. anyway just some things I would consider.
on a side note, I know a lot of fixtures use the internal y- connection for the
DMX thru, but I thought I read that the spec calls for all
thru's to be actively regenerated? maybe this changed in a later revision of the spec....