Using an RS 232 to 485 converter box for DMX program

[SHARYNF]

If you look back at the various approaches for DMX pc based systems it will suggest that
1 you could make your own card, Martin started with ISA card, moved to PCI
2 There were some attempts re using parallel port but eventually all of these on the lower end were abandoned for USB
3 Make your own usb-dmx box this certainly seems to be the way forward, as you can see some of these boxes are down to about 60 dollars, with not a lot of parts

you could do it via firewire 1394 but USB would probably be better

OR you could do it via Ethernet which seems to be the way going forward
It would be interesting to see if you could to an art-net to dmx box your self

I would think that you could bread board up a usb or ethernet version without too much difficulty

.
Sharyn

 

[waynehoskins]

Some important observations, that have been observed before:

- DMX512 wasn't developed to control moving lights and toys; it was invented to control dimmers, to be a standard base. Before DMX512, if you had a Strand rack and an ETC board, fat chance of getting them to talk together: you'd have to build your own LMI-to-CD80 translator, or if you were lucky the board could also talk AMX192. At the time of its invention, we were working with 8080s and 8051s, so this is a protocol that could be implemented with existing hardware of 20 years ago (see Colortran Protocol). 512 addresses was a sufficiently large number that you wouldn't often have to run multiple universes of conventionals like you would with AMX.

- The future of lighting control protocols is in the Ethernet-based systems that are at the bleeding edge now, like ACN. Not that fixtures have so much moved beyond DMX, but people are trying to do things with fixtures now that DMX was never really intended to handle. Side note: when Colortran Protocol was being developed, the PS/2 (and its keyboard) I don't think had been invented yet.

 

[domls]

Hi waynehoskins,

I totally understand where you're coming from. Heck, I used to program Apple II computers in assembly language in 1983 to create video games! I don't even own any "regular" par cans, and when I do buy some in the future, I'm sure they'll be the LED type with many DMX channels available!

I envision the day when all lighting fixtures will be wireless and capable of self-addressing like ports on a computer (sort of like using a Bluetooth device that can then discover all the fixtures). No more cables to run, and virtually unlimited numbers of fixtures and channels. Each one having it's own little antenna. Then the controller (or PC) would simply send out data containing the "ip" address of the fixture and channel data.

What do you think?

domls

 

[TimMiller]

Thats what RDM is. The fixtures talk back to the console, every fixture has its own unique ID (like a MAC address), The console looks at all of these unique ID's and addresses them based on your parameters such as all of the mac 250's are channels 1-12, all of the mac 300's are channels 13-20. Then it sends a signal back to the fixture to assign the address. Highend has come up with their own protocols for remote addressing and they have been around for about 10 years now (anyone remember the handshake? also the hog II and i believe III can also has fixture talk back). There is wireless DMX with RDM. Also a big player comming out is ArtNET. ArtNet is like DMX over eithernet. It uses Ip adressing to talk to all of the fixtures in the network, just like a set of computers. There are fixtures out there that have eithernet on board (Robe, and highend came out with it on the x-spot but it was unfortuately never implemented into the software).

 

[derekleffew]

I envision the day when all lighting fixtures will be wireless and capable of self-addressing like ports on a computer (sort of like using a Bluetooth device that can then discover all the fixtures). No more cables to run, and virtually unlimited numbers of fixtures and channels. Each one having its own little antenna. Then the controller (or PC) would simply send out data containing the "ip" address of the fixture and channel data.

HOW the control sends information to the fixtures, or display devise is much less important than WHAT information is sent.
The HES ShowPix™, in max mode, requires 451 DMX channels. Directly assigning an RGB color value to each of its 127 LEDs, for each cue, would take forever, so some alternative for control had to be found. The buzzword for the past few years has been "convergence"--the merging of lighting and video. The line separating the two becomes more blurry every day. Video screens (projection or LED video walls) are no longer only for IMAG, but serve also as eye candy. Any/all LED and CMY fixtures may be pixel-mapped, in that a video image (still or moving) is "displayed" across all, or a portion of the fixtures. There are currently three ways to accomplish these goals. 1) Use a "media server," such as Catalyst, Axon, Hippotizer, MBox, or about ten other popular ones. 2) Some lighting consoles: GMA, HogIII, Maxxyz, others, have rudimentary support built in, a bit-mapped image can be displayed across an array of fixtures, for example. 3) Stand-alone interfaces send their own DMX to the fixtures, and the lighting console triggers them with its DMX: PixelDrive, pixelMAD, arKaos.

 

[n1ist]

Here are a few sites that have useful information:

usbdmx.com : The bus powered usb dmx interface : Home Page
DMX dimmer pack (he has an apps note for tx as well)
[ a n y m a ] - uDMX - tiny bus powered USB-DMX interface (USB and DMX all on an ATMEGA8)
http://www.enttec.com/docs/dmx_usb_pro_api_spec.pdf (an example of the commands that are sent from a PC to one of these converters)
Projects - Netgear WGT634U - About (an ARTNET node built from a router and simple usb-rs485 converter
Arduino playground - DMX

/mike