DMX Element Definitions

BuzzKill

BuzzKill

New member
Hi,

Dove in the deep end with DMX this year and will hope to have Halloween blinking and flashing some time this evening.

After several years on the planning table, DMX and Artnet and pixels are back in the spotlight, as I have a significant project on the horizon. Up until now I have still been running Ren24's.

So, it seems while DMX is a standard, implementation from fixture to fixture is decidedly not. Even for a "basic" RGB fixture there can be RGB, RGBW, RGBW +UV, and RGBWA +UV (A=Amber) now as well. The major issue I am running into is that it seems some of these fixtures do not have an option for DMX operation of only RGB or RGBW, and that they use channel 1 as a master dimmer. So, if you add an RGBW element, for example, channel 1 of that element is now the master dimmer, and you then have to mentally transpose RGB to channel 2, 3, 4, and you lose W. One RGB strip I purchased actually has RGBWA +UV (Red, Greeen, Blue, White, Amber, UV). Obviously some of this is on me for not knowing up front what the heck I was purchasing. That is sort of the "price of admission" I suppose. But it would be nice if there were a way to work around these element variations in the element configuration. I am currently running the developer variant of Vixen to take advantage of RGBW. Are there other things coming down the development pipeline to address some the the issues I have described here?

Nice to be active back on the forum again. It has been a few years. I have run Renards for many years, and still do so on a local holiday parade float that has been in service with Renard controllers, running Vixen, since 2010. But I am starting the learning process for converting the entire float to DMX and Artnet driven pixels. My home office floor is covered in DMX Par lamps and about 150' of DMX cables at the moment. Blinken Litez.

Cheers,

Ray
 
I'm an xlights guy, but I feel your DMX pain. So much development that needs to be done, but isn't. That'll probably be my project after this season's over. I just did a production running dumb led strips through RGB DMX daighterboards, and people just have to ignore the colors on the board and label their own.

Do you still need all your Renards? I'm looking for two ren24's. I ran out of channels.
 
1pet2_9 said:
I'm an xlights guy, but I feel your DMX pain. So much development that needs to be done, but isn't.
Do you still need all your Renards? I'm looking for two ren24's. I ran out of channels.
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I am old-school Vixen, with home brew parallel port 595 shift register controllers, etc. Parallel port relay boards. CAT 5 out to 4 gang SSR boxes, etc. Then started building the Renards, programming our own PICs, etc. Pretty attached to them, and they still work great.

For this project I started in Vixen, could not get DMX working, then moved to XLights, but the constant having to do double duty of laying down a DMX event and then the light treatment over that was making me crazy. It was certainly faster to get DMX working, but then went back to Vixen and finally got the DMX working there in the development build that has the RGBW. But yes, the "ignore the color" comment absolutely holds true. I tried to cheat by making a single channel device for the channel the master dimmer is on, and setting that on for the duration of the song, but that does not seem to be working.

I am coming into this kind of cold having not really done any deep dive into this for several years. So, being late to the party is on me. I will have some lights working by tonight. It will be "good enough" for this year, and mission accomplished on what I am getting myself into with the new project. I am frankly really surprised at how far Vixen has come, but also surprised at how far it hasn't. You can get pretty decent quality 4 color, outdoor rated, par fixtures for just under $100, if you are willing to wait for them a couple weeks. Paint the house any color you want, but you can literally have commercial grade fixtures. It's crazy. The DMX support is so close. It just needs to be a little more flexible in being able to define the capabilities of a particular element/fixture.

Also, I have to be smarter about the fixtures I choose. Like stated in the OP, it is sort of the price of admission. The one wall washer light bar is simply not going to work, so will replace with a par lamp.

Cheers,

Ray
 
The upcoming version of Vixen is being beta tested currently. It has support for DMX fixtures (fairly generic, so can support things like shutters, dimmers, pan, tilt, gobo etc). I have been involved in the testing on two very different DMX fixtures. RGBW mixing will be available, but not the other modes you mention. That said it's still possible to program anything which used DMX by mapping channels as required, to 'single item' nodes. RGBW mixing works well, I still don't understand exactly HOW it works since in the software you mix in RGB space. I think the white channel gets mixed in proportionally. And yes pure white is just the W channel.

I think some of the new fixture features will help you out :)
 
BuzzKill said:
I tried to cheat by making a single channel device for the channel the master dimmer is on, and setting that on for the duration of the song, but that does not seem to be working.
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That should work - I am currently doing this, awaiting the new release. In the new version you can automate the shutter and/or dimmer depending on the capabilities of the fixture you have. Have you checked the actual DMX values being transmitted by adding a 'debugging' output controller? You can patch a node to both a real controller and the 'debug' controller simultaneously, make sure to select the 'use all available patch points' checkbox. Use the 'Custom Value' effect in the sequencer rather than 'set level' (for example) since this won't be affected by dimming curves or any other filters you have in place. If you want to post the DMX detail for the device, I can give you some opinions/suggestions on how it would map into Vixen?
 
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RichieNorthcott said:
You can patch a node to both a real controller and the 'debug' controller simultaneously, make sure to select the 'use all available patch points' checkbox. Use the 'Custom Value' effect in the sequencer rather than 'set level' (for example) since this won't be affected by dimming curves or any other filters you have in place.
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Thanks for this tip! I am set for tonight. I moved the DMX adapter to another USB port and had to remap every fixture. That was an unanticipated issue. I have now learned the valuable DMX lesson of properly documenting your fixtures and which channel numbers they are set to so that I do not have to go digging through bushes and climbing ladders. :lol:

But for tonight, I'm good with 9 par lamps and a working basic sequence with my first DMX based show. I have much more to learn and and looking forward to getting started with pixels and Artnet. Enjoy...

 
That surprises me - what type of DMX interface are you using? Did you try quitting / re-opening Vixen? Mine isn't fussy about which port I use. That info is probably too late now though :)
 
No I use a USB->FTDI->RS485 board, which is exactly what the openDMX is inside (speculating, not confirmed). I can pick any USB port I want. Strange... Which version of Vixen are you running? The current? If you right-click on the controller (DMX Open) and select configure, you should see it listed there.

Mine comes up as FT232R USB UART - 00000000 - 67330049 which I think is the USB device name. I can pick any USB port I want. Maybe the Enttec one works differently.
 
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It could be, as pointed out, that I just needed to close Vixen and re-open. Fog of war. I also had to do that to get the audio out the proper audio output for the outside speakers. I am using the latest dev build so that I have the RGBW support. House looked great last night. Nobody around here comes even close. Very happy with the outcome. Ok.. On to Christmas!

Thanks all for the input. I have a pretty good handle on DMX now, and the limitations within Vixen for the time being, at least enough to, now that I am past Halloween, to continue experimentation, and get started with pixels and Artnet.

Cheers,

Ray
 
Now that I am past Halloween, I have no candy in the house, no cookies, not even granola bars. Everything that is individually wrapped, gone. How am I going to be able to continue work on Christmas?
 
Don't have that dilemma here. Not enough trick-or-treaters. In years past, when we were a "young neighborhood", I kept a box of sugar filled cereal near my workbench just to satisfy the cravings that slowly died down. Then again, out came the Christmas Sugar Cookies and the whole thing started again. :nasty:
 
RichieNorthcott said:
That should work -
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In the squeeze for time I just simply abandoned the effort in order to get the rest of the elements working, and just swapped a couple of fixtures around. But in the time since I went back, after your comment that it should work, and figured out I had my channel maps off my 1 address. I had assigned the 1st channel for the "dummy" dimmer, but then also assigned the RGBW starting on fixture starting channel. Once I made the adjustment and bumped the mapping 1 place up, it then started working. Also fixing the dimming curve. Works a treat now. I thought I was going to be stuck with a fixture I couldn't use. So thanks for that advice.
 
No worries - fundamentally Vixen can do whatever you want with DMX, since it's just byte values on channels. Some of the new features will help simplify programming - your item will appear as a single node in the element list but can have multiple channel mappings with various functions.
 
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