E1.31 (Streaming-ACN) Protocol

What is Streaming-ACN (E1.31)?

ACN is a suite of protocols (via Ethernet) that is the industry standard for lighting and control. ESTA, the creator of the standard, ratified a subset of this protocol for "lightweight" devices which is called sACN (E1.31). This lightweight version allows microcontroller based lighting equipment to communicate via ethernet, without all the overhead of the full ACN protocol. In an effort push early adoption ETC provided the protocol information (code and draft specification) at no charge.

A ratified/offical copy of the standard can be purchased here for free.

Protocol Description

sACN is ethernet based and is sent via UDP. The two accepted transport methods are multicast and unicast, the most common implementation is multicast. When using multicast all the controller needs to do is subscribe to the multicast address for the universe that you want to receive data from.

More Information

Description

Code Example and Draft Copy of Specification

Article: E1.31: An Offer You Can't Resist

Streaming-ACN (E1.31) with Vixen

How to setup and use Vixen 2.1,2.5 and 3.0 with E1.31

Streaming-ACN (E1.31) with LOR S3

You must have an Advanced ShowTime Software Suite S3 license from Lightorama to use the E1.31 interface.

How to setup E1.31 on LOR S3 Advanced pdf file

Initial setup for E1.31 if you do NOT have an LOR RS485 USB adapter

Video on how to setup and use LOR S3.5 with E1.31

Tools

These tools allow you to test E1.31 controllers simply without using sequencing software. They are good tools to use when troubleshooting a E.131 network setup.

sACNView: Sends and Receives Streaming-ACN
da_E131: Sends Streaming-ACN