ENTTEC DMX Pro not working with Linx V 5

T

twindman

New member
I have an old dongle from 2008 or so and it works fine with Lynx v5.0 controllers. Bought a $165 Enttec DMX Pro and it does not work. The green light on it flashes meaning it is sending data. I have no idea where to get help. Thanks
 
This might not be helpful, but the green light on the Pro means it is receiving a DMX signal, not a confirmation it's sending anything out.
 
I use Entec Pros at a live venue, but not with Lynx anything. I run QLC+ as my virtual light board on my laptop, and haven't particularly noticed any issues with the Entec (or any of my other dongles). QLC+ is free, and pretty simple . If you wanted to decouple Lynx out of the equation, you could download that and try it with your dongles. I know that works fine. QLC is my go-to whenever I want to rule out Xlights issues as a possible cause for anything not working.
 
My guess is a wiring issue. How do you have the Entec wired to the Lynx? Are you using the exact same adapter as you did with the older Entec?
 
This doesn't affect this discussion, but that page's diagram is incorrect for LOR controllers. LOR uses RJ45 pins 4 and 5 for DMX, not pins 1 & 2 which is more standard.
 
The old-style dongles that were working are probably 3-pin XLR's, while the Entec Pro is a 5-pin. Makes sense. Probably wiring issue.
 
I am guessing it is the wiring. I just bought the DMX 5 pin to ethernet output. I didn't wire anything. I gave up and sent the DMX Pro back (hopefully get refunded). So I am back to looking for the old LYNX Express dongle. Thanks all. If anyone has any other ideas for a solution let me know. By the way, I have a box and the circuit board from Jordan along with the comple electronics to order and insturctions. I built the one I have from scratch, but the box isn't the right one, and the USB interface gizzmo is obsolete from mouser.com. Thanks again
 
Indeed, I get my DMX off of a Falcon for half the display and a Sandevices for the other half.

I had chatted here about using an ESPixelstick to drive our pond fountain (also DMX) but that project has stayed on the shelf. And it's so dry here I had to shut the fountain down a couple weeks ago so it likely won't happen until next year at the earliest.
 
Honestly, I have never had any issues with the cheap USB dongles, except for the time I stepped on it. The only reason I use an Entec Pro is for a live venue, I don't want to chance it. If your laptop has a sudden spike in CPU activity or interrupts, it could throw the timing off on chases. The higher-end dongles are supposed to be able to buffer that, so the audience doesn't see...whatever weirdness is going on your laptop. Has that ever happened to me? No.
 
The only issue I had is that all of the dongles I bought from one of the vendors had the same serial number / device ID. That caused the RPI to not consistently reassociate the dongles with the same com port after a reboot. I solved that by using the entire usb device chain in the port definition (bypassed the automatic assignments). Worked perfectly.
 
This will be the 1st season (out of 10 previous seasons) where I remove all DMX dongles and bridges from my display and just use the onboard DMX capabilities of pixel controllers already distributed throughout. The significant reduction of long runs of DMX, typically parallel with my ethernet runs will be a time saver. I'm very excited!
 
iflights said:
This will be the 1st season (out of 10 previous seasons) where I remove all DMX dongles and bridges from my display and just use the onboard DMX capabilities of pixel controllers already distributed throughout. The significant reduction of long runs of DMX, typically parallel with my ethernet runs will be a time saver. I'm very excited!
Click to expand...

Yes i went through that same sort of thing a few years back.

For a number of years, I was running at least 3 networks out in the yard:

1) LOR, my primary network for AC controllers
2) Ethernet, to a few pixel controllers
3) DMX, feeding a number of floods, AC props, and dumb RGB props.

In many cases the DMX and LOR wires were running side by side.

A few years back I moved all my LOR boxes to DMX So today I have

1) Ethernet to the pixel controllers
2) DMX from a coupoe of the pixel controllers, to everything else.

I ended up eliminating several hundred feet of wiring with this change, but since LOR uses a non-standard pinout for DMX I had to create adapters for all my boxes.

I do have a number of props that have combined DMX/Power in one cable (similar to POE but not standard) that I try to keep isolated to the devices that require it
 
Love it. My Tune To sign is so old it still uses incandescent mini-bulbs. Used to be able to control it with LOR, but once I moved on I ended up with a single 120v output DMX controlled dimmer for that. Still works perfectly.
 
If reducing DMX wire runs has your attention, you can just get DMX wireless transceivers. They are extremely simple to use. I would just avoid temperature extremes with them.

Last year I had the controller downstairs, and DMX upstairs. Wireless. Simple as that.
 
I bought top of the line DMX wireless transceivers from City Theatrical which is the industry standard for theatrical lighting. Exterior Antenna positioning has a lot to do with success and trying to keep my house looking like a house I didn't want to erect antennas to provide coverage. Simple maybe? Depends on the site. It's completely dependent on site and other influences like competing 2.4G networks in the immediate area. I've got 15 controllers in my show so plenty of ethernet infrastructure to leverage for onboard DMX at the controller level.
 
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