Renard-595 Converter

Introduction

The Renard-595 Converter is a proposed board that will allow a 64-Channel Olsen 595 Controller to be controlled through the serial port on a PC, and to be dimmed (this PCB would also work with the 64-Channel Grinch controller). This board is currently under development, and there is no guarantee that this development will be completed.

The existing 595 controllers (including the Grinch design) are designed to turn display lights on and off under computer control. They are be connected to a PC parallel port, with the possibility of daisy-chaining multiple controllers together. This allows up to around 1024 channels (circuits) to be controlled through one parallel port. There is a design that allows eight of these channels to be bundled together to form one dimmer control circuit, but this is relatively expensive and fairly rare. The most common versions of this controller provides simple on-off control, without any dimming capability.

The Renard-595 converter is designed for exclusive use with the 64-channel 595-style controller. The Converter has one serial input link (RS232 or RS485) that receives light control packets from the PC, one serial output link for sending data to another daisy-chained converter, and one port for connecting to a single 595-style controller. The 64 channels on this controller (previously on-off only) can now be dimmed, provided that the SSRs on this 595-controller have the capacity to be dimmed over 192 brightness levels. This setup (converter plus 64-channel 595-style controller plus 64 SSRs) now provides 64 dimmable channels.

The total number of channels (circuits) that can be provisioned on each PC port (serial port or USB-serial adapter port) depends on the baud rate and on the desired update rate. A typical number would be 288 channels, based on a 57600 baud rate and a 100 ms update period (576 channels if a protocol change is made or if certain dimmer levels are avoided). These controllers can be used by themselves, or freely intermixed with Renard controllers on the same serial port, as long as the baudrate is the same on all of the controllers. This diagram shows one possible setup:

PC (parallel port 1) --> 595 controller (non-dimmable) --> 595 controller (non-dimmable)
   (parallel port 2) --> 595 controller (non-dimmable)
   (USB port 1) --> (USB->serial adapter) -> Renard8
                                                 |
                                                 V
                                             Converter --> 64-channel 595 controller (dimmable)
                                                 |
                                                 V
                                             Renard64 (64 dimmable channels)
                                                 |
                                                 V
                                             Converter --> 64-channel 595 controller (dimmable)

Note - the configuration can be as simple as just one Converter and one 595 controller. The remaining controllers are shown to depict the possibilities for a moderately large setup.

The allowable setups also depend on the capabilities of the software in the controlling computer (PC). The above example will work with vixen, taking advantage of its capability to drive multiple I/O ports on the PC.