DMX Guide

[YourBigEvent 0]

A quick (and easy) guide to DMX

 

Setting units in Master/Slave link mode

 

Setting all Dipswitches 1 through to 9 OFF will put the unit in MASTER mode when linking units together, this causes the unit to transmit data to any SLAVES which may be connected. Units are put into SLAVE mode by setting Dipswitch 1 ON and 2 through to 9 in the OFF position.

 

DMX Address setting

 

Each of the Dipswitch has an associated weighting, meaning each numbered switch is worth a certain value. This is represented mathematically by the Formula 2^(X-1)=weighting (where X is the number of the switch)

 

(This ^ symbol indicates that the proceding number is the power to which the number before is raised to. ie 2^2 = 2² = 2x2 = 4 and 2^3=2³ = 2x2x2 = 8)

 

Example:-

 

Switch 2 has a waiting of:- 2^(X-1) (Where X is 1 for switch 1)

 

2^0(*)= 1

 

* (Anything raised to the power of Zero is 1)

 

Similiarly Switch 3 has a waiting of:- 2^(3-1) (where X is 3 for switch 3)

 

2^2= 2x2 = 4

 

The value of each switch that is set in the ON position accumulates. For the Picture above switches 1-5 are OFF and 6-10 are ON. This is best displayed in a table as shown below.

 

Dipswitch 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Weighting Calculation 2^0 2^1 2^2 2^3 2^4 2^5 2^6 2^7 2^8

Weighting 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256

ON = 1 OFF=0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1

Values 0 0 0 0 0 32 64 128 256

Total 32+64+128+256 = 480

 

Therefore a Unit with the Dip-swtich configuration as shown in the picture above will begin recieving DMX512 data at channel 480.

 

It is important to remember that the address set by the Dip-switches is the DMX base address, this means that the unit will start reading data from this address and procede to read remaining channel functions on consecutive addresses.

 

For instance if a Scan (Requiring 4 DMX channels), dip-switch settings were set as shown in the picture above channel 480 would control its PAN movement, 481 would control its TILT movement, 482 the COLOUR wheel position and 483 the selection of the GOBO.

 

Hopefully this helps a little

Edited October 19, 2003 by ADS Entertainments

[Whisky In A Vase 0]

As stupid as this sounds, but I follow that. Cheers, I never understood other people directions on the switches

[ChrisPointon 0]

Thanks Andy - Very Useful

[Gary 0]

Im about to be getting into DMX a bit further than I have previously (in the next few days in fact).

 

The above shows how DMX Channels are allocated. Is that per "Effect" or per "Type of effect"?

 

EG: Using the above example of Channel 480, lets say that you had ONE scanner effect requiring four channels of data (EG: One for Pan, one for tilt, one for colour, one for gobo choice). Channel 480 is just "there" (you dont send data to it effectively), 481 would be Pan, 482, would be Tilt, 483 colour choice, 484 gobo choice.

 

OK..I understand that - it was very well explained using the Binary Abacus style above.

 

Now, if I added a second scanner (another identical one to the one above), would I simply Slave it up to the first unit, or would I set the DMX channel of the second unit to the same channel (480) as the first, so it copies all the movements/colour/gobo changes of the first, or simply through it into Slave mode and daisy-chain it from the first, or...would I give it its own DMX address eg: 485 (with 481,482,483,484...for pan,tilt, etc..) (next spare addresses) or simply 300 (or any other spare address with the next 4 channels for pan/tilt etc.)...

 

Also, as far as setting/programming pans/tilts/gobos etc...is this done by "firing" a value between 0 and 128, (or 256, or 512) from the controller to a particular channel? EG: If Channel 484 is colour...and your unit offers 10 colours, and the DMX controller slider offers a range of 0~255, would value 0~25 make the unit change to colour 1, values 26~50 change to colour 2, 50~75 = colour 4 etc..etc...?

 

 

[Hugmaster 0]

Hmmmmm

 

Anyone selling any front screens? http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html/emoticons/smile.gif

 

they said intelligent lighting, they failed to say thick as pig **** dj

 

Got I feel so thick, but then again I just chain them all together and hit the sound to light switch, works very well.

 

Darren

[Gary 0]

You can play with the "addressing" on light screens too...

 

When I used to run several light screens, instead of just the four that I have now, I used to use a channel reverser.

 

It was simply one of those little metal boxes with 4 bulgin sockets on it, but I reversed the channel wiring on two of the sockets. So channel 4 was where Channel 1 should be, channel 3 was channel 2, channel 2 was 3, and 4 was 1.

 

It made some interesting effects and enabled me to adjust the lighting a little, mid-show (with that particular controller "OFF" for a few seconds, during the change).

 

For example:

 

If Channel 1 on all my lightscreens were RED, Channel 2: Yellow, Channel 3: Green, Channel 4: Blue, then I could either have all the RED's on together, or by moving the bulgin plug for the top half of the screens into the reverse-wired socket in one place (the little black box) then I would have the Red's on with the Blues etc...etc...

 

Not as much fun as DMX by the sounds of it though... http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html/emoticons/scared.gif http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Edited November 4, 2003 by Gary

[johnnyb 0]

Shall try and answer a couple of questions.

 

QUOTE

The above shows how DMX Channels are allocated. Is that per "Effect" or per "Type of effect"?

 

Normally every effect is set like this, with a different starting address each.

 

QUOTE

EG: Using the above example of Channel 480, lets say that you had ONE scanner effect requiring four channels of data (EG: One for Pan, one for tilt, one for colour, one for gobo choice). Channel 480 is just "there" (you dont send data to it effectively), 481 would be Pan, 482, would be Tilt, 483 colour choice, 484 gobo choice.

 

In this example channel 480 is the first channel which you send data to. eg channel 480 would be pan, 481 is tilt, 482 is colour and 483 is gobo. The next effect would be ste to channel 484, so its pan would be 484, tilt 485 etc.

 

QUOTE

Now, if I added a second scanner (another identical one to the one above), would I simply Slave it up to the first unit, or would I set the DMX channel of the second unit to the same channel (480) as the first, so it copies all the movements/colour/gobo changes of the first, or simply through it into Slave mode and daisy-chain it from the first, or...would I give it its own DMX address eg: 485 (with 481,482,483,484...for pan,tilt, etc..) (next spare addresses) or simply 300 (or any other spare address with the next 4 channels for pan/tilt etc.)...

 

When running DMX you do not use master/slave operation. Every light in the chain is controlled from the main controller, not the light before it in the chain. You have two choices, you can set the DMX address the same as the prev light (or any other in the chain) and it will do exactly the same as long as the other lights channels are the same (pan then tilt then gobo etc). Or you can give its own address which will mean more controll over individual lights (the next available address normally).

 

QUOTE

Also, as far as setting/programming pans/tilts/gobos etc...is this done by "firing" a value between 0 and 128, (or 256, or 512) from the controller to a particular channel? EG: If Channel 484 is colour...and your unit offers 10 colours, and the DMX controller slider offers a range of 0~255, would value 0~25 make the unit change to colour 1, values 26~50 change to colour 2, 50~75 = colour 4 etc..etc...?

 

Yes, it is a case of sending a value form 0 to 255 for each channel which the light uses to determine what to do. If it has say 10 colours then yes, it will prob be about 0-25 for the first and so on. It normally says in the lights manual the corresponding values.

 

Hope this helps.

[Gary 0]

QUOTE

You have two choices, you can set the DMX address the same as the prev light (or any other in the chain) and it will do exactly the same as long as the other lights channels are the same (pan then tilt then gobo etc). Or you can give its own address which will mean more controll over individual lights (the next available address normally).

 

So, when I buy a controller, If I set two lighting effects up to the same Address, then use any dip switches that the units might have on them to reverse left/right movement, then I could have one effect going left, while the other goes right etc..

 

Do I take it then, that the difference between DMX 256 and DMX512 then is how many addresses the controller can allocate? EG: A DMX 256 controller could control about 50 x 5 channel devices, whereas a 512 controller could do twice as many 5 channel devices.

 

[johnnyb 0]

QUOTE

Do I take it then, that the difference between DMX 256 and DMX512 then is how many addresses the controller can allocate? EG: A DMX 256 controller could control about 50 x 5 channel devices, whereas a 512 controller could do twice as many 5 channel devices.

 

Yes. So for example a masterpiece 48 can controll 48 dmx channels (say 12 4 channel lights), a masterpiece 108 can do 108 dmx channels (say 27 4 channel lights) and a masterpiece 216 can controll 216 channels.

 

QUOTE

So, when I buy a controller, If I set two lighting effects up to the same Address, then use any dip switches that the units might have on them to reverse left/right movement, then I could have one effect going left, while the other goes right etc..

 

Yes. Most of the time anyway. This will work for most lights, but you will need to check that these switches will effect the light when being controlled by DMX. Some lights will only let you invert the pan or tilt when it is working in master/slave operation.

[dfinn 0]

yeh how does that work.

 

how can you invert pan and tilt in dmx mode if you olny have one set of dipswitches, do lighting effects have two sets, one for dmx and one for inversion etc????????

 

Daniel

[High Fidelity Ste 0]

Not doing this stuff for discos mainly for theatre. it depends on the light units themselves, some of them have a feature that if they are slaved off another unit they an be set to do the opposite of the master, but as for not running them in master or slave i imagine some units would have the ability to reverse pan/tilt from what they are recieving from the controllers. i know from usin Mac 500's and 250's it's a lot easier to have them all on seperate DMX patches. But that's my personal opinion.

 

Ste

[MadGutts 0]

There is no standard to the number of channels a light will use.

 

You may also find this helpfull: http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif

 

Abstract CED and 3CE effects use 4 channels however the 1CE effects use only 2.

Martin DJ rance differ through the rance from 2ch to 6ch.

Where as moving heas can have anywhere between 8ch to 64 for the big ones !!!

 

As for DMX code, here is how i explain it to users...

Image the DMX code being a train with the engine being the controller and start of the DMX Code. This train has 512 carriages, and each can carry between 0 and 255, and it runs in a continuous circle.

So for this example, our light has a base address of 20 and uses 4 channels. Along comes the train and the light will count the carriages... When it gets to 20 it then "counts" the contents in carriages 20,21,22, and 23. it then uses these values to produce the effects.

 

A common misconception that i have been asked many time is: "What address is the controller?" It doesnt have an address. It will transmit continously so it doesn't need an address. How ever the more expensive controllers can receive DMX through another socket.

 

So, How do i know where to start?

Firstly you need to work out how many channels all your effects use, an how many effects you have. e.g. 4x Abstract VR8 Scanners each have 4 channels = 16 DMX channels. So you then need a controller capable of at least 16 channels.

 

So what channels do i need to setup on each light?

Well, Each of light need only the base address configured. Then the light knows how many channels after the base address to look at.

 

I hope this clears things up a little for those of you whom are confused about DMX!

 

http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html/emoticons/thumbup.gif

 

[DJ Marky Marc 0]

ctrl + C ctrl + V , the quickest way to post http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html/emoticons/tongue.gif

[XPS 0]

QUOTE (johnnyb @ Nov 6 2003, 08:12 PM)

QUOTE Do I take it then, that the difference between DMX 256 and DMX512 then is how many addresses the controller can allocate? EG: A DMX 256 controller could control about 50 x 5 channel devices, whereas a 512 controller could do twice as many 5 channel devices.   Yes. So for example a masterpiece 48 can controll 48 dmx channels (say 12 4 channel lights), a masterpiece 108 can do 108 dmx channels (say 27 4 channel lights) and a masterpiece 216 can controll 216 channels.   QUOTE So, when I buy a controller, If I set two lighting effects up to the same Address, then use any dip switches that the units might have on them to reverse left/right movement, then I could have one effect going left, while the other goes right etc..   Yes. Most of the time anyway. This will work for most lights, but you will need to check that these switches will effect the light when being controlled by DMX. Some lights will only let you invert the pan or tilt when it is working in master/slave operation. QUOTE a masterpiece 108 can do 108 dmx channels (say 27 4 channel lights) and a masterpiece 216 can controll 216 channels.   well Pulsar Masterpieces are a bit wierd in the fact that they released a Software upgrade and made it so that a 108 can run 256 DMX channels and a 216 can run 512ch's   QUOTE 216 PMX dimmable output channels (Pulsar MultipleX) 512 DMX output slot patching system   QUOTE 108 PMX dimmable output channels (Pulsar MultipleX) 256 DMX output slot patching system   both above quotes are taken from the Pulsar website.

[HeadlineDJ 0]

Did anyone mention Terminators?

 

No not the Arnold kind http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html/emoticons/smile.gif

 

Bacially most lights have a dip switch for termination, older effects may not, so the last light in the run should be terminated either by a dip or a dongle.

 

But, and there is always a but... for small light setups and some controllers, they do not require a terminator, but if you have the feature on your last in the chain effect, then better to use it.

 

(bacially it's just a resitor which lets the controller know it's the end of the line)

 

Also for reversing of Pan/tilt using DMX,,, you can simply address the light to it's own dmx address and then simply program the pan tilt to do what ever you want, whenever you want. It may take time to program a full show, but it's worth it, then by using the copy command on some controllers you can then copy the program to another store point and edit it so you can save a little bit of time by copying some shows and editing key points.

 

 

[Tom 0]

QUOTE (HeadlineDJ @ Nov 18 2004, 03:42 AM)

Did anyone mention Terminators?

 

I think you're just confusing matters http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html/emoticons/tongue.gif

 

Very really now do dmx lights need terminators, so you don't need to worry about them, only when your lights do strange stuff and you have checked everything else...

hehe

 

I once ran 4 scanners from a 4 channel dmx controller, it was a dmx dimmer controller type with programmable memory. all the scanners where set to dmx channel 1 so all did the same thing, the 2 end scanners had there pan and tilt inverted (this option is on most newer scanners) was a bit simple but it was good enough...

 

All you have to do is just play around, its the best for me as i am a kinetic learner.

[qifop 0]

First points,

 

Their is no such thing as "master" or "slave" in DMX.

 

Each fixture is its own entity, totally equal. When using master and slave features on "DMX" lamps all you are actually doing is using the cabled connection to transfer MANUFACTURER SPECIFIC information from one fixture (Master) to all the other Slave units.

 

A good example is for yrs MARTIN used their own protocol to control units (which worked very effectivly). However all new MARTIN fixtures are now true DMX, however they still do encorparate "Manufacturer specific standalone programs" on lower cost models to date.

 

This signal is not DMX as DMX is industry standard and therefore all manufacturers units would respond, which im sure others have experienced. They certainly wont.

 

Termination is not to tell the controller its the end of the line but to prevent signal reflection, similar to basics with BNC computer networking and SCSI termination. It is to prevent corrupt data moving back down the line.

 

 

[timflynn84 0]

One quick question about DMX - Consider this scenario

 

I have two scanners, but they don't have the facility to invert pan and tilt on the second one, so I've assigned them to two seperate addresses.

 

I want them both doing different things, but at the same time. How do I go about inputting that into the controller? From how I see it at the moment, while I'm programming one of them, the other will presumably sit in blackout. Is it possible to go back to that sequence and add the other "layer" on top of it, or do you program it as a seperate show and run both as once... or....?

 

'm new to DMX, so bear with me if it's a silly question! I've only had the experience of the basic soundlab controller you see, and to me there never seemed the facility to create multiple movements across different units, everything had to be doing the same thing at the same time.

[NiM 0]

Set the DMX values on your controller for 1, then for t'other. Then store the scene..

 

Clear as mud?

[norty303 0]

I've found the easiest way of achieving reversed movement on one or more axis whilst still copying is to set up the 2 channels for each head (or group of heads) and program 1 with what you want entirely. Then copy the whole channel to the second one and go through each scene changing the value on the DMX channel you want reversed.

 

There's also the option of doing the hardware and reversing the wires in the unit for a permanent fix. you need to remember to reposition end stops for mirrors if you do this as they'll try to turn the wrong way from the existing stops when they zero on startup

[stevie 0]

At last DMX explained

 

http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/beer.gif To all the above http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/beer.gif

[bigMCben 0]

I thought that I'd understood the basics of DMX as I read through this thread until I found this chart for a DMX lighting effect.

 

http://www.kam.co.uk/products/lighting/images/spinflower250_dmx.jpg

 

If a lighting effect needs 3 Channels and you make the the channels 480, 481 and 482, how would the lights work if the above chart says, for example, that for the purple hand, it has to be between channel 140-149, or am I being a complete div and missing something.

 

To all Moderators - If I am being a complete div, please delete my post IMMEDIATELY to prevent riducle from fellow members http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/blush.gif

[High Fidelity 0]

You're not being a complete div Ben, DMX is one of those things that just suddenly clicks in your mind but at first is totally baffling.

 

I think where you are getting confused is with the channel/addressing and contol values.

 

481, 482 & 483 are not channels, they are control values.

 

If you set the start address of the fixture to say 1 or 5 or 9 assuming you have a 4 channel controller, then you send a value between 130 & 139 to chanel 1, you will get a red heart.

 

If you send a value of 11 to the next channel above the starting address then the shutter will operate slowly, a value of 100 will make the shutter operate at medium speed, and a value of 255 will make it operate at its fastest speed.

 

If you send a value of 2 to the next channel ie: 2 above the starting address, then the reflector will spin fast. Send a value of 99 and it will spin slow.

 

Remember, the starting addresses of your fixtures is determined by how many channels your controller has.

Edited August 24, 2006 by High Fidelity

[bigMCben 0]

QUOTE (High Fidelity @ Aug 24 2006, 10:02 AM)

You're not being a complete div Ben, DMX is one of those things that just suddenly clicks in your mind but at first is totally baffling.

So what you're saying is I'm a div, just not a COMPLETE div http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/wacko.gif

 

Let's see if I've got this.

 

http://www.kam.co.uk/products/lighting/images/spinflower250_dmx.jpg

 

You've got 2 of these scanners.

 

Scanner 1 is set to channels 1, 2 and 3

Scanner 2 is ser to channels 4, 5 and 6

 

If you wanted a flashing yellow star on scanner 1 you would set channel 1 at a value of 125 and channel 2 at a value of 130 and if you wanted a red heart on scanner 2 you would set a value of 135 on channel 4.

 

If you wanted a strobing purple hand on both, you would send a value of 145 to channels 1 and 4 and a value of 250 to channels 2 and 5.

 

I'm not quite sure what the reflector channel does. Is that so you can set the position of the mirror?

 

So, is it http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif or http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/014.gif

[Gary 0]

QUOTE (bigMCben @ Aug 24 2006, 02:06 PM)

If you wanted a flashing yellow star on scanner 1 you would set channel 1 at a value of 125 and channel 2 at a value of 130 and if you wanted a red heart on scanner 2 you would set a value of 135 on channel 4. If you wanted a strobing purple hand on both, you would send a value of 145 to channels 1 and 4 and a value of 250 to channels 2 and 5.

Yes - thats right. http://www.dj-forum.co.uk/html//emoticons/thumbup.gif

 

And...as you've used above, when a particular gobo is on a range of say 120~130, then its a good idea to pick a middle value eg: 125.... Not 120 or 130. On some gobo units using a gobo wheel, using the extreme values of a gobo (eg: 121 or 129) might give you a slightly off-centre gobo projection.