iDMX1000

[Texan78]

I am planning on using 4 of the INTIMIDATOR SPOTS next season and was curious of a few things. I am very familiar with DMX lighting since I have worked with it for many years. Do I need an adapter for each fixture or can I daisy chain my fixtures like you normally would to the one adatapter?

If I this is possible would this cause all the fixtures to be in sync together or could I address them them seperately on this one adapter? I would have no problem if they were synced together but it would be a big plus if I could control all four indivually from one adapter daisy chained.

-Thanks

[Davidt]

G'day Texan78,

The current firmware allows for 256 DMX channels running off a single iDMX1000. Therefore you can have each of your effects on different channels, or on the same DMX channels if you so wish.

If you are used to DMX, think of the iDMX1000 as a replacement for your lighting console. It is connected into/out of your LOR network via a CAT5 cable and is connected to your DMX universe / devices via the usual daisy chained 3 pin XLR leads. If your DMX devices use 5 pin XLR then you will need a 3 pin to 5 pin XLR adaptor.

If you run multiple DMX universes then you can have multiple iDMX1000's connected to your network.

Cheers,

davidt - Australia

[Texan78]

Thanks, I am not looking for how many iDMX1000's I can run together. I am looking for how many DMX fixtures I can run off of one iDMX1000.

-Thanks

[randallr]

I understood there was going to be a firmware update that took it on to 512.. Currently it's 256.

[Texan78]

Well that is just an increase in datavalue it doesn't have any effect over how many fixtures can be used per adapter.

[randallr]

I'm not aware of a physical limit in the fixtures in the daisy chain. If each fixture only used one address, then it'd be 256 fixtures. If they were all seven channel fixtures, then there would be address space for 36 of them.

[medman2000]

randallr wrote:

I'm not aware of a physical limit in the fixtures in the daisy chain. If each fixture only used one address, then it'd be 256 fixtures. If they were all seven channel fixtures, then there would be address space for 36 of them.

exactly correct. no limit on fixture number.

[Texan78]

medman2000 wrote:

randallr wrote:

I'm not aware of a physical limit in the fixtures in the daisy chain. If each fixture only used one address, then it'd be 256 fixtures. If they were all seven channel fixtures, then there would be address space for 36 of them.

exactly correct. no limit on fixture number.

So I can have all my DMX fixtures, smoke, and fog run from one adapter correct just has long as I address them in LOR properly?

[medman2000]

Texan78 wrote:

medman2000 wrote:

randallr wrote:

I'm not aware of a physical limit in the fixtures in the daisy chain. If each fixture only used one address, then it'd be 256 fixtures. If they were all seven channel fixtures, then there would be address space for 36 of them.

exactly correct. no limit on fixture number.

So I can have all my DMX fixtures, smoke, and fog run from one adapter correct just has long as I address them in LOR properly?

Yes - there aren't any limits other than the number of DMX channels (256) previously mentioned. I had 18 fixtures running at once this year if that helps.

[Brad Bilger]

medman2000 wrote:

Texan78 wrote:

medman2000 wrote:

randallr wrote:

I'm not aware of a physical limit in the fixtures in the daisy chain. If each fixture only used one address, then it'd be 256 fixtures. If they were all seven channel fixtures, then there would be address space for 36 of them.

exactly correct. no limit on fixture number.

So I can have all my DMX fixtures, smoke, and fog run from one adapter correct just has long as I address them in LOR properly?

Yes - there aren't any limits other than the number of DMX channels (256) previously mentioned. I had 18 fixtures running at once this year if that helps.

Quick question.. I read something on DMX about "Master/Slave"? If I have 4 lights, can I set them up as Master/slave and make the programming easier?

[medman2000]

Each DMX fixture will have a certain number of channels available - let's say 5 to make the math easier. So channel 1 might turn on "red" and channel 2 "green" and channel 3 "blue" and channel 4 "strobe" and channel 5 "fade".

Now let's say you have 4 of these fixtures.

You can set them all to be the same address - say you have 1 LOR controller at address 01, you could set all 4 of your dmx fixtures to address 02. Then you program the channels like usual - channels 1-5 of unit address (or unit ID) 02 would control your 5 channels.

Or, you can set each fixture to have a different address and control each fixture individually - like at my home I have 12 fixtures, all pointing at 12 different trees. Sometimes i want to do a chase, sometimes alternating trees, sometimes "even" trees are green while "odd" trees are red, etc. In this case, each fixture has a different address (set with the dipswitches on the back of the unit):

fixture 1 (in our example) might have unit ID 02 channels 1-5. Fixture 2 would (or could) have unit ID 02, but channels 6-10 (set with the dipswitches). Fixture 3 would have channels 11-15.

It took me a while to grasp the overall concept of DMX having never used it before, but the interface with LOR was easy after that! Hope this helps!

[kevin]

Simple answer:

Based on each DMX fixture using its own ID. (no slave fixtures)

32 DMX fixtures per iDMX-1000 controller, with a max of 16 DMX channels per device. based on LORII with future firmware.

Currently limit is 16 DMX fixtures per iDMX-1000.

Add multiple iDMX-1000 to increase the number of DMX fixtures.

Since LOR assigns it DMX in sets of 16 channels that means that when the 512ch are available in the new firmware you can have a maximum of 32 DMX DEVICES on a single iDMX-1000. currently the limit is 16 devices per iDMX-1000.

iDMX-1000 provides controllers in multiples of 16. 512 DMX channels / by groups of 16 channels = 32 controllers max. Each controller is 1 DMX device.


The way LOR iDMX-1000 works is it puts 16 LOR channels wich correspond to 16 DMX channels per controller (DMX Fixture Unit). Therefor each DMX Fixture (controller) has 16DMX channels available to it weather it uses them or not. If your DMX device only uses 6 DMX channels than your will no be able to use the other 10 channels on another device.

Instead of thinking in the 512DMX channels you should be thinking in terms of 32 DMX devices with 16 DMX channels available to each device.

You think of the 512 channels when you think of the max capability of DMX as a protocol per each iDMX-1000.

I have not seen a limit as to the number of iDMX-1000s you can put on a the LOR chain though. but I do believe there is a limit based on the DMX-512 protocol.

(a slave fixture is a DMX device with the same channel assigned to it as an existing channel in the loop. The slave fixture will process the exact way that the master does. useful for groups of wash lights (floods) you want to sync the same.)

This is a basic answer for the question. However with some DMX fixtures you are able to assign not only the unit number but the starting channel manually therefor utilizing the max dmx protocol. But a thing to remember is unless they are all the same brand and type of fixture you could run into problems with the polarity and the way the fixture passes on information. Cable type and 3 vs 5 pin play a large part in this factor. as well as length of run. This is what medman was talking about.


edit: to add slave clause

[Texan78]

kevin wrote:

Currently limit is 16 DMX fixtures per iDMX-1000.

No disrespect but I think a lot of people are confused on the meaning of what DMX 512 and DMX 256 is. That is just the protocol and the data value in which is sent to the fixture.

You are saying 16 fixtures max, while above he said he ran 18......

[kevin]

Texan78 wrote:

kevin wrote:

Currently limit is 16 DMX fixtures per iDMX-1000.

No disrespect but I think a lot of people are confused on the meaning of what DMX 512 and DMX 256 is. That is just the protocol and the data value in which is sent to the fixture.

You are saying 16 fixtures max, while above he said he ran 18......

none taken. thats why the answer started out with....

Simple answer:

"Based on each DMX fixture using its own ID"

I see my response was way too long to make a simple point. the iDMX-1000 is a DMX512 protocal, but by grouping the channels in groups of 16 your max controllers are 16. Each DMX Light fixture is assigned a controler number. Hense the 16 is the number of UNIQUE fixtures available today, and 32 will be the max UNIQUE fixture unit IDs when the upgrade is released.

In order to have more than 16 fixtures on a single iDMX-1000 loop today you must modify the physical DMX light via dip switchs to split the LOR DMX controllor unit ID across multiple physical DMX lights/fixtures. (some DMX devices only let you change unit ID and not channel config. This is rare but still a factor)

Advanced Answer:

DMX-512as a protocol could care less about the number of unit IDs (Fixtures) only the number of channels being 512 maximum. You could have 512 1 channel fixtures or 1 512 channel fixture. It is just how much control your DMX lights give you in configuring via dip switchs. And how good you are at the ole binary code decipher.

dang.. Another long answer...

[kevin]

This is a good link for basic DMX explanation

http://www.pangolin.com/LD2000/dmx-about.htm

it talks about the 32 unit ids and the capability to split the units across multiple physical DMX fixtures.

[medman2000]

Yea, just to highlight what has already been said - you are limited to a set number of fixtures if you give each of them a separate unit ID and assign 16 channels to the fixture. But you don't *need* to do this. If you have a DMX fixture that only uses 3 channels, you can give it a unit ID of 01 and it will use channels 1-3. Using a the dipswitch to set the address on the fixture, you would also set it to equal 01.

For your second fixture, in LOR it would still have unit ID 01, but you set the dipswitch on the second fixture to give it address number 4 (its DMX address). Then in LOR you have ID 01, channels 4-6 controlling the second DMX fixture.

In fact, unless I'm missing something - and I don't think I am - if you only used DMX fixtures that had 3 channels each, you could currently run 85 of these on the iDMX - because it is currently limited to only 256 channels of control.

Many DMX fixtures are designed to work together - say having 50 Chauvet Colorsplash 200b fixtures encompassing your cul-de-sac (just using a dramatic example). Again, if I understand the technology correctly, if you set each of these 50 fixtures to the exact same address via the dipswitches, they will all respond in unison. And since this fixture only has 6 DMX channels, if you set them all to be "unit 01, channels 1-6" in LOR, you still have 250 DMX channels available for other fixtures you could add to your network.

[kevin]

According to the standard, a DMX512 controller can only drive up to 32 loads (e.g., one light = one load). The original DMX512 protocal was used for 512 channels only. It is through the advancement of computers and other control devices that started the unit ID to separate the 512 channels into something more manageable.

But remember the more channels on one DMX loop will slow down the response time and accuracy of the packet. DMX fixtures do not amplify the signal they just pass it through. Some new DMX fixtures have a dip switch to control the verification and check the signal. For LOR use I don't think this would be an issue for any home sequence since the refresh rate using all 512 channels would be 44 times per second.

Even the larger light shows for concerts use less than 200 channels usually due to multiple devices using the same channel (slaves).