What are you using on bushes?

[Dcroc]

I'm thinking about 12mm dumb nodes on my bushes and shrubs. Before I go that route, what do you guys use? Any thoughts on dumb vs. smart for bushes?

[jerrymac]

bushes are a good item for dumb (basic) pixels.  Unless you want the string to chase on a single bush you gain the ability for a distributed network and use a small cheap controller on each bush.

[EmmienLightFan]

On 3/26/2016 at 2:31 AM, jerrymac said:

 you gain the ability for a distributed network and use a small cheap controller on each bush.

What small cheap controllers would you recommend?

[jerrymac]

At present LOR does not have these 3 channel dmx controllers in there line. I get mine from by Holiday Coro and have about 25 of them and work great.

[Dcroc]

How many pixels can you put on a single controller?  Some of my bushes will require 500 lights.

[plasmadrive]

Depending on your layout, This is the one place I have found multi color regular 120vac stands to be useful.  I break mine up into 7 channels stretched across the entire line of about 200 feet of bushes used as a hedge.  It works for me... but not for for every set up..

 

[EmmienLightFan]

18 hours ago, jerrymac said:

At present LOR does not have these 3 channel dmx controllers in there line. I get mine from by Holiday Coro and have about 25 of them and work great.

I thought that you may mean these.

 

 

I think that they are quite nice controllers, but they have no DMX thru.

 

Connecting lots of DMX devices just by connecting DMX + and - will cause problems. 

[jerrymac]

for dmx in and out with  controller above you use a eithernet y adapter (1in and 2 out).   As far as how many pixels it depends on the controller and the pixels.  the controllers are rated in max amps.   you need to know or calculate the amps used by the pixel string.  drawing to many amps for a controller will destroy the controller.  Also available are 27 and 30 channel dumb controllers with 3 to 5 amps per output (9 or 10 outputs).  

do you expect 500 on one bush or 5  bush's with 100 ea?  basic idea is about one small controller for each 100 dumb pixels (but do the math). 

[EmmienLightFan]

5 hours ago, jerrymac said:

for dmx in and out with  controller above you use a eithernet y adapter (1in and 2 out). 

This is just the same as connecting the wires together.

 

This is a very bad thing to do. DMX is a weird thing. 

 

I have had it do strange things (And I have heard stories like "Everything works until the kettle has boiled and then I can't control the dimmers on the first half of the line")

I have never had a problem with DMX on my display, but I have had it happen at the worst possible times.

 

I would buy a proper DMX splitter.

[jerrymac]

2 hours ago, EmmienLightFan said:

This is just the same as connecting the wires together.

This is a very bad thing to do. DMX is a weird thing. 

I....

I am talking about DMX and not E1.31.  I have been doing this for 4 years now without a single problem (although one year I had a couple of bad y-connectors and I use as many as 20 of the 3 channel dmx controllers this way.  Again this is for standard DMX 4

[EmmienLightFan]

1 minute ago, jerrymac said:

I am talking about DMX and not E1.31.  I have been doing this for 4 years now without a single problem (although one year I had a couple of bad y-connectors and I use as many as 20 of the 3 channel dmx controllers this way.  Again this is for standard DMX 4

I know that you are talking about RS485 DMX.

[jerrymac]

2 hours ago, EmmienLightFan said:

This is just the same as connecting the wires together.

This is a very bad thing to do. DMX is a weird thing. 

I....

  I have been doing this for 4 years now without a single problem (although one year I had a couple of bad y-connectors, and I use as many as 20 of the 3 channel dmx controllers this way.  Again this is for standard DMX 512  NOT E1.31 .  below are the ones i use.  Of course you need to be aware of the maximum dmx devices on a universe (32) regardless of channel usage. On a lot of dmx devices the in and out wires are just connected together internally (of course pin to to pin 2 and pin 3 to pin 3 etc).

..  

Edited April 15, 2016 by jerrymac

[k6ccc]

7 hours ago, EmmienLightFan said:

This is just the same as connecting the wires together.

This is a very bad thing to do. DMX is a weird thing. 

 

That is functionally exactly what every LOR controller does on the RS-485.  The RJ-45 connectors are just in parallel with each other with a short amount of PC board traces between them.  Then the RS-485 traces also go to the RS-485 transceiver chip on the PC board.  You do need to keep the tap short - if I remember right, the spec is something like 6 inches or one foot (I don't remember exactly).  Also as with any RS-485 network, it SHOULD be terminated at the ends.

[EmmienLightFan]

6 minutes ago, k6ccc said:

You do need to keep the tap short - if I remember right,

Yes. Otherwise you get signals bouncing back causing problems.

 

I always terminate on the last device. A simple 120 Ohm resistor is all it needs. I normally use an XLR or RJ45 jack, depending on the device.

 

[Dcroc]

Sounds a lot easier (and cheaper) to just use the 27ch controller. 

[plasmadrive]

On 4/14/2016 at 8:47 AM, EmmienLightFan said:

I thought that you may mean these.

 

 

I think that they are quite nice controllers, but they have no DMX thru.

 

Connecting lots of DMX devices just by connecting DMX + and - will cause problems. 

I have used a lot of these and the only thing about them I don't like (for the price of course) is that they have a test pattern that kicks in when there is no DMX signal.   For my setup that is not an issue because I keep the DMX bridge powered all the time the display is powered.  It is handy for setup though..

 

[EmmienLightFan]

19 hours ago, Dcroc said:

Sounds a lot easier (and cheaper) to just use the 27ch controller. 

I agree. Much cheaper and easier, even if your bushes are spread out.

[Old Sarge]

depends on how bushy the bush is