cybuch Posted October 7, 2016 Share Posted October 7, 2016 Then I am good on waiting for the enhancements! Can't wait to see what you guys come up with next!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybuch Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 @jackstone are there any other users that are having an issue with controller reboot and effect switches activating during reboot? I just rebooted my controller and my DMX is tied to an IO extender, the lighting went nuts. Do I need to add a relay to switch off the power to the DMX engine when the power is off to the controller? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malelan Posted October 15, 2016 Share Posted October 15, 2016 I have some questions as someone that is new to DMX and low voltage lighting in general. With Christmas season just around the corner, I've been looking for a solution to light up my house. My wife is a decorating NUT, and she asks me to put up lights for Halloween (currently on the house) we'll leave those on through thanksgiving, and then change over to Christmas. After reading through this post, I'm thinking that maybe it would be better to source some more permanant outdoor DMX lights, that I could leave there all year long, and just change the colors to suit the holidays, save me from climbing on a ladder 4-6 times a year. Is DMX overkill for this type of solution? Is this financially a terrible decision? Being that DMX is pretty standard, there seems to be a TON of availability around components, (controllers/decoders,etc). Additionally, i've taken a look at some outdoor rated rope light and LED strips on ebay. Can someone assist me in sourcing outdoor rated DMX programmable lights in the US? I need to get an idea on the costs of this stuff and whether this conversion would be feasible. I've seen strips of 5m weatherproof LEDs on ebay going for around $100, they say they have built in decoders and not required. I'm not sure how that works. Any info would be usable to me. If I'm going down the wrong path, that is fine too. Just let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMHarman Posted October 15, 2016 Share Posted October 15, 2016 I have some questions as someone that is new to DMX and low voltage lighting in general. With Christmas season just around the corner, I've been looking for a solution to light up my house. My wife is a decorating NUT, and she asks me to put up lights for Halloween (currently on the house) we'll leave those on through thanksgiving, and then change over to Christmas. After reading through this post, I'm thinking that maybe it would be better to source some more permanant outdoor DMX lights, that I could leave there all year long, and just change the colors to suit the holidays, save me from climbing on a ladder 4-6 times a year. Is DMX overkill for this type of solution? Is this financially a terrible decision? Being that DMX is pretty standard, there seems to be a TON of availability around components, (controllers/decoders,etc). Additionally, i've taken a look at some outdoor rated rope light and LED strips on ebay. Can someone assist me in sourcing outdoor rated DMX programmable lights in the US? I need to get an idea on the costs of this stuff and whether this conversion would be feasible. I've seen strips of 5m weatherproof LEDs on ebay going for around $100, they say they have built in decoders and not required. I'm not sure how that works. Any info would be usable to me. If I'm going down the wrong path, that is fine too. Just let me know. Those ropes would likely do the job. Each one would need Power and also need a data cable. Outdoor rated XLR or CAT depending on the spec of the decoder. From there the dmx transmitter is hooked into your controller, this one by serial or the enttec one by ip. Then the otherwise transmit is hooked to the data cable I just mentioned above. Then add a driver. Add the lights and program away. Or just dial them.in like a normal light. You can design scenes on them like usual lights etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybuch Posted October 16, 2016 Share Posted October 16, 2016 @malelan If you ask me, I say hell yes, totally worth the time and $$ and there will be $$ spent! I used this DMX engine, and these for the decoders and the Houselogix driver (kickass!!). I used these lights (24 volt) from houselogix inside my landscape housings, I had to take the electronics box apart and solder a 7 wire sprinkler line to each one so I could control each individually (yes, the warranty is void and I broke one light with trial and error). I used these housings in my driveway (those are the violet lights in the video) and ran a 5 wire sprinkler line to each one. I built my own bulbs for the driveway lights (I used 1/2 inch PVC pipe and cut it about 4 inches long and wrapped RGBW 12 volt led strip lighting around it, make sure you use super glue on the start and end of the wrap). Make sure you have a good quality soldering iron. I then got 2 different power supplies, 12 volt and 24 volt to handle the different lights I installed. I have a total of 12 lights in my driveway, 2 led strips under my portico, and 14 lights in my landscape and I can control each lights how I want. Yes, it was a lot of work and a ton of soldering and planing, but well worth it. I have lighting effect switches for Halloween, Christmas, Valentines day, Easter, Fourth of July, Memorial day, and even my Arizona Cardinals game day! Here is a video of my Halloween lights firing at random. I made the lights in the driveway violet, the portico in violet, and the landscape lighting the Halloween effect. The wife likes it so much, the back yard is on the project list this winter! We are going a bit bigger out back. Let me know if you have any questions, I am more than happy to help and share my trials and fails on this project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackstone Posted October 16, 2016 Author Share Posted October 16, 2016 @cybuch: You should ask us about the RGBW spots, we have an IP65 waterproof version that do not need mods to go outdoor. We have tons of RGBW lights available but we stock only popular models like to one you bought. For any other model or fixture, let us know, we have a pretty quick supplying even if it is not local stock. BTW, congrats for you amazing landscape project! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malelan Posted October 16, 2016 Share Posted October 16, 2016 All really great info! thanks guys, A few more questions as I plan to map this out. Jackstone: When you say "we carry" are you referring to houselogix? or does your company sell DMX fixtures directly? cybuch: That sounds great, I'm pretty comfortable with what you described, some basic questions. Do you only need one DMX Engine or Transmitter per project? Is there limitations to one? Does it make sense to run power, transmitter, and decoder all in the same spot, and just run the end point 6-7 line wire to the lights? Is there a limitation on distance here? Is there a limitation on distance for the daisy chain of decoders? Thinking It might make sense for me to run a few decoders out of my basement, and then once daisy chain cat6 to my upstairs to support another handful of decoders for the top half of the house. Does it make sense to source DMX lights with built in decoders, or to stay with "dumb" lights and purchase seperate decoders. All great info, thanks so much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybuch Posted October 16, 2016 Share Posted October 16, 2016 @jackstone, figures!! So the backyard we will go with your IP6 spots! @malelan, the DMX engine is limited to 512 channels per universe. I am using 2 engines, one for the front yard/inside the house (mounted in my rack). I have a few decoders in my rack room for the interior lights and then daisy chain out to the front garage, with cat6/5 to more decoders. The 5/7 wire runs for the front yard all go to the front garage and some of those are 100 feet long. The backyard I just started and that engine is in my back garage wired to an HC800. I plan to have all my decoders in the back garage and run wires around the yard from there. You are limited to voltage drop across the length on the output of the decoders. The DMX daisy chain, I believe can be up to 300 feet, and on long runs make sure you terminate the last one. Here is a picture of my front yard universe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackstone Posted October 16, 2016 Author Share Posted October 16, 2016 4 hours ago, malelan said: Jackstone: When you say "we carry" are you referring to houselogix? or does your company sell DMX fixtures directly? By "We", I mean our company Domaudeo, not Houselogix. What we sell on Houselogix is our most popular products, but we can have lot more models on special order and it does not take 4-8 weeks to get. Also to add to what cybuch says: The RGBW spotlights use 7 wires to connect, but you don't need to run all 7 to the DMX decoder. They is two wires for power only, it can use a single 16/2 cable to power many spots, then the five other wires are for color control. Since the spot is powered by a dedicated line, you can use a very thin wire gauge for color control signal, even CAT cable (but we still recommend stranded cable). Other thing, it's always nice to have all decoders at the same place but it's not always possible, you can spread you decoders across the house and daisy chain all of them using cat5 cables, but don't "split" the line, you need to go in and out each decoder until the last, even if it is far away. Finally, there is now some nice Wireless DMX fixtures available, mostly Wall Washer but man, this make the install SO much easier. You install the Wall Washer on a wall or any thing you want to lit, you plug in the 120v outlet, done. You can now fully control this light fixture using DMX or Control4. I am testing a couple of wireless fixture right now and I will post some comments later on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMHarman Posted October 16, 2016 Share Posted October 16, 2016 512 channels means that if you have 4 channel drivers you can run 128 unique ones. 3 channel drivers get you over 400. If you want two lights with identical behaviours then you can assign them to the same channel and both decoders read and action the same message on the daisy chain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybuch Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 @jackstone What is the price difference on the IP6 fixures and do you have a link to the details? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackstone Posted October 18, 2016 Author Share Posted October 18, 2016 1 hour ago, cybuch said: @jackstone What is the price difference on the IP6 fixures and do you have a link to the details? The IP67 fixture should be about $10 more than the indoor version. Not much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybuch Posted October 23, 2016 Share Posted October 23, 2016 @jackstone, thats awesome. I will be ordering about 12 of those. Also, the new driver fixed the issue with the DMX switch not responding and having to change the setting in the driver to get it working again. But now I have an issue with the DMX engine driver in 2.9, it locks up every few days and I have to unbind the RS232 and rebind to get it back online. It is wired to my IO. I tried to power cycle the IO, power cycle the DMX, and the only thing that works is to unbind, and rebind the RS232. Any thoughts? It also locks up my IO until I rebind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackstone Posted October 23, 2016 Author Share Posted October 23, 2016 Never heard of this issue before... Are you able to check the Debug Output (Lua tab in Print debug mode) when the unit is locked up? Also, when you bind/unbind the Rs-232 port, this force a reboot on the DMX Engine, you could try to pull out the power from the DMX Engine when it is locked up and put it back, and see if this resolve the issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybuch Posted October 23, 2016 Share Posted October 23, 2016 40 minutes ago, jackstone said: Never heard of this issue before... Are you able to check the Debug Output (Lua tab in Print debug mode) when the unit is locked up? Also, when you bind/unbind the Rs-232 port, this force a reboot on the DMX Engine, you could try to pull out the power from the DMX Engine when it is locked up and put it back, and see if this resolve the issue. I will get the lua info next time it happens, I did check it once and remember seeing a message something along the lines of "oops....error sending command" or something like that. And the driver reports "time out getting firmware". I tried power cycling the DMX engine and it was still locked up. I also tried to unplug the RS232 and replug, that didn't work. The only thing that worked is to unbind and rebind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackstone Posted October 23, 2016 Author Share Posted October 23, 2016 This mean an hardware error with the DMX Engine. I saw some rare boxes that does not handle heavy traffic from the Control4 driver, this should be resolved with the new driver that will operate a higher baud rate, else if you can reproduce the issue steadily, you can get a DMX Engine replacement either from Houselogix or Engineering Solutions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybuch Posted October 23, 2016 Share Posted October 23, 2016 Just now, jackstone said: This mean an hardware error with the DMX Engine. I saw some rare boxes that does not handle heavy traffic from the Control4 driver, this should be resolved with the new driver that will operate a higher baud rate, else if you can reproduce the issue steadily, you can get a DMX Engine replacement either from Houselogix or Engineering Solutions. Thanks @jackstone! ok, I will sit tight and wait for the new drivers. This only started happening once I moved the engine off of a Wifi2RS232 and hardwired directly to my IO. It is must faster at responses but just locks up every now and again. The RS232 cable is only about 5 inches long and the DMX data to the first decoder is about 35 feet. If it keeps happening I will get a replacement from Houselogix if the new driver isnt out by then. Any idea on ETA for new driver? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobbieF Posted October 23, 2016 Share Posted October 23, 2016 Hi Guys - The DMX stuff is really interesting, and there's clearly a wealth of information here So thanks for sharing! One question though; with the DMX control, will we be able to get an effect similar to this: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackstone Posted October 24, 2016 Author Share Posted October 24, 2016 Some effects shown in this video could be done on a Control4 system controlling a DMX pixel LED strip, but not all. Pixel LED need heavy computing power to be driven and Control4 is meant to be a home automation system and can't replace a lighting console or a real computer. that being said, there is still a lot of effect that can be done with Control4, DMX and some LED, and new effect requests are always welcome. We are currently working of a new version of the DMX driver that will bring mainly enhancement of what is already done but we will be happy to add new feature, request of function on request. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveva Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 On 10/17/2016 at 8:22 PM, jackstone said: The IP67 fixture should be about $10 more than the indoor version. Not much. Could you provide a link for this fixture I would like to see what it looks like thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMHarman Posted October 24, 2016 Share Posted October 24, 2016 An interesting new dmx controller. https://sirs-e.com/shop/dmx-control/dmx-artnet/artnet-to-dmx-controller-6-universes-ad-pro-6/#prettyPhoto Wonder if the iP driver being written will cover multiple devices as they are all artnet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackstone Posted October 24, 2016 Author Share Posted October 24, 2016 16 hours ago, daveva said: Could you provide a link for this fixture I would like to see what it looks like thanks This IP67 lights look almost identical to this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackstone Posted October 24, 2016 Author Share Posted October 24, 2016 45 minutes ago, SMHarman said: An interesting new dmx controller. https://sirs-e.com/shop/dmx-control/dmx-artnet/artnet-to-dmx-controller-6-universes-ad-pro-6/#prettyPhoto Wonder if the iP driver being written will cover multiple devices as they are all artnet. Using straight ARTnet in Control4 is yet practical but does not allow good looking fades or effect since it's all done using software calculation. I spoke with John from Engineering Solutions and he's not sure if he will add ARTnet support to his future IP Interface. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cybuch Posted October 25, 2016 Share Posted October 25, 2016 @jackstone do we order the IP67 RGBW lights directly from your company? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackstone Posted October 25, 2016 Author Share Posted October 25, 2016 27 minutes ago, cybuch said: @jackstone do we order the IP67 RGBW lights directly from your company? Yes, just send me a PM with the shipping address and I will prepare an invoice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.