A good RGB LED Control solution for Control4 is there

[jackstone]

It's all available on BlackWire.

 

if you were running an older Houselogix driver version, pm me with your Blackwire dealer ID and I will migrate your license for free into your account.

[WhyPhy]

On 5/29/2019 at 7:35 PM, WhyPhy said:

I’ve been looking at these LEDENET light strips. They are RGB+W+WW and come in IP65 and IP67 waterproofing options. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07475JKZW/

I've found another option for 5-channel RGB+W+WW LED tape lights: Sowilo Design. They even have a IP67 waterproof option. They aren't just relabeled generic imported lights. They've specifically engineered them for 95+ CRI for white color temperatures of 2200k and 6500k and use high-gauge copper traces to reduce voltage drop for longer runs. Also, a 3-year warranty on the LED strip lights. These are the lights I'm planning to use.

[cybuch]

@jackstone sent you a PM

[JEC]

I've found another option for 5-channel RGB+W+WW LED tape lights: Sowilo Design. They even have a IP67 waterproof option. They aren't just relabeled generic imported lights. They've specifically engineered them for 95+ CRI for white color temperatures of 2200k and 6500k and use high-gauge copper traces to reduce voltage drop for longer runs. Also, a 3-year warranty on the LED strip lights. These are the lights I'm planning to use.

Hi WhyPhy! Did you get a chance to test out the sowilo lights? They look good for my application.

Thanks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[WhyPhy]

2 hours ago, JEC said:

Hi WhyPhy! Did you get a chance to test out the sowilo lights? They look good for my application.

Thanks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes, so for so good. I got the Bifröst-84 (the less-bright version) for a tray ceiling accent light. For now, I'm using the stock Philips Hue light strip pro controller and power supply. Because of that, I'm not getting full brightness out of the 5 meter strip. The Philips power supply is only 24 watts and the 5 meter Bifröst-84 requires 72 watts for full brightness (about 15 watts/meter). But that's OK for this application as it's only an accent light.

I'm looking to do some higher brightness Bifröst-147 lighting elsewhere. I'll need a separate power supply capable of 20 watts/meter to power those.

I'm still working through DMX control vs. Philips Hue control. It's good to have the flexibility to do either for now.

[jackstone]

BTW there is a new version of the Advanced DMX Driver released a few day ago on BlackWire, this version fix every single bug submitted by all of you over time, it also improve the ColorChanger driver a bit by separating it from the Color Wheel driver. So if you have a lot of RGB lights in a room, you will not clog up your project with a tons of camera drivers. You can now use the Color Wheel to control up to 8 RGB lights, you will select to light to control using the camera preset buttons. If you prefer to keep the preset button as color presets, this is still possible.

Next big thing is the added compatibility with the Janus Colour Wheel driver. This is by far the best color wheel driver available right, we worked with Janus Tech to add a true native integration of our DMX driver to their Color Wheel to insure ultra fast response time and accurate feedback. This ColorWheel also work with our Tunable White Dimmer and allow setting the White Temperature using a nice interface. Take a look:

 

https://janustechnology.co.uk/products/drivers/type/lighting/colour-wheel-for-control4/

 

Yes this is a WebView driver that is supposed to work only on T3, but it's actually really easy to get it to work on mobile phone using a simple URL shortcut on the customer's phone desktop, and it work really well!

 

 

[ILoveC4]

2 hours ago, jackstone said:

BTW there is a new version of the Advanced DMX Driver released a few day ago on BlackWire, this version fix every single bug submitted by all of you over time, it also improve the ColorChanger driver a bit by separating it from the Color Wheel driver. So if you have a lot of RGB lights in a room, you will not clog up your project with a tons of camera drivers. You can now use the Color Wheel to control up to 8 RGB lights, you will select to light to control using the camera preset buttons. If you prefer to keep the preset button as color presets, this is still possible.

Next big thing is the added compatibility with the Janus Colour Wheel driver. This is by far the best color wheel driver available right, we worked with Janus Tech to add a true native integration of our DMX driver to their Color Wheel to insure ultra fast response time and accurate feedback. This ColorWheel also work with our Tunable White Dimmer and allow setting the White Temperature using a nice interface. Take a look:

 

https://janustechnology.co.uk/products/drivers/type/lighting/colour-wheel-for-control4/

 

Yes this is a WebView driver that is supposed to work only on T3, but it's actually really easy to get it to work on mobile phone using a simple URL shortcut on the customer's phone desktop, and it work really well!

 

 

Will the BlackWire driver manager update my existing driver?

[jackstone]

1 minute ago, ILoveC4 said:

Will the BlackWire driver manager update my existing driver?

I don't, you should ask the Blackwire staff about that. As for the DMX driver, I did not add any code to enable auto-update because I don't want this to happen. How many time you had a device that auto-updated in the night and half the stuff was not working anymore the next day? (Think AppleTV   )  So no, I'm a proud fan of the If It Works, Don't Fix It, especially with something like Lighting Control, that is much more mission critical than a streaming TV service.

[Kevin L]

1 hour ago, ILoveC4 said:

Will the BlackWire driver manager update my existing driver?

BDM is not required on the Domaudeo drivers and does not auto update those drivers. 

[blackfiveo1]

I had a 7 daisy chained controllers and reworked my closet and used this to consolidate it worked great

32 Channel 96A RGBW DMX 512 LED Decoder Controller DMX Dimmer DC5-24V RGBW RGB LED light 8 Bit/16 Bit

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075FHJM35/

 

[tomc]

Do i need another rs232 engine for each room?

[jackstone]

19 minutes ago, tomc said:

Do i need another rs232 engine for each room?

Of course not. You mostly need one per project, but some project with huge number of DMX Lights (500+) will require a second DMX engine

[Leo]

Hi, I have recently purchased the RS232 DMX Engine with XLR outputs and Domaudeo drivers for C4 from Blackwire. Although the engine driver seems to work fine, firmware correct and ´All Channels On´ is working I cannot control the connected RGB LED strip with the individual Domaudeo dimming driver. Could this be an issue with the LEDs and/or decoder? We are using https://www.amazon.es/MAXLUM-INTERFACE-DMX-RGBW-ML-004/dp/B07F6ZPBRN

 

Thanks 

[jackstone]

Are you using os3.2?

[Leo]

yes

 

[jackstone]

1 hour ago, Leo said:

yes

 

Ok... 3.2 killed the option to "set the level" on any third party light driver, you need to ramp.

I have informed C4 about it, it's a major issue.

Meanwhile I have modified my driver to overcome this problem and I will try to release the new version asap.

If some of you have some project that heavily use DMX or any other third party lighting driver, try to avoid OS 3.2 for now.

[Leo]

33 minutes ago, jackstone said:

Ok... 3.2 killed the option to "set the level" on any third party light driver, you need to ramp.

I have informed C4 about it, it's a major issue.

Meanwhile I have modified my driver to overcome this problem and I will try to release the new version asap.

If some of you have some project that heavily use DMX or any other third party lighting driver, try to avoid OS 3.2 for now.

Ok thanks for the update, I´m going to try and roll back the OS on the project and try again.

 

[Leo]

41 minutes ago, Leo said:

Ok thanks for the update, I´m going to try and roll back the OS on the project and try again.

 

I just tried on OS 3.1.3 and the same thing is happening. Do I need to go back to OS 3? 

[jackstone]

So the issue is not the driver and may be something with the decoder, You may not have it set to the right channels

[daveva]

Thanks for the heads up on 3.2. I have 30 spots that are controlled with your driver. Glad I waited.

 

[jackstone]

39 minutes ago, daveva said:

Thanks for the heads up on 3.2. I have 30 spots that are controlled with your driver. Glad I waited.

 

Yeah sorry about that... C4 took me by surprise with that issue...

[daveva]

No apologies needed.

 

 

[Leo]

On 10/20/2020 at 5:22 PM, jackstone said:

So the issue is not the driver and may be something with the decoder, You may not have it set to the right channels

Hi, we have still not gotten to the bottom of the problem we are having. I had a support session with Blackwire who have told me that there is no issue with C4 OS, we have changed the decoder, the DMX cable, the RS232 cable and even the leds we are trying to control. The only thing left is the DMX engine as I don´t have another one of these.

If anyone can shed any light, it would save my day

 

[Köhler Medientechnik]

Couldn´t find a manual for the DMX decoder, but it seems as if you can drive the LEDs directly via the DIP-switches on the decoder.
Do the LEDs light up using these?

Does the "signal" LED on the decoder light up when you´re sending DMX data from the Engeneering Solutions Gateway to the decoder?

There are actually a lot of issues in the chain: are the serial parameters from the C4-controller to the DMX-gateway correct (esp. baudrate), is the wiring correct between the gateway and the decoder (DMX +/-/GND - what´s the cable length? Terminated?)? Wiring from decoder to LEDs? What kind of power supply are you using? Does it fit to the LEDs (12V? 24V?). Power wiring correct (+/-)?

Did you try to connect the gateway directly to a PC sending ASCII commands via terminal software? Does it respond correctly?

Lots of possible pitfals here...

[lippavisual]

These DMX engine boxes are built solid and have yet to have one fail, even older units.

If the decoder is able to turn lights on via dip switches on itself, then I’d be looking at your wiring for RS232 connection (tried null and straight?) and wiring from engine to decoder.