The first time I stood on a stage blasted by Par64s, I could not believe the amount of heat they threw. In Florida in the summer, it was a huge deal because in air conditioning is already taxed to the max, so moving to LED was a game changer for heat...not to mention weight and flexibility.

I've never been there but it is on my list! Thanks for watching!

Awesome! Thanks for watching!!! Glad to have you on the channel.

I can't believe I never saw your DMX video. 37,000 other people did :) I'm absolutely going to be building a few of your RS485 DMX adapters. I want to try to do one of the USB ones on Node Red

That's so cool and so nice of you. I know KZfaqrs pileofstuff and gadget reboot have both done some Arduino DMX stuff as well. They may have some ideas

DMX was around then, so they may have used it. I'll ask some friends.

@@AnotherMaker Thank you very kindly. I am in awe of the scope and complexity of the lighting. Any info would be greatly appreciated 🙏

I wish I could be more helpful. C is by far my worst language. You could possibly log every to SD card and replay it

Hi Raymond. Good to hear from you. I don't think there's any special limitations, I just think the static fixtures are easier to demonstrate. Yes. Those fixtures have extra channels, but they are the same 0-255 as anything else. The arduino is completely unaware of whether or not it's changing a color or moving a light. Now the one thing I would imagine is that a lot of the software has "profiles" for these fixtures so you can simply put that you want to do a figure 8 pattern or you want to make some sort of geometric shape. That's how the software I've used worked. So if you wanted to accomplish the same thing with anything other than a sweep with an arduino you would have to do some sort of math (like pan +2 for every +1 you tilt to go at some sort of angle). I'm guessing everyone (me included) is too lazy to do that.

​@@AnotherMaker Thanks for your kind reply. I have found some code at github.com/compugician/DMX-MovingHead which takes the light to a specified 3 point co-ordinate. It's a good guide, but I doubt I will need anything that fancy. My light will be outdoors (under a cover) at Christmas, pointing at a rotating glitterball for some of the time, and making gentle sweeps and so on at others. If I do need anything really fancy, I should be able to invoke one of the light's inbuilt display chases. The trick I think is to find a way to keep everything compact and simple so as not to blow the Arduino storage limit. Mad? Probably. If it all works, I will post it. Take care. Raymond.

@@earlgreybeard Could a CSV file be used to store timings etc.?

@@benveasey7474 Hi Ben. I am sure that would be good practice. I am not familiar with Arduino file handling, but no doubt it is feasible. My main issue currently is getting the interface to work at all, even with a hard-coded routine. But your comment has re-inspired me. I might have another go!

Yes, but you would want one of Arduino boards that has the 16u4 chip on it like the leonardo or I believe it's called the pro micro/pro mini. I forget which one has that chip, but those can talk directly to the usb port.

That really isn't my strongsuit. I only have one stepper motor video and it was an absolute pain in the butt :)

Please help me

I mentioned the mic cable thing in the description. I was waiting for this comment :) This is why I think it's really stupid that YT doesn't allow me to add text notes to the video if I say something factually inaccurate (or dumb). I 'd also push back a bit on the 5 pin is "much more common" as I'm sure that in terms of units sold over the last 10 years there are way more that use 3 pin DMX over 5. In fact, of the few hundred DMX devices I've owned only DMX controllers had 5 pin interfaces on them. I don't think I've ever owned a 5 pin fixture. Mine were plentiful ...but not high end :)

@@AnotherMaker I worked in a theatre for a few years and every dmx fixture we had was 5 pin. On the low end 3 pin is common but as soon as you go into the professional field you see mostly 5 pin. But yes the mic cables work (though impedance is different).

I have done stage lighting for musical events for years & everything from 30$ lights to 6000$ lights and dmx equipment we use are only 3 pin. The out is a XLR Female, you can't really mix up with audio cables because you'll end up with 2 of the same female or male connectors you can't connect together normaly. + we mostly have actual dmx 3 pin cables, but sometimes have to use digiflex microphone cables, or even electrical wires & even with like 1000ft on 1 dmx512 universe we never ran into any issue with cables. The standard is old but pretty reliable.

I know this is like 2 years old but some of this is a bit wrong. 3 pin is still DMX. DMX was originally designed in 1986 to work as a 3 or 5 pin cable but with 2 of the pins left available for future upgrades as technology developed. So even now if you open up 5 pin DMX cables pin 3 and 5 a lot of the time aren’t even connected. The future upgrade ended up being bi-directional communication through a protocol upgrade to DMX called RDM (remote device management) allowing fixtures to send back data so they could be monitored from control. Also saying it’s “really dangerous” to have 3 pin DMX around audio gear is a huge overstatement. If you accidentally cross them in all likelihood nothing will happen but it’s best professional practice not to do it.

You can download it from here (click code and download zip) then on windows at least it goes in your user/documents/arduino/libraries folder.

Thank you so much!

Sure. Sorry for the slow response. I've been sick. github.com/TinkerKit/DmxMaster Hope that helps.

I need to get back to my office pc to grab it. IDK why it isn't in my git repo

I know that it's not recommended but I've done it for 20 years and if you have decent mic cables, it works amazingly well. I'm not telling anyone else to do it, but it worked for me.

If your equipment has 3-pin XLR connectors you will most likely be fine either way, but the longer your cable/circuit is the more likely it is that you will experience signal reflection. This can cause your equipment to stutter, which is mostly harmless, but if you use fixtures with mechanical parts (like moving heads or physical shutters) they may move violently. Take care and don't plug your lights into sound equipment!

@@RasmusZetterberg Absolutely. My 100ft snake had 4 returns. I used 2 for audio and 2 for lights, but it was a pretty consistent setup. Even at that distance, my moving head lasers didn't have any issues, but that was just my experience. Everyone's mileage may vary.