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Elation Professional DMX 101 manual

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Table of contents for the manual

  • Page 1

    DMX 101: A DMX 512 HANDBOOK :,7+ (92/87,21 &20(6 &+$1*([...]

  • Page 2

    DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 2 Elation Professional ® Handbook Revision: May 2008[...]

  • Page 3

    www.elationlig hting.com 3 1. Introduction to DMX .......................................................................................................... ............................ 4 2. Industry Standards ........................................................................................................... ............................... [...]

  • Page 4

    DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 4 Elation Professional ® This handbook is designed to promote basic understanding of the DMX 512 protocol, including theory of operation, proper equipment use, and some basic applic ation examples. DMX is an acronym for D igital M ultiple x , a communication protocol (a set of ru les) used to remotely control lighting d[...]

  • Page 5

    www.elationlig hting.com 5 About 20 years ago, most manufacturers used their own, proprietary control protocols. This forced system designers to use only fixtures and c ontrol consoles from the same manufact urer. There was no control standard to allow the use of different products. A standard is a set of widely agr eed-upon guidelines for inter op[...]

  • Page 6

    DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 6 Elation Professional ® 2.3 ANSI The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is an organization composed of re presentatives from industry and government that collectively deter mine standards for the elec tronics industry as well as many other fields, such as chemical and nuclear engineer ing, health and safety, [...]

  • Page 7

    www.elationlig hting.com 7 DMX 512 is an asynchronous serial digital data protocol. Wh ile that might mean someth ing to an engineer, most people are not familiar with how all this techno-gibbe rish actually accomplishes li ghting control. This section will attempt to explain how DMX operates in a simplified and easy-to-understand manner. The topic[...]

  • Page 8

    DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 8 Elation Professional ® 3.1 The Cable TV Analogy A central concept of DMX 512 is the abil ity to transmit data on multiple cha nnels over a single cable. To better understand this concept, imagine a simple cable TV system (Figure 1) with four major components: • Cable TV Company • Cable • Decoder • TV Figure 1 [...]

  • Page 9

    www.elationlig hting.com 9 Now imagine a simple DMX system (Figure 2), where: • The Cable TV Company is the DMX Control Console • The Cable is the DMX Cable • The Decoder is the DMX Dec oder (built into a Dimmer) • The TV is the Lighting Fixture Figure 2 The DMX Control Console will broadcast up to 512 channels over one DMX Cable. Some of t[...]

  • Page 10

    DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 10 Elation Professional ® Many DMX devices (such as dimmers and intelligent fixtures) are capable of receiving several control channels at once. If a Dimmer has f our channels capable of cont rolling four Light Fixtures (F igure 3), it must know which four control channels to re ceive. This is accomplished by setting a [...]

  • Page 11

    www.elationlig hting.com 11 3.2 DMX Communications In the world of digital communications, information is se nt using precise electrical voltage pulses. A positive voltage pulse represents a 1. A zero voltage pulse (or no voltage) represents a 0. Systems using 1’s and 0’s to encode information are called binary systems. Each pulse in a digital [...]

  • Page 12

    DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 12 Elation Professional ® While 4000 feet may be specified by the standard, most manufacturers recommend DM X runs of no more than 1000 feet (300 feet between devices) before using a repeater to regenerate the signal. Each device should have input and output connectors, but these are usually wired together. No re -trans[...]

  • Page 13

    www.elationlig hting.com 13 3.3 Summary So how does all this information relate to controlling a light fixture? Think of it in terms of the simple DMX Controller Console (Figure 4). The console may have up to 512 control faders on it (8 in this example). Each fader controls the intensity of one lig ht (using one DMX Channel) . The position of the f[...]

  • Page 14

    DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 14 Elation Professional ® Understanding how DMX 512 operates is impor tant, but it’s only part of the picture. The physical equipment, connectors and cabling, play a critical role in the prope r functionality of the prot ocol. The DMX standard specifies exactly what types of connectors and cable may be used. It is als[...]

  • Page 15

    www.elationlig hting.com 15 4.1 Connectors The DMX standard specifies 5-pin XL R connectors (Figure 5). The name comes from the original manufacturer (Cannon X connector, with a L atch and R ubber guard). Only three of these pi ns have standardized use however, leading many companies to make use of inexpensive and readily available 3- pin XLR conne[...]

  • Page 16

    DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 16 Elation Professional ® 4.2 Cabling Standard DMX 512 requires twisted-pair, shielded, low-ca pacitance data cable (Figure 7) designed for RS-485 (such as ACCU-Cable from Elation). The twisted-pair configuration ensures that any interference affects both signals equally. This practice is comm on to good data cable, hel[...]

  • Page 17

    www.elationlig hting.com 17 4.3 Data DMX 512 data is transmitted at 250 ki loHertz (kHz), meaning that 250,000 1’ s and 0’s (at a maximum) can be sent each second. Each bit is measured in 4 microsecond (µs) intervals. In order for the receiving device to correctly interpret the data, it must be sent in a pa rticular sequence. A singl e transmi[...]

  • Page 18

    DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 18 Elation Professional ® The figures on the following pages il lustrate several different applicat ions using various DMX products. Samples include: • Dimmer Control • Intelligent Fixture Control • Dimmer & Intelligent Fixture Control • Distributed Control As mentioned earlier, dimmers normally use one DMX [...]

  • Page 19

    www.elationlig hting.com 19 5.1 Dimmer Control 5[...]

  • Page 20

    DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 20 Elation Professional ® 5.2 Intelligent Fixture Control 5[...]

  • Page 21

    www.elationlig hting.com 21 5.3 Dimmer & Intelligent Fixture Control 5[...]

  • Page 22

    DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 22 Elation Professional ® 5.4 Distributed Control 5[...]

  • Page 23

    www.elationlig hting.com 23[...]

  • Page 24

    Elation Professional ® A Division of the American DJ Group of Companies 6122 S. Eastern Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90040 USA Tel: 866-245-6726 Fax: 323-832-9142 Web: www.elationlighting.com E-mail: info@elationlighting.com[...]