DMX RGB Control

Hi Guys

Time to pop my 'first post' cherry. Be gentle

I can't seem to find this covered in any previous posts, so any info would be much appreciated.

I have a project that requires RGB LED floods projected out over the harbour foreshore. The lights selected will be using 1 of the following DMX controller/drivers per light (6 lights). This is the driver supplied by the light manufacturer

https://www.eldoled.com/led-drivers/powerdrive/100-watt/ac-106s/

I am very new to the DMX world (universe) so i am a tad confused... I understand the cbus component of using the DMX gateway to use groups to control DMX Slots.

My question is how to allocate slots to the desired RGB outputs (is this something i take up with the manufacturer)?
Also, has anybody had any success with writing logic to control colour scrolling 'shows'.

I am also considering simplifying the whole situation by removing DMX control via CBus and sticking with simple on/off then using a 3rd party controller incorporating an APP. But this is far removed from my day to day repertoire.

Thanks in advance
Trav

 

A DMX universe (i.e. single cable) has 512 slots. An RGB led requires 3 slots (one for each colour). Drivers can normally control multiple channels (slots) (the ones you link to can control 4), and will allow you to select the stating slot via either dip switches or a display and buttons. The slots then go sequentially from the selected start slot. Each driver will be set to a different start slot taking into account the number of slots used by the previous device. You can also give multiple devices the same starting slot number, and in this case they will follow each other.

The Cbus dmx driver then allows you to assign up to 12 cbus group addresses to any 12 slots. So a single cbus dmx driver will allow you to control 4 separate rgb flood lights.

Controlling colour via rgb is not intuitive. It is much easier to to use the HSV colour space rather than RGB. In HSV, H gives you the hue (i.e. colour), S is the saturation (the amount of white) and V is the value (i.e. the actual brightness). I have written logic to convert between HSV and RGB colour spaces. You will find it here:

https://www.cbusforums.com/threads/hsv-to-rgb-conversion.7152/

To scroll the colour, you just need to change the H value at regular intervals depending on the scroll speed required.

 

Cheers Ashley

Much appreciated. I will connect a gateway to the driver and have a play around.

As an alternative....Have you had experience with any third party DMX controllers you could recommend. Either App based or simple IR or RF remote? I see a lot available online, but it is hard to pick the good from the bad.

This project is a residential property, and my concern is keeping operation as simple as possible.
The clients can get overwhelmed very easily

 

Thanks Nick

 

Assuming you can set the baud rate to 250kbits/s and send breaks and marks. Anyone know how to do that?