homemade DMX512 controller - tinkering and experimenting
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- čas přidán 9. 06. 2022
- Today I'm revisiting my basic DIY DMX512 controller. Adding features , cleaning up the wiring and testing a couple of ways of adding feature creep.
Here's the first time this project showed up: • Tinkering and talking:...
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This isn't the only way to do it.
It's probably not the best way to do it.
But it's how I do it. - Věda a technologie
I've never loved the logic that the shortest amount of code is the most elegant. It's pretty pervasive. We have so much horsepower to spare these days, I really think spelling things out in your code is the way to go both for your future self and for future generations. When something is elegant, it's amazing how foreign it looks 6 months after writing it. Love the DMX stuff!
Thanks. That means a lot coming from a pro coder
Unless it is saturated with meaningful variable names, and detailed comments, returning to old, clever code can be brutal. And dealing with *someone else's* uncommented brief burst of genius using single letter variable names is even worse.
Cutting down on the number of lines helps avoid creating spaghetti but from what I've seen, updating comments when editing code makes life easier for those who have to work with someone else's code.
No reason we can't have the best of both worlds other than laziness.
No, Mr. O'Stuff, that's not a dig. It's your code and all the alterations are in your head, and nobody else will ever have to untangle it.
But in a commercial product we should actively be as parsimonious with memory as possible while still explaining what the hell we were thinking. Otherwise we get unrepairable bloat ware.
@@markfergerson2145 Yes. Balance.
wondered about dmx, didnt know it was so easy. Continue!
Tinker on !...cheers.
Watching someone experiment is my preferred way of learning, since I can see what does and doesn't work and it also gives me leads for my own experiments.
Definitely have to give the relatively cheap nature of 3d printing a nod for creating prototypes and test fits.
Last of all I have yet to see a video from you I did like Keep up the simple style.
Mmmmmmm, tinkering!
Keep up the good work pileofstuff, tinkering is what its all about, you learn more this way than any other. I have a whole bin of projects that kept me busy through many winter days.
Don't be so hard on yourself. I think it's a cool project. Anything with colored lights and effects and I'm in. Keep on tinkering brother, it's what most of us who don't do CZcams as a living anyway and besides it's doing what you want it to do at this point.
Thank you!
Looking good!!
Kent, your doing a great job, keep up the awesome work mate 🤙🏼🇦🇺
fun I love the tinkering, it is good to see the working through from an idea to a working item from an idea:-)
Squeak !!!!!
@@andymouse cheese!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Looks really nice... Can you mabye make a video about how to make an DMX Joystick, without anything else... Would be a great part to have to move around Moving Head / Follow spot without anything else 🎉
3:50 - just one extra bit? Just add one more switch as a toggle?
Pls make the full dmx
A tip relating to making custom cases: the hole spacing on your perfboard is 0.1 inch or 2.54 mm. I don't know what CAD software you're using but if you can set grid spacing to this value you might hit the right locations more easily.
disco lights on the train tracks ...
Definitely more "realistic" to have your dimmer rack on the floor off stage right. Stage left is where the monitor desk goes. I realise that wiring each lamp down there will be a pain though, maybe a 4 or 5 pin molex or jst could be used as a connector on your truss to the lamp. Maybe a miniature smoke machine would be cool using an electronic inhalation system (trying not to hit any censoring flags) coil and vegetable glycerine would be fun to add to it too
I'm a laser show guy on concerts, raves, events etc with 30 years experience, not a lampy, but we all work closely and cross over a lot :)
Hmmm. I wonder what would be a good 1/12 scale substitute for a Socapex connector...
@@pileofstuff Lemo make some cool little connectors. Not quite miniature socca, but close. Not cheap though
you could just have put a resistor in series with the pot wiper, then 5v from the button wouldn't be shorted to ground and with in reason the ADC doesn't care
A verry long time ago I tore apart some addressable device that was 10 bit, they cheated with an 8 pin switch and a 2 pin switch ' to change which range ' is used.. basically the top 2 bits and located near the main blob so all off from factory, and having to open past the battery compartment to ' change group ' it talks to.
Some cheap fixtures can only handle 255 DMX slots ;-) so this global setting at the beginning is a good thing to have.
maybe another way you could use those switches for "bump" is to use a break contact to the ground side of the potentiometers, so the resistance wont matter too much and the wiper will just pull up to 5volts when the ground is disconnected.
You may want to look at battery charger/power as i think it has no overdischarge protection
The battery has a protection circuit built-in.
That's so cool. Nice work. I wonder if you could get an SMD version of the MAX 485 to fit inside the lights coupled with an SMD ATtiny 85. (?)
That is a possibility.
Then I'd have to fabricate a tiny SMD PCB to wrangle them, I suspect.
Another skill to develop!
@@pileofstuff I just thought, you could get a double sided PCB made, one side per chip. :)
When you have an opto-coupler and a DC-DC 5V, then please add it; it prevents that your Arduino board can be damaged by bad DMX fixtures.
Use a FET instead of a diode perhaps? Less of a voltage drop that way
You did this thew complicated way. You just need an RS486 to USB converter board and one of the simple free computer lighting control software programs that are out there.
I did it the "can I do this myself?" way.
In a previous video (link in the description) I did exactly what you suggest.
@@pileofstuff One version I'd like to see would be a microcontroller(Arduino, rpi pico, ect) and keypad based version where you push a "channel" button, enter a channel, then push a level button and enter the level of that channel. An LCD or oled display connected to display the current channel and level would also be handy. I'm thinking of this as a battery powered tool to go up into the catwalks of a theatre and test lights without having to come down and use the light board.
@@ravenbarsrepairs5594 That's pretty close to what I was going for, only with faders.