USB - DMX cabel?

pottsworth · Postby **pottsworth** » 02 Apr 2006, 23:18

Does anyone know if avo are ever likely to produce a cable that plugs into a usb port at one end, and then has DMX outputs at the other end, and which will speak harmoniously to the pearl simulator, so that it would be possible to actualy maniplate lights from a laptop?

The thing that reminded me of this (I had wondered idly before) was that today I was working on a charity gig in a bar / club, which had quite a few moving lights.
Unfortunatly the only control over them was a small box with half a dozn buttons, so it was impossible even to point any at the stage (let alone do a light show!)
And It got me thinking how useful it would be if I could just break the chain, plug my laptop in, and sha-boom, focused lights.

Anyway, enough waffle, is there any chance of it ever happening?

niclights · Postby **niclights** » 03 Apr 2006, 02:16

I somehow doubt it. Would be like giving away a console, or at least a software version of.

willdean · Postby **willdean** » 03 Apr 2006, 12:27

I would thought it's possible to use either the mechanism used by the Avo Visualiser, or ACDI to interface to a 3rd party USB-DMX dongle. That would rather depend on your software skills. (I don't own any USB-DMX dongle, so I can't experiment.)

I've no idea if this would be a breach of the simulator licence - it seems to me that it would be such a horrible thing to use live that it wouldn't really be likely to cause a drop in sales of 'real' Pearls - it could just as well be seen as a useful part of a 'Pearls, Pearls, everywhere' strategy.

I don't think Avo are very clear about where they're going with PC software licensing - now that Visualiser is free, ACDI looks like a bit of an anachronism.

pottsworth · Postby **pottsworth** » 03 Apr 2006, 23:24

willdean wrote:it seems to me that it would be such a horrible thing to use live that it wouldn't really be likely to cause a drop in sales of 'real' Pearls

This is just what I was thinking.
I cant see anyone at the kind of level where you may spend Â£6k on a light desk being willing to settle for the (minimal) versatility of the simulator with its click and drag sliders.
It would be more useful as a basic DMX interface, for just the kind of situation I highlighted above
Turn lights on
Focus them at the stage
Job Done

Alternatly does anyone know of any other sortware that oes this.
In reality it could even be done with something which simply allows you to set each dmx channel (1-512) at any value (0 to 255) and leave it there, indepedantly of patching.

niclights · Postby **niclights** » 03 Apr 2006, 23:55

I do agree with both. Sim interface certainly isn't particularly practical and you could write code to intercept the comms between sim & vis. But, if you're good enough to do that & get it to output to the 3rd party DMX output device then you would probably write something less complicated but more user-friendly to get the job done.

Perhaps an option would exist for a cheap(ish) dmx output interface. Though I'm not sure how high a priority it would be. No harm in suggesting!

As for other software and the output interfaces I'm sure they do exist and the interface will be the money. This is a question best asked at the Blueroom Forum. Remember to search before posting.

nrdark92 · Postby **nrdark92** » 04 Apr 2006, 00:03

This is Dosx's teritory, he has already written something very very similar. He's just waiting on me designing and building a a cheap USB -> DMX interface. (Not that he's asked me yet

)

Nick

willdean · Postby **willdean** » 04 Apr 2006, 01:01

nrdark92 wrote:This is Dosx's teritory, he has already written something very very similar. He's just waiting on me designing and building a a cheap USB -> DMX interface. (Not that he's asked me yet )

I can't believe the world needs another USB->DMX interface does it? Aren't there loads of the things already? (e.g. the Enttec one)

But then I think of 'cheap' as 'not worth designing' rather than 'affordable by student/unemployed lampy', so maybe we have an expectation gap here!

I can't see that anyone's really going to sell one of these for much less than the Enttec unit, unless they're donating their time and have ignored expensive compliance issues...

nrdark92 · Postby **nrdark92** » 07 Apr 2006, 02:09

It's actually very cheap to do, involving only 3 IC's if you design it right. One of which handles the compliance (USB end at least) for you. I do however agree it's probably not worth designing yet another one unless there is a particular need.

My previous comment was ment more as a light harted comment tho. for those of you who don't know (probably all of you

) DOSX is a colleague of mine at a venue in Sheffield. We work well together as software and hardware engineers however he has a habbit of overloading me!! Knew I should have built short circuit protection into my tongue

I was however serious about the relevence of the software he has written.

Nick

willdean · Postby **willdean** » 07 Apr 2006, 08:33

nrdark92 wrote:It's actually very cheap to do, involving only 3 IC's if you design it right. One of which handles the compliance (USB end at least) for you. I do however agree it's probably not worth designing yet another one unless there is a particular need.

The 'expensive compliance issue' I was thinking of was mainly amortizing the cost of your EMC testing across the small number of units you were planning to sell.

I wasn't casting any doubt over either of your technical abilities - and I agree that the hardware is trivial. Presumably Dosx's code could be made to work with the Enttec device?

USB - DMX cabel?

USB - DMX cabel?

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