willpower Posted April 24, 2009 Share Posted April 24, 2009 There are many topics on 0 - 10V conversion on the Blue Room, but I believe this system won't work with a conventional 0 - 10V converter. I'm about to assist with a production in a secondary school with 20 dimming channels on an old analogue system (they have previously been using A&B boards, putting the levels up manually before fading from one to the other, old school style!). I want to convert this system into DMX so I can use these dimmers with some others to accommodate more lights, and use a programmable board on DMX. They call themselves "microPACK 1.0 Series II", and a quick search on google coughed up nothing. I have never heard of these dimmers, nor seen the pin system that is used from board to dimmer. The dimmers are 4 single socket channels on each, and there are five of them. They look like this: http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h245/will_power40/Photo-0155.jpgAs you can see, I don't think that is a conventional analogue connection, so conventional converters wouldn't work. http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h245/will_power40/Photo-0154.jpg http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h245/will_power40/Photo-0156.jpg Apologies for the sizing, I had a few issues with Photobucket! Can anyone point me in the direction of a converter to DMX for these? Many thanks in advance, Will Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musht Posted April 24, 2009 Share Posted April 24, 2009 Try searching Blue Room for Green Ginger, they are 0 - + 10V analogue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willpower Posted April 24, 2009 Author Share Posted April 24, 2009 Try searching Blue Room for Green Ginger, they are 0 - + 10V analogue. It's funny how often the answer is staring you right in the face... Many thanks! Will I need a Dmux for this, or can I just use pins 1, 2 & 3 for signal? If I can do this, how can I daisy chain the signal from one box to another? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted April 24, 2009 Share Posted April 24, 2009 Will I need a Dmux for this, ...Yes, they are analogue dimmer packs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted April 24, 2009 Share Posted April 24, 2009 The dimmers, as previously stated, run off a 0 to +10v analogue control voltage. Pinout for the six pin Bleecon connectors (DIN plugs will fit but won't latch) is pins 1-4 channels 1-4, pin 5 +20v desk supply, pin 6 ground. As Brian said, you will need a demux. You'll probably have to do a bit of jiggery-pokery to make up some suitable control cables, also consider whether using a softpatch will make things easier. EDIT: fix typo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paradoxism Posted April 25, 2009 Share Posted April 25, 2009 Apologies if this is a false assumption but with questions like "can I just use pins 1-3 for signal" and "how do I daisy chain them together" you do not seem to have a great deal of knowledge of how analogue and digital control signals work. Instead of trying to get a demux and setting up a wiring system that will allow you to control the existing dimmers I would suggest you either hire some extra DMX dimmers along with all the other DMX gear you are bringing in, or run the 'easier' parts of the show from the existing desk and the rest from your DMX gear so that you don't need to DMX control the existing dimmers. All depends on how straightforward (or not) the show is. Oh and thanks for reminding me how old I am - I'm not even 30 and already I'm a member of the 'old-school'! And manual desks aren't unprogrammable - just invest in a few takeaway pizzas and a stanley knife! (Personally I would say 'old-school' would be chains and pulleys, and wall mounted rheostats that you need lengths of 2 by 1 to operate but I'm guessing you won't have come across them!) Not trying to put you down - just think that unless you are comfortable with how to interface DMX to older systems you could save yourself a lot of research and wiring work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pritch Posted April 25, 2009 Share Posted April 25, 2009 Personally, I'd argue that if there's nothing wrong with the dimmers, why muck about hiring something in that does the same job? Connecting the demux to the dimmers will be a bit of a pain, and maybe paying the extra to get the lead made up might be an idea though, purely in terms of the OP keeping their sanity* after trying to wire the 25-pin D-sub! I know 10 Out of 10 do the 4x8-pin leads, but I'm sure they could be talked into doing these, given the details required. To answer the OP, you don't daisy chain, not in the manner that you would with DMX. You'd daisy chain the demux in the same way you would any other DMX equipment, but on the analogue side a 'spider' with the 6-pin connectors would go to each dimmer. * That said, there's an argument that wiring a 25-pin spider is character building, and everybody should try it at least once. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willpower Posted April 25, 2009 Author Share Posted April 25, 2009 Instead of trying to get a demux and setting up a wiring system that will allow you to control the existing dimmers I would suggest you either hire some extra DMX dimmers along with all the other DMX gear you are bringing in, or run the 'easier' parts of the show from the existing desk and the rest from your DMX gear so that you don't need to DMX control the existing dimmers. Oh and thanks for reminding me how old I am - I'm not even 30 and already I'm a member of the 'old-school'! And manual desks aren't unprogrammable - just invest in a few takeaway pizzas and a stanley knife! (Personally I would say 'old-school' would be chains and pulleys, and wall mounted rheostats that you need lengths of 2 by 1 to operate but I'm guessing you won't have come across them!) Thanks for this - I will be the first to admit that I know virtually nothing about analogue systems. I understood from this that it works on the same principles as DMX, and that it might be possible to simply create a connector from one to another. This presented two difficulties in my mind, first that of addressing in DMX terms, in that the dimmers themselves don't seem to have any form of addressing on them, and secondly that each dimmer seems to have an individual input from the board and no ouput, so if I were to create one of these adaptors, then how would I effectively daisy-chain from one to another. Hence why I asked. I have worked with Demux boxes before, although never with this 6-pin DIN connector to green ginger dimmers. Similarly, the system already in place seems to work perfectly well, and will do the job, all I want to do is add to it. If we were to use two systems simultaneously alongside each other, this would create many problems, mainly it would be hell to operate & they would not time well together, no matter how well rehearsed! I unfortunately cannot hire in, as it is a school production & they have very little budget. I'm on a gap year at the moment and only just starting out properly in all of this, so time is something I do have to build on my knowledge, so am very keen to learn! I shall investigate Demux boxes and find a way of integrating the two systems, which I know is possible. And appologies for making you feel old - I was meaning that this is more of an older technology... I'll try to put my spade away! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niclights Posted April 25, 2009 Share Posted April 25, 2009 The thread you linked to was discussing different Green Ginger dimmers, although I can see your confusion in that they both use the same 6-pin DIN with combined desk power and control. The giveaway is always going to be ability to address or not. Now that you have the pin-outs and know that it is +10v, then this is quite simple using a standard demux, albeit a challenge to wire the D-sub. And I'm sure is worthwhile I providing the upgrade to DMX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paradoxism Posted April 25, 2009 Share Posted April 25, 2009 Connecting the demux to the dimmers will be a bit of a pain That was my point in hiring dimmers! If you're going to hook the demux up though I would save myself some time and buy a 25 pin cable ready made up (look for an RS232 cable with all the pins connected - some printer cables only have 9 wired), strip one end and then make a breakout box - wiring a 25 pin D is not a fun game and finding 25 way cable by the metre can be difficult and you don't need a 100m drum. You can find latching 6-pin DIN sockets from CPC here. As a quick guide - DMX works by sending each value as a digital signal one after the other down a single cable then each DMX controlled unit (demux, dimmer, scroller, mover etc) read 'their' values off the line. This lets you daisy chain them because they are all using the same signal and therefore one cable. The +/-10V system uses two wires for each channel - a 'reference' signal (pin 6 on your dimmers) that you could think of as being 0V or ground, and then a control signal wire for each channel which varies from 0V (off) to 10V (maximum) - this is pin 1 to 4 on your dimmers for channels 1 to 4. Pin 5 is a 20V supply that was output from the dimmers to act as a power supply for old manual desks so they didn't need to be plugged into the mains - make sure you don't connect this to ANYTHING on your demux or bad things will happen! So pin 6 should always be at 0V, and if pins 1 to 4 were at 0V, 5V, 7.5V and 10V then channel 1 would be off, ch2 at 50%, ch3 at 75% and ch4 fully on. Your demux (typically 24 channel) is likely to have a 25 pin connector as it's output - a reference pin and 24 control pins, although some have 4 x 7pin DIN for direct wiring to 4 x 6 channel analogue dimmers via a separate cable for each. The former is more useful to you when looking for a demux as it will be easier to interface to your dimmers. The 25 pin output is fairly standard but every so often different manufacturers swap them around a bit (Strand were infamous for this as they made units that matched their D54 units - so check the pinout!) Good luck with it all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willpower Posted April 26, 2009 Author Share Posted April 26, 2009 Good luck with it all! Thank you very much! I'll let you know how I get on... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.