DMX Multicore

[TomLyall]

All of the suggestions made here sound good, even if they are a little out of the range of my budget and current needs. I suspect I'll just run the cables seperately for the moment, after all, I could get around 500m of DMX cable for the price of 100m of that combined cable, which means the combined one is not really worth it in my opinion.

 

To be honest, I think I'd go for something along the lines of an 8 x cat5e multicore (deployable obviously), two power lines, and maybe some comms lines loomed together.

 

Regarding the drum vs. figure-of-8 discussion, I personally prefer cables to be on a drum. I am, however, aware that this doesn't work as well when its a taped loom.

[T.D.]

Like everybody says - depends on the venue, but my story of caution....

 

couple of contradictory suggestions here::

1/

The corperate LX companies I freelance for have the inlets on the spool since the desk is almost always out of site of the public and you don't want to hide a spool beind a mac 250 or 'rachet strap' it to a piece of flown truss.

 

2/

Which way do you run cables. To me a 13A -> 15A tail has a 13A plug, 15A socket. That is a spoken convention. Why is this significant? If someone tells you to run the DMX from A to B does that mean desk at A, light at B, or start at A and unwind to B. I've been caught out on this big time on a major 1hour install in London. - solution keep the outlets at the spool end.

 

My preference - Just use coiled 20m lengths. Takes up less space to store, lighter to carry, can be used elsewhere and easier to run (especially tucking it behind things). Only downside is the extra connectors reduce reliability / tamperproof-ness

 

Hope this adds to your dilema :D

T.D.

[gareth]

1/

The corperate LX companies I freelance for have the inlets on the spool since the desk is almost always out of site of the public and you don't want to hide a spool beind a mac 250 or 'rachet strap' it to a piece of flown truss.

On the contrary - the desk is quite often in very clear view of the public/delegates/guests, while dimmer city is almost always nicely hidden. Don't forget we're talking about a DMX run from FOH to backstage here, not feeds to individual fixtures. I'm sure you wouldn't really contemplate strapping a half-unwound drum of DMX onto a truss next to a Mac250 ... would you?

[T.D.]

That was sarcasm - sorry, in the interests of health and safety I should have made that clearer

 

<T.D. goes and burns all his ratchet straps to prevent fatalities caused by people without a sense of humor>

 

<for the padantic out there, T.D. then disposes of the remains of said ratchet straps in an environmentally sound manner so as not to risk people using the burned ratchet straps>

 

reg FOH - agree totally - depends upon the situation/location. We usually try to hide the desk op if pos (they're sometimes a bit ugly) and sometimes run from the desk into a fixture, not into dimmers. Apreciate in theatre and rock n roll it's simetimes a bit different.

 

regards

 

T.D.