Raspberry pi / arduino DMX

[the kid]

Just wondering has anyone used / played with pi / arduino DMX programmes at all?

 

Very much a spit ball idea's / possible options for a promenade piece, I would be looking at a cue stack (hand full of cues, with 6 lights) that could be triggered screen free (trigger fool proof, perhaps a big red button).

[J Pearce]

I had a brief play with some artnet tools on a raspberry pi for a project I had in mind, but for which I have neither the time nor adequate skills (nor time to develop the necessary skills sadly).

There are some libraries about and some projects for getting DMX out the GPIO port, and I believe the existing Linux artnet libraries work.

[jmaudio]

For Arduino check out the DmxSimple library. Handles all the complicated DMX timings and just spits it out the serial port (or any other port you choose for that matter). All you need is a RS485 transceiver to convert to a 2.5V differential signal, the 75176 being the most popular/widely available. And being an Arduino, big red buttons are of course very simple to interface.

HTH

J

[maeterlinck]

DMXSerial also works pretty well with the Arduino. You can get some nice shields for UNO if you can't make the transceiver. Should be pretty easy to make a programme that runs through the steps triggered by an input. I would think the Arduino is the right tool for a few cues with a few chanels. You could add an SD card and read each cue from there and have loads of cues as well.

 

Happy to help here if needed.

[vinntec]

I have got QLC running on an RPi in front of me with an Enttec Open DMX interface. When I have time I will try and get it to do QLC+ as well. With this config, timing will be dirty as the RPi has to do it so I will need to upgrade the DMX interface or start doing some serious programming to control the RPi by hardware. Just too busy to do this a the moment.

[jpk]

If you use the Pi maybe OLA and some scripts could fulfill your requirements. There are R Pi images ready to go. Biggest trap is the limited current available from the USB host connector - not all USB DMX interfaces will work so check first.

http://www.opendmx.net/index.php/OLA

[fliggygeek]

Just wondering has anyone used / played with pi / arduino DMX programmes at all?

 

Very much a spit ball idea's / possible options for a promenade piece, I would be looking at a cue stack (hand full of cues, with 6 lights) that could be triggered screen free (trigger fool proof, perhaps a big red button).

 

I have built single use DMX controllers for various uses with an arduino, its very simple to build and configure. If you want schematics etc I can post them.

[the kid]

Thanks guys.

 

Its just an idea at the moment.

 

From what I gather we may have 3 groups "in" a promenade with a number of spaces running a number of cues, so a / some desks would not work all that well but 10 pi + 10 usbdmx + case/s is going to be far less than millions of cables, WDMX, maybe a central hub room etc ( my mind always seems to go for the biggest of the options rather than the smaller)

[vinntec]

Thanks guys.

 

Its just an idea at the moment.

 

From what I gather we may have 3 groups "in" a promenade with a number of spaces running a number of cues, so a / some desks would not work all that well but 10 pi + 10 usbdmx + case/s is going to be far less than millions of cables, WDMX, maybe a central hub room etc ( my mind always seems to go for the biggest of the options rather than the smaller)

And if you had an eleventh RPi or a PC etc with keyboard + monitor + mouse, you could control them all headless (no monitor, keyboard, mouse) from one point using VNC with a simple wired or wireless Ethernet network! This saves a relatively expensive HDMI monitor on each one (I use an HDMI TV bought at Sainsbury's currently just under £170 and was about the cheapest I could find when I researched this about a year ago).

[the kid]

ah no see my thought was to have say cue 1-10 lights 1-5 .. cue 11 light 6(perhaps a domestic or a house light) cue 12 blackout and roll back to cue 1 ready to start.

 

Control would be as I said above "big red button"

 

The issue with single point control is say 10 rooms + over 2 levels and knowing what is going on in each would be a massive cctv layout as well.

[Tom Baldwin]

Not sure you'd need CCTV for the centralised version - if each big red button runs back to a contact closure input on the central desk, and is used to trigger a different cue stack, then you can get the same end user experience with a central desk and nobody monitoring centrally.

Cable runs back to a central point might still be a problem for DMX and closure - depends on the venue(s).

[vinntec]

Hi Thomas - So you mean a big red button on each RPi to start it going (or go to next cue)? You may also need a feedback device to know which cue you are one - or is this you running between places so can tell at a glance where you are? The BRB is doable but the feedback circuit will be much more (although possibly a single led could be made to flash the cue number if you want to keep it simple as you only have a few cues on each one). I don't know how to do these off the top of my head but am sure they are possible with RPi standard hardware plus an appropriate USB-DMX interface plus a few simple components plus a bit of programming. I believe you could also do it directly with the GPIO pins and make up your own interface cable rather than use a USB-DMX adapter.

[Tom Baldwin]

I read the original requirement to be "promenading audience hits a big red button on entering a zone to trigger a cue stack" - hence no need for feedback.

[musht]

Only issue had when had play with DMX Simple on Arduino was flickering on some LEDs, inserting a 100% at a 500 address forced it to send a full frame and lost the flickering.

 

The issue with single point control is say 10 rooms + over 2 levels and knowing what is going on in each would be a massive cctv layout as well.

 

If its a only a few cues sure could get a 7 seg display to show cue # locally , if need remote monitoring sure there is simple serial way of linking them all back by single pair to mimic 7 seg display(s) at hub.

[fliggygeek]

Only issue had when had play with DMX Simple on Arduino was flickering on some LEDs, inserting a 100% at a 500 address forced it to send a full frame and lost the flickering.

 

The issue with single point control is say 10 rooms + over 2 levels and knowing what is going on in each would be a massive cctv layout as well.

 

If its a only a few cues sure could get a 7 seg display to show cue # locally , if need remote monitoring sure there is simple serial way of linking them all back by single pair to mimic 7 seg display(s) at hub.

 

The DMX Simple library sends the minimum size DMX packet it can, some cheap chinese fixtures depend on full packets.