diacong Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 Dear all,Can you suggest a way to use a PC to observe the output of a lighting desk. Every 6 months I need to program a show but due to limited venue access time I need to do this at home. Because of the interval between the shows I have in effect to learn the process from scratch each time. My problem is that I have no way of checking that I have done it correctly and I usually don't manage it the first time! It would be really useful if I could plug something into the desk's DMX output and connect it to a PC so that I can see on screen the output of each of the desk's 24 channels. Is there anything that will do this or something similar? Thanks for your help. Graham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 Search the forum for 'visualiser' - that's the term that you want :) ( hint, google the search term with a suffix of site:blue-room.org.uk as the forum search is a bit useless) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diacong Posted November 24, 2014 Author Share Posted November 24, 2014 Thanks David, A full blown visualizer is probably more than I need. A 6 x 4 matrix of on screen bar graphs would be more than adequate to get the basic settings stored in the desk and then I can refine them once I get to the venue. I've seen plenty of USB in to DMX out converters advertised but have been unable to find a DMX in to USB out one. Do they exist? I should have added that I'm using a Behringer LC2412 desk. Graham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted November 24, 2014 Share Posted November 24, 2014 The enttec pro dongle does DMX in. DmxKing make a knockoff that does the same. I think Enttec offer a free, basic DMX monitor in the utility software for the Pro? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrV Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 The enttec pro dongle does DMX in. DmxKing make a knockoff that does the same. I think Enttec offer a free, basic DMX monitor in the utility software for the Pro?They do but it is just a matrix of all 512 channels in little boxes. No bargraphs etc. Very basicDave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomHoward Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 Dave Might be a silly suggestion but have you considered something like a 0-10V demux connected to a rack of 10V filament lamps? (current allowing). We use a pair of Sunstrips (10ch each) to demonstrate simple DMX channel control sometimes to students, two of those would give you 20 channels for test purposes but cost may be too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alistermorton Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 This has set me thinking - I have an RS-422 to RS-232 converter in a drawer at home. DMX is RS-485 IIRC which is close to RS-422 isn't it? I wonder if I could hang my converter on a DMX cable and read the signal in through a COM port and display the data on a screen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleah Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 Dave Might be a silly suggestion but have you considered something like a 0-10V demux connected to a rack of 10V filament lamps? (current allowing). We use a pair of Sunstrips (10ch each) to demonstrate simple DMX channel control sometimes to students, two of those would give you 20 channels for test purposes but cost may be too much. That was going to be my suggestion, but using LEDs.Get busy with a soldering iron :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 This has set me thinking - I have an RS-422 to RS-232 converter in a drawer at home. DMX is RS-485 IIRC which is close to RS-422 isn't it? I wonder if I could hang my converter on a DMX cable and read the signal in through a COM port and display the data on a screen. RS422 is an "in and out" version of RS485 (which is a single wire multi-drop system) but the electrical levels are the same. It would work electrically but I don't think you'll be able to set a com port to 250KBaud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alistermorton Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 The baud rate was my concern, although I guess it depends on the (virtual) clock frequency of the (virtualised) serial hardware. Back in the darker dark days I used to write interrupt handlers in assembler to squeeze the last ounce of performance from the serial port Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 Back in the darker dark days I used to write interrupt handlers in assembler to squeeze the last ounce of performance from the serial port Me too, even then you couldn't do 250K. I don't think the hardware can do it even if you could bludgeon your way through layers of windows abstraction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alistermorton Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 No, probably not, even with a divider of 1 you're not going to get a high enough clock into the virtual serial chip. IIRC the highest rate you used to be able to get with the standard clock rate was 115200 (laplink used to work quite nicely at this speed, too). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Allen Posted November 25, 2014 Share Posted November 25, 2014 See if you can borrow a DMX Tester , you will need to write the values down. Someone wrote a program to read out the scene and channel data for maxim desks, it is on the LSC maxim forums, I have had to use that on a few occasions. What desk do you have ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt c Posted November 26, 2014 Share Posted November 26, 2014 If you're willing to spend and code yourself, brainboxes do all sorts of rs485 & rs422 adaptor s that can be set to whatever baud rate you want. Up to a megabit/sec. http://www.brainboxes.com/store Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmiller056 Posted December 1, 2014 Share Posted December 1, 2014 Hi You say that you are using a LC2412 - I can understand why you want a visualiser - I have one of these too because beggars can't be choosers! I made my own visaliser by getting from ebay a 24 channel 1A RGB LED DMX decoder/driver. Bare boards are about £20-25 delivered from china (2-3 week delivery, no import duty/VAT due to low value). On each output channel wire a small (12V 50mA) wire ended filament lamp. Put it all in a box with a small power supply and the job is done. Use tungsten lamps instead of LED's because it is easier to see the relative brightness of each channel. No need to drag around an expensive, fragile laptop PC. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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