Strand 300 extension wing

[Robertdazzler]

Hi All

 

I want to extend the capacity of my strand MX24 desk by adding a Midi slave. Another MX24 would do it but a Strand 300 extension wing is available at the moment and I understand this can expand on the 300's capacity but does it use Midi to do it?. I understand the connection to this 300 unit is by 8 pin Din. Does anybody have a spec sheet for the extension wing?

 

 

 

[gareth]

I'd be very surprised if that would work. The MX desks and the 300-series are entirely different consoles - different software, different hardware. The 300-series modules connect together using RJ45 cable via a proprietary Strand protocol, and there's nothing on an MX24 that will deal with that connector or protocol.

 

Do you just need additional dimmer control channels? Or are you looking to add the capability of controlling automated fixtures to your system? Either way, to be honest with a desk as old as the MX you'd probably be far better off (and would certainly find it a lot more straightforward) to just ditch the MX and buy a replacement control desk. As long as you don't want something brand-new and up-to-the-minute (and if you're happy with your MX, I imagine you don't!) you'd probably find something second-hand that would fit the bill nicely. Tell us a bit more about what you want to achieve.

[Robertdazzler]

I'd be very surprised if that would work. The MX desks and the 300-series are entirely different consoles - different software, different hardware. The 300-series modules connect together using RJ45 cable via a proprietary Strand protocol, and there's nothing on an MX24 that will deal with that connector or protocol.

 

Do you just need additional dimmer control channels? Or are you looking to add the capability of controlling automated fixtures to your system? Either way, to be honest with a desk as old as the MX you'd probably be far better off (and would certainly find it a lot more straightforward) to just ditch the MX and buy a replacement control desk. As long as you don't want something brand-new and up-to-the-minute (and if you're happy with your MX, I imagine you don't!) you'd probably find something second-hand that would fit the bill nicely. Tell us a bit more about what you want to achieve.

 

Hi Gareth

 

Thanks for the info. It's what I expected.

 

I have an MX24/48 and am finding it very limiting with regard to control ways. At the moment just more dimmer channels would be good but I would prefer to slave another unit to my MX. The "Midi" facility allows that so I am looking for a physically small board of 12 ways or more having of course Midi. One option I have is to buy another MX24 but I really don't have the space. Mine is an impoverished amateur society so whatever is done must be on the cheap. I have another 30 dimmers in stock so could have an independent control for them but mastering and sub-mastering is very important, hence my question..

 

 

 

[gareth]

Understood. If you really want to go down the MIDI slave route, there are various options. But I absolutely would not recommend it - it adds unnecessary complexity and potential points of failure to what ought to be a very simple, robust system ; and I'd hazard a guess that it would cost you just as much in terms of equipment as simply replacing your MX with something more current and capable (not to mention the time you'd need to spend hooking it all up and making them talk to each other).

 

Yes, there'd be a need to spend time learning a new console, but for a simple manual/memory device controlling only dimmers it would be minimal.

[Robertdazzler]

Good advice -thanks.

[alistermorton]

300 extension wing is can-bus AFAIK

[Renny]

It's a struggle to get 300 wings to talk to 300's so doubtful it will talk to anything else.

[IRW]

300 panels will definitely not talk to anything other than a 300-series processor. As mentioned upthread, they use a CANbus system to communicate with the processor.

 

I did make a start on decoding what they actually output (using a CAN to RS232 converter) with a view to making them talk to a laptop running Nomad, but then OSC became a thing, so there didn't seem much point in carrying on the project!

 

Ian

[alistermorton]

I did make a start on decoding what they actually output (using a CAN to RS232 converter) with a view to making them talk to a laptop running Nomad, but then OSC became a thing, so there didn't seem much point in carrying on the project!

 

I managed to interface a Korg nanoKontrol to the nomad software like that.

[sleah]

I managed to interface a Korg nanoKontrol to the nomad software like that.

Please do tell! I have both - well not quite, I have the icon icontrols fader thingy which is similar I believe in that it is controls with built-in USB>Midi. It would be cool if I could get it to talk to Nomad. :)

[alistermorton]

In a nutshell: I used the standard windows midi support (in mmsystem.h) in a C++ application to handle the events from the nanokontrol. This gives me four pages of sliders, rotary controls and bump buttons, plus the transport control buttons.I mapped them so that the sliders send an OSC message to move a submaster, and the buttons by the sliders act as the bump and select buttons for the corresponding subs.The transport controls I mapped to go, stop/back.last, next and record. The application also displays the status messages that are returned from OSC.such as the command line, how far through the cue you are and what the next cue is.

 

The OSC code was heavily based on the code ETC put on sourceforge.

 

To work out exactly what message format to send to EOS/nomad, I wrote an application which opened a socket and waited fro incoming connections from touchOSC running the Element/EOS control surface. This was useful to clarify some messages that weren't immediately obvious from the ETC documentation (the GO button, for example, or the different messages for playbacks, subs and faders, for example. Currently It has the hood up a bit as I'm adding a configuration pane so that what each control does is soft rathe rthan as currently, hard coded.

 

I originally wrote it in C# but the system exclusive messages, which change the "scene" page on the nanoKontrol, needed a fixed buffer, which was inelegant to implement in C# so I reverted to C++.

 

The application runs on the same machine as the nomad software, and so all netwrok communiations go to and from the same address, just on different ports.

[richard]

I've built a little box that takes DMX in and sends OSC out (using ESP8266) which allows any DMX desk to become a fader wing - designed to use with the cheap £35 6 channel things - seems to work well..

[alistermorton]

That's quite a neat idea. I wondered about something similar using an arduino. I also have a shed load of rotary encoders which could be pressed into service.

[richard]

ESP8266 has a port of the arduino IDE so very simple to programme. I'm using a DMX library I found and a modified OSC library so was pretty simple to do. Can operate over wifi or wired ethernet. Plus I may add a bit of web configuration

[alistermorton]

Thanks, I'll investigate.