Please help! DMX 5pin

[SamBev]

I'm not a technician, I'm a primary school teacher, and I've ended up on this forum because I'm desperately seeking some advice! We want to put on an end of year production, and as you're probably aware there isn't much in the way of spare money in school budgets, so I'm limited in what I can source. In the hall, we have some seemingly outdated lighting kit. From a normal person's point of view (as in, I don't know the terminology for anything here!) there are maybe 12 stage lights. On the wall, there is a 5 pin socket labeled 'DMX control'. I hear that many years ago, when this was installed, there was a console which attached to this socket which controlled the lighting. The old site manager got rid of it when it became glitchy and replaced it with a laptop which had software installed. That laptop is now dead and there are no wires anywhere which seem to match up to the socket. 

Am I an idiot to think that I might be able to buy a wire which links from that socket to my laptop (USB or USB C) and then find some really cheap or basic software to control it all? OR is there something that must come between the socket and my laptop? Or am I way off the mark?  If this fails miserably, I'll be buying a shed load of torches and getting Year 5 to sit in the front row 😰

[paulears]

No = that's exactly how it works. Most manufacturers have a dongle based USB stick type device - Chamsys, is my favourite and you can do it very cheaply with free software, with limited features and a time limit, or a bit more expensive and a few more features unlocked - but the free software and cheap dongle will do a great job. DMX lighting should use 5 pin sockets and plugs, but loads of lights use 3 pin, mic type connectors. You can buy 3 to 5 and 5 to 3 very cheaply on sites like CPC, who your school probably already deals with.  Your technical people, if there are any, could easily make a connector cable for you - the wiring in the 3 and 5 pin versions just connects 1 to 1, the 2 to 2 and 3 to 3 - as easy as that.

 

Download the Chamsys Magicq software and have a play with it.

[SamBev]

11 minutes ago, paulears said:

No = that's exactly how it works. Most manufacturers have a dongle based USB stick type device - Chamsys, is my favourite and you can do it very cheaply with free software, with limited features and a time limit, or a bit more expensive and a few more features unlocked - but the free software and cheap dongle will do a great job. DMX lighting should use 5 pin sockets and plugs, but loads of lights use 3 pin, mic type connectors. You can buy 3 to 5 and 5 to 3 very cheaply on sites like CPC, who your school probably already deals with.  Your technical people, if there are any, could easily make a connector cable for you - the wiring in the 3 and 5 pin versions just connects 1 to 1, the 2 to 2 and 3 to 3 - as easy as that.

 

Download the Chamsys Magicq software and have a play with it.

Thanks for your reply! Unfortunately the school is just a small community primary school and there's nobody we currently have to guide us on this. It seems the equipment we've got is at least 10-15 years old. The technical person is our caretaker and they have only recently joined the school. I'd like to state that my approach to this is basically like an alien turning up to a room they've never seen before and finding that wall socket whilst thinking 'I wonder if...'.

So just to clarify... It wouldn't just be a simple DMX to USB cable, but there needs to be something in between like this dongle? I am so sorry for my lack of knowledge but incredibly grateful for your reply!

[paulears]

Er, USB output on computer, dongle plugs in and has a 3 or 5 pin output that goes into your socket on the wall. 

 

Your snag of course is that somebody will need to tell the control software how to work the lights - they all have certain functions on certain channels - and these are never the same - so each light might use between say 2 and 20 channels. Somebody needs to do this for you - local amdram, local theatre, colleague at another school - local blue room member? No reason a primary teacher can't do it. My grandson's teacher has a few wiggle movers and some cheap washes and a laptop - works fine. I've recently been to a school to fix their broken control - it wasn't broken, the kids had simply pressed buttons.

[SamBev]

9 minutes ago, paulears said:

Er, USB output on computer, dongle plugs in and has a 3 or 5 pin output that goes into your socket on the wall. 

 

Your snag of course is that somebody will need to tell the control software how to work the lights - they all have certain functions on certain channels - and these are never the same - so each light might use between say 2 and 20 channels. Somebody needs to do this for you - local amdram, local theatre, colleague at another school - local blue room member? No reason a primary teacher can't do it. My grandson's teacher has a few wiggle movers and some cheap washes and a laptop - works fine. I've recently been to a school to fix their broken control - it wasn't broken, the kids had simply pressed buttons.

Absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much for your help! 

[Jivemaster]

Even if you find the right connector and a suitable laptop you then have to find all the rest of the kit and how to address each lantern from the desk. In a primary school the principal aim may just be to ensure that every child is clearly visible, a task well done by leaving some room lights on.

[gareth]

Where exactly is the school? You might find that there's a local friendly BR member who might be able to pop in for an hour or two and give you a bit of advice - or we could maybe point you in the direction of local sources of potential assistance.

[SamBev]

It's in Sale, Trafford, Greater Manchester! Thanks 

[Gerry]

Try Sale Nomads https://salenomads.org.uk/

They are very near you.

If I still lived in Northwich I would have popped around to help you.

I now live in Spain, so bit far to travel.

Cheers

Gerry

[kgallen]

@SamBev maybe you could post some pictures of your install / lights / bars etc?

Also is there a ‘box’ somewhere mounted on a wall or in a cupboard that might say ‘dimmer’ on it?

[sandall]

1 minute ago, kgallen said:

is there a ‘box’ somewhere mounted on a wall or in a cupboard that might say ‘dimmer’ on it?

Good point. An elderly small school installation is probably still all tungsten (so probably also includes a load of dead lamps)

[Jivemaster]

You need to find all the parts of your lighting system. You have the DMX input, where does it go to? Somewhere there should be a cable from the DMX input to a big electrical box (moderate cupboard size) with an obvious "main switch" Then there should be wires to the obvious lamps, some of which may work.

[kgallen]

5 hours ago, sandall said:

Good point. An elderly small school installation is probably still all tungsten (so probably also includes a load of dead lamps)

The Primary Schools I've seen that have any sort of "stage lights" tend to have a Betapack or two (high up in a cupboard) with half a dozen Acclaims/Quartets/Minuettes then maybe some cheap LED washes added on top at a later date.

@SamBev I think @paulears gave you an initial steer on the PC-DMX bit, but I think per the posts above (@Jivemaster et al), to give you a more complete answer we need to find out a lot more about what you've got in the way of "stage lights". This may comprise some "conventional" lights - a tungsten lamp in a housing with a lens arrangement, or you might now have some fixtures based on LED. The conventional lights, assuming the lamps are not blown, should be easy to get going, because they have one "parameter" - their intensity, or how bright they are. The LEDs can be more work because they have multiple "parameters" that can be controlled - Red/Green/Blue elements, maybe more colours, plus strobes, preset colour palettes, overall dimmer etc. This means that unless you have some documentation for them (or you can share make/model here), you have to work out how to send "instructions" to each of those parameters to get those lights to work.

The more information you can provide us, the better we can respond to your question and hopefully get your rig working.

(Sorry my first post was so short, I was typing on a phone at that point. Not the best!)

Edited April 30, 2023 by kgallen

[Jivemaster]

The " DMX in " connector that you have found is a good start BUT it's a £15 component that's a very minor part of the whole system probably valued at £25000.

Probably a good idea is to find the company who installed the system and get them to return to you to inspect the system for function and completeness and make very sure that they leave you with good written instructions.

If you use your own laptop beware the internal politics that will assume that your laptop now belongs to the system, unless you intend to donate a laptop and the software.

Remember that the need for lighting assumes some kind of blackout in the room. If the room will not be dark don't bother overmuch with lighting.

In a school it's important that each parent can see their child, lighting to support the drama is an alien concept.

Edited April 30, 2023 by Jivemaster

[paulears]

School lighting, since the 50s, has always been a teacher led project, that goes badly wrong when they leave. An enthusiast who got the funding, and then a new teacher with different interests allows it to die. Some truly excellent installs just left to fester and die. In honesty, unless teachers pick certain extra modules or pathways, it rarely generates extra marks, so is just nice to have, like extra thick gym mats, or ethnic percussion to give to the kids who can’t play tuned instruments. So often you see schools with great lights or sound, computer controlled lathes, art studios with proper colour balanced lighting, catering quality kitchens for student use etc etc. often mothballed and unused when an NQT is put in charge of that area and has never taught the subject before. Safety often means restrictions, so no ladders, which means dead lights. If a new teacher inherits a complex system, it also means extra work. Balance is tricky.