Basic DMX

Kemper Watson

Kemper Watson

Senior
Jan 11, 2011
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Atlanta, Georgia, United States
www.theplaceholders.com
I don't have much lighting experience. I usually hire out. The last show I by myself couldn't get dimmer pack to show up on the correct faders. The first two 4 channel dimmers are correct. On my Stagesetter 8 they come up on 1-4 then 5-8. The third dimmer just has dip switches. How do I get it to show up on fader 9-12? Thanks for your time..

Dimmers are just running pars
 
Last edited:
Re: Basic DMX

Kemper Watson said:
Thanks. That is going make it so simple..
Click to expand...

The calculator is nice, but just to explain:

The system is that switch one is the DMX value of one. Switch number two is the DMX value of two.

Onwards from this you double the DMX value every time you go to the next switch.

This gives you the following sitiation:
S DMX
1 1
2 2
3 4
4 8
5 16
6 32
7 64
8 128
9 256
10 512

If you want the dimmer to correspond to channels 9-12 you need to make sure the dimmer is set to DMX value 9, this is called the starting address of the dimmer. For most dimmers this will make the first channel DMX value number 9 and the following three channels will be 10, 11 and 12. For some dimmers you can set the channels to be any value independently.

To get to DMX value 9, look for the highest possible number that is lower than 9, in this case that would 8, so you switch on switch number 4. You are still missing tha DMX value of one to get to 9 (8+1=9) so you need to switch on switch number 1 as well.


Let's say you need DMX value 47. The highest value lower than 47 is 32. 32 plus 16 is 48, so that is too high and won't work. 32 plus 8 is 40, and to get to 47 you need seven more, which would be four plus two plus one (32+8+4+2+1=47). In other words, DMX value 47 needs the following switches turned on:

S DMX
1 1
2 2
3 4
4 8

6 32

Hope this helps :)


Kristian
 
Re: Basic DMX

kristianjohnsen said:
The calculator is nice, but just to explain:

The system is that switch one is the DMX value of one. Switch number two is the DMX value of two.

Onwards from this you double the DMX value every time you go to the next switch.

This gives you the following sitiation:
S DMX
1 1
2 2
3 4
4 8
5 16
6 32
7 64
8 128
9 256
10 512

If you want the dimmer to correspond to channels 9-12 you need to make sure the dimmer is set to DMX value 9, this is called the starting address of the dimmer. For most dimmers this will make the first channel DMX value number 9 and the following three channels will be 10, 11 and 12. For some dimmers you can set the channels to be any value independently.

To get to DMX value 9, look for the highest possible number that is lower than 9, in this case that would 8, so you switch on switch number 4. You are still missing tha DMX value of one to get to 9 (8+1=9) so you need to switch on switch number 1 as well.


Let's say you need DMX value 47. The highest value lower than 47 is 32. 32 plus 16 is 48, so that is too high and won't work. 32 plus 8 is 40, and to get to 47 you need seven more, which would be four plus two plus one (32+8+4+2+1=47). In other words, DMX value 47 needs the following switches turned on:

S DMX
1 1
2 2
3 4
4 8

6 32

Hope this helps :)


Kristian
Click to expand...

I don't think it was mentioned: this is just binary. Anything that can convert from base 10 to base 2 can do this conversion. You'll get a result like 001011010, where 1 means ON and 0 means OFF, switch number 1 corresponds to the far right and it counts to the left. Should be simple, especially if you have any programming background.
 
Re: Basic DMX

Seeing that the thread is almost completely derailed...

Skew binary is the best obscure mathematical base to use. Especially so for numbering as the twos really throw people out.
 
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