Instruction/ maintenance manual of the product DMX 101 Elation Professional
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DMX 101: A DMX 512 HANDBOOK :,7+ (92/87,21 &20(6 &+$1*(.
DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 2 Elation Professional ® Handbook Revision: May 2008.
www.elationlig hting.com 3 1. Introduction to DMX .......................................................................................................... ............................ 4 2. Industry Standards .........................................
DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 4 Elation Professional ® This handbook is designed to promote basic understanding of the DMX 512 protocol, including theory of operation, proper equipment use, and some basic applic ation examples.
www.elationlig hting.com 5 About 20 years ago, most manufacturers used their own, proprietary control protocols. This forced system designers to use only fixtures and c ontrol consoles from the same manufact urer. There was no control standard to allow the use of different products.
DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 6 Elation Professional ® 2.3 ANSI The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is an organization composed of re presentatives from industry and government that collec.
www.elationlig hting.com 7 DMX 512 is an asynchronous serial digital data protocol. Wh ile that might mean someth ing to an engineer, most people are not familiar with how all this techno-gibbe rish actually accomplishes li ghting control. This section will attempt to explain how DMX operates in a simplified and easy-to-understand manner.
DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 8 Elation Professional ® 3.1 The Cable TV Analogy A central concept of DMX 512 is the abil ity to transmit data on multiple cha nnels over a single cable.
www.elationlig hting.com 9 Now imagine a simple DMX system (Figure 2), where: • The Cable TV Company is the DMX Control Console • The Cable is the DMX Cable • The Decoder is the DMX Dec oder (built into a Dimmer) • The TV is the Lighting Fixture Figure 2 The DMX Control Console will broadcast up to 512 channels over one DMX Cable.
DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 10 Elation Professional ® Many DMX devices (such as dimmers and intelligent fixtures) are capable of receiving several control channels at once. If a Dimmer has f our channels capable of cont rolling four Light Fixtures (F igure 3), it must know which four control channels to re ceive.
www.elationlig hting.com 11 3.2 DMX Communications In the world of digital communications, information is se nt using precise electrical voltage pulses. A positive voltage pulse represents a 1. A zero voltage pulse (or no voltage) represents a 0. Systems using 1’s and 0’s to encode information are called binary systems.
DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 12 Elation Professional ® While 4000 feet may be specified by the standard, most manufacturers recommend DM X runs of no more than 1000 feet (300 feet between devices) before using a repeater to regenerate the signal. Each device should have input and output connectors, but these are usually wired together.
www.elationlig hting.com 13 3.3 Summary So how does all this information relate to controlling a light fixture? Think of it in terms of the simple DMX Controller Console (Figure 4). The console may have up to 512 control faders on it (8 in this example).
DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 14 Elation Professional ® Understanding how DMX 512 operates is impor tant, but it’s only part of the picture. The physical equipment, connectors and cabling, play a critical role in the prope r functionality of the prot ocol.
www.elationlig hting.com 15 4.1 Connectors The DMX standard specifies 5-pin XL R connectors (Figure 5). The name comes from the original manufacturer (Cannon X connector, with a L atch and R ubber guard).
DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 16 Elation Professional ® 4.2 Cabling Standard DMX 512 requires twisted-pair, shielded, low-ca pacitance data cable (Figure 7) designed for RS-485 (such as ACCU-Cable from Elation). The twisted-pair configuration ensures that any interference affects both signals equally.
www.elationlig hting.com 17 4.3 Data DMX 512 data is transmitted at 250 ki loHertz (kHz), meaning that 250,000 1’ s and 0’s (at a maximum) can be sent each second. Each bit is measured in 4 microsecond (µs) intervals. In order for the receiving device to correctly interpret the data, it must be sent in a pa rticular sequence.
DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 18 Elation Professional ® The figures on the following pages il lustrate several different applicat ions using various DMX products.
www.elationlig hting.com 19 5.1 Dimmer Control 5.
DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 20 Elation Professional ® 5.2 Intelligent Fixture Control 5.
www.elationlig hting.com 21 5.3 Dimmer & Intelligent Fixture Control 5.
DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook 22 Elation Professional ® 5.4 Distributed Control 5.
www.elationlig hting.com 23.
Elation Professional ® A Division of the American DJ Group of Companies 6122 S. Eastern Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90040 USA Tel: 866-245-6726 Fax: 323-832-9142 Web: www.
An important point after buying a device Elation Professional DMX 101 (or even before the purchase) is to read its user manual. We should do this for several simple reasons:
If you have not bought Elation Professional DMX 101 yet, this is a good time to familiarize yourself with the basic data on the product. First of all view first pages of the manual, you can find above. You should find there the most important technical data Elation Professional DMX 101 - thus you can check whether the hardware meets your expectations. When delving into next pages of the user manual, Elation Professional DMX 101 you will learn all the available features of the product, as well as information on its operation. The information that you get Elation Professional DMX 101 will certainly help you make a decision on the purchase.
If you already are a holder of Elation Professional DMX 101, but have not read the manual yet, you should do it for the reasons described above. You will learn then if you properly used the available features, and whether you have not made any mistakes, which can shorten the lifetime Elation Professional DMX 101.
However, one of the most important roles played by the user manual is to help in solving problems with Elation Professional DMX 101. Almost always you will find there Troubleshooting, which are the most frequently occurring failures and malfunctions of the device Elation Professional DMX 101 along with tips on how to solve them. Even if you fail to solve the problem, the manual will show you a further procedure – contact to the customer service center or the nearest service center
