Hello everyone,
I am a complete newb to any form of dmx lighting. I am having a really hard time with the manual that came with this. It almost seems designed for someone who already has basic dmx knowledge (which i don't have). Is there any online source here that can help me understand all of the programming and such? I have a adj 250 spot and a c&*^$#t vue 3. I also have some regular par cans and a strobe. I have not upgraded too much of my lighting show yet. Any help would greatly be appreciated.
Thanks,
Chuck Kelsheimer

quote:

Originally posted by flipper06:
. . . a c&*^$#t vue 3. . .

Oh man I can't tell you how much I laughed at that!

Ok anyways, DMX, it really is a cool thing. Here are some basics. DMX stands for Digital Multiple X. It is a way for each and every (DMX Compatible ) light, made by any manufacturer, to interact with an universal DMX controller. In a standard DMX protocol (called 512-DMX protocol) there are a total of 512 "channels" In order to get your lights to interact with the controller, you must address them. There are 2 ways (that I know of) that you can do this. 1 is DIP switches and 2 (which is easier) is through a display on the light itself. In order to make this post a little shorter I will skip the addressing part and if you need it, tell me and I will write another post. Ok, by addressing the light you are telling it what signal to use from the DMX controller. When ever you change something (move a fader, change a scene) on a DMX controller it sends a signal with two thing, 1 an address and 2 a value. When the signal gets to the light it checks the address FIRST and if the light is addresses match then the light looks at the value and changes based on what that value is. If the addresses don't match then the light happily sends the signal on its way to the next light. Now this value can be anything from 0 to 255. Now as you may or may not know, some lights use more than one channel (it will tell you in the manual how many channels it takes) This is the reason you can't address lights in order (1,2,3,. . .)

Ok im getting tired so ill quickly go over your setup. You would address your lights using the proper addresses. I dont know how many channels each light uses off the top of my head but here is a quick example.

I have 2 DJ Scan 250 HP's, and a Color Shot Led.
The 2 Scans use 4 channels each and the Color shot uses 3. I want my order to be ColorShot, Scan, Scan.
So i'm going to address my Colorshot to 1. It uses 3 channels so channels 1,2,and 3 are used up.
Now I'm going to address one Scan to 4. It uses 4 channels so now channels 1,2,3(from the LED)and 4,5,6, and 7 are used (So 1-7). Now my last scan will be 8. That will use up 8,9,10,and 11. Channels 1-11 are being used. I sure hope that made sense.

So just address your lights and plug them all up and run your DMX cables to each light and to the controller. Turn everything on (it doesn't matter which order) now you can start playing around with faders and such to get the feel for it.

Now for the programming i'm going to need to know what controller you are using before I can tell you exactly what to do.

I really hope this helps because it is late and I don't know if all of this will make sense. It makes sense to me but then again I've been doing it for a year. BUT because ive been doing it a year I'm not THAT good of a teacher. anyways im going to bed! Hope it helped!

jthtiger

P.S. WHEW!!!

Good job jthtiger! But flipper what ever you do DO NOT plug your DMX lights in to the DP-415!! never plug your DMX lights into a dimmer pack as it will ruin the the DMX hardware and motors in your intelligent lights. also i believe your stage setter 8 that came with your pack should have enough channels for your lights. but can u tell me how many pars you have/plan to use? let me know and i can be of further help. sincerely,

on a side note. your spot 250 uses 6 DMX channel and the vue 3 uses 9. 9+6=15 DMX channels total. so you only have room for maybe one or two pars on the stage setter 8. might want to look into a bigger controller. like jthtigers DMX operator 192.

Thanks fellas! Sorry it took me so long to get back with ya. Jingles: i only plan on running 2 pars. Jthtigers:thanks for the detailed info. Really appreciate it guys. By the way do you guys know of any additional videos or books that are good reads for newbie dmx lighing people like me? I really would love to have something to quick reference also. I think your guys' posts did help me to understand a lot more now though.

i would just google DMX 512. you never know. i learned all my stuff by just asking questions really and trial and error. peace!