I've had several DMX lights and have noticed some have 5 pin connectors and some have 3 pin.

I've never used a DMX controller and was wondering if you can link 3 and 5 pin lights together and how you would do it.

Abstract lighting seems to have 3 pin and NJD 5 pin, with most of mine being 5 pin.

I'm in the market for a couple of colour changers and the ones I've looked at are 3 pin, so, is it possible to link them?

Yes, it is possible. Although are you aware that you can't mix two products together from different manufacturers and expect them to synchronise without using a controller capable of running different programs on different DMX Channels?.

The reason behind this, is the firmware inside the products which is kept in the microcontroller differs from manufacturer to manufacturer, so the data which may produce a blue star on an Abstract Effect, may well produce a white circle when fed into an NJD Effect. Also bear in mind that some products have more colours / gobos than others, so don't link a 12 gobo / 10 colour effect, to a 8 gobo 7 colour effect , some products have seperate gobo and colour wheels and some have combined.

So in other words you can't just plug an NJD effect into an Abstract effect and expect it to synchronise.

The only way around this, is to use a good quality controller, and run one program for the NJD Effects, and another program for the Abstracts.

Apologies if you are already aware of this, but the number of emails I get asking how to link one manufacturers effect to another manufacturers product means that it is an issue and point worth making here .

Now to your question:-

The 5 pin XLR that some pillock decided would be a 'good idea' to use on their lighting effects, whilst the rest of the industry chose to stick with standard XLR's, only actually uses 3 pins of the 5 available for DMX Data. 2 pins on the connector actually remain unconnected.

The excuse for moving over to 5 pin XLR's is that some users were mistaking the DMX In / Out sockets on lighting effects for audio, and connecting them to Balanced sockets on Mixers!. I suppose they have a point, I've known DJ's to do this before!.

So it is possible to link the 3 pins of a conventional XLR wired controller or effect to the 3 connected pins of the 5 pin type.

The pin outs for the 5 pin XLR's are below:-

Pin 1 - Screen
Pin 2 - Data - (cold)
Pin 3 - Data + (hot)
Pin 4 - N/C
Pin 5 - N/C

The conventional XLR Wiring of Most Effects using 3 pin XLR's are:-

Pin 1 - Screen
Pin 2 - Data + (Hot)
Pin 3 - Data - (Cold)

So when wiring 3 pin effects to 5 pin, use the following connections:-

3 Pin Connector 5 Pin Connector

Pin 1 to pin 1
pin 2 to pin 3
pin 3 to pin 2

Pins 4 & 5 on the 5 pin end remain un-terminated

It is important to check the pin outs of the effect using the 3 pin XLR to make sure that they correspond to that indicated above. Most effects display the pin outs next to the connector or in the user manual.

Yeah like the sound lap colourscans the polarity on them is actually reversed so verytime i need to link my chauvet microscans to the soundlabs i have to make a crossover cable.

Matt

ok lads and ladies my new central light rig will have the following layout when I have finished it next week :


Abstract XP3 > DATAMOON > DATAMOON > MAD magician > DM > DM > XP3

i was hoping to run it all with that £100 soundlab DMX controler that chris sells,

but now you have me thinking about cables !!!!!

would anyone like to guess at how to wire this lot up ?

Not sure that the Soundlab will run ALL these together. I think you may need something a bit more comprehensive, like a Merlin.

I agree that the best course of action would be to stick with lighting from one manufacturer and enjoy direct compatibility across the range. The effects don't have to be indentical to get this, for instance you can link the Abstract XP2 to the XP3 and have two different effects, which can also synchronise easily.

It is possible to run all of this from one controller, but I believe that you will find it to be a big job, given that you've already pointed out that you have never used a DMX controller before, I can see you running into difficulties. Don't forget that when you buy a controller, it is like buying a blank Video Cassette, there is nothing already on there, and it is up to the user to be able to manually and accurately program each routine for each scanner individually.

I still believe that DMX controllers essentially belong on very large rigs, for touring bands and the theatre, and always with dedicated lighting operators. I stopped using a DMX controller myself, because it was basically a pain in the ar$e to have to switch between the different programs, and spend hours, changing the programs if I wanted something new.

Programming DMX Routines, especially when combining different effects can be very frustrating and time consuming.

As a Mobile DJ, I prefer either to simply have 2,3,or 4 items which have direct Master - Slave compatibility, and link them together, for most of the products from larger manufacturers, there are basic handheld controllers which do have either basic pre-programs, or enable you to control the features, such as Strobe, Blackout , slow mode, fast etc.

Wow!

It sounds more complicated than I thought and as I only use 2-4 effects DMX linked, I think I'll leave it at that!

The reason I asked in the first place was because I wondered if I could use the scans as a spotlight if need be.

I did get an AR1 simple controller with the NJD effects, but haven't tried it out yet.

Well there is some free dmx pc software out there. A lot of them allow you to change gobos/tilts etc on the fly without any need for programming.

I have a program called freestyler dmx- all i need to do now is make up the pic(microcontroller) and then I can control all my lights from the pc.

Nuff said.

Digital,

Have you got any links for the software?

I've tried googling for it, but I'm getting a French site and can't find the download.

Cheers

i will have a look into it as it's free software and on some really crumby website but does the job. I think chauvet might do something similar.

I will look into it though.

I gave up with DMX, found it too demanding for my ( large-ish) mobile. Now prefer to just mix and match, although I still have my Constella commander to control the colour changers. (Use them on mirror balls for 70s nights!)

It was just too much like hard work.

Same as Kingy, normally I use 4 or 6 Chameleon 4's in auto mode I have the Commando controller too, used in once or twice in the last 12 months.

Daz,

Spending money on an item which may be resigned to the cupboard after a few weeks, due to not having the interest or patience to spend hours figuring it out is a waste of time. One of the good points about this forum is that you can read the opinions of others and sometimes it may prevent you from wasting money on something superfluous to your needs .

Sadly, DMX is a protocol designed by engineers for engineers, having been originally intended to allow vast multiples of lights to be controlled from one desk using one cable daisychained to each effect, and as such it's not the most user friendly language to pick up. Most people who haven't encountered DMX before are under the impression that you buy a controller, plug it in and select a pattern. Lighting would be much more fun if it did work like that, but there is a lot of programming involved.

I'm not saying that it is impossible to learn, but DMX is like learning a foreign language -you do need to have the interest and determination to see it through.

For the Mobile DJ, it is far better to simply link em together, or buy a dedicated handheld controller for each set of effects.

Im going to take the plunge and learn all abour DMX and spend some time programing up some light shows, when its all sorted and have learnt this language then ill be happy to share how its all done in the forum... *watch this space"

DMX history

In the "olden days" when everything was run from dimmers, the level of each dimmer was controlled down a single wire; one wire for every dimmer. If you had 12 dimmers, you ran 12 wires, often bundled together in a "multicore". (In the really olden days you worked the dimmers by hand (and foot), but that's another story.)

This was okay until you were trying to control lots of dimmers, at which point the control cable became very big and expensive. The situation became worse when people started to control things other than dimmers, like colour scrollers.

A better solution was needed, ideally allowing lots of dimmers to be controlled down one cheap cable. The only way to do this is to send out each dimmer level in sequence, one after the other, and repeating the levels over and over. This is called "multiplexing", and one widely-used standard (there are others) is DMX (Digital MultipleX).

The DMX standard allows control of up to 512 dimmer channels, or other lighting units, down one 2-core cable.

DMX quick summary

DMX is a digital signal that can send up to 512 control channels down one 2-core cable. It can be used to control dimmers, colour scrollers, scanners, strobes, projectors, smoke machines and other stage equipment.

Each piece of equipment receiving the DMX signal has to be told which of the 512 channels it is responding to; this is done by setting the "DMX address" on each receiving unit. On Abstract equipment, and most other units, there are small switches ("dip switches") to set the address.

At the start of the link you have a controller. This unit generates the DMX signal. The DMX must then be connected to all the equipment which is to be controlled. The controlled units may be connected in any order. You do not have to connect the units in the same order as the DMX address.

On most DMX systems, you can only connect 16 units to one line. If you need to connect more, you have to use a DMX repeater. Abstract products have a repeater in each unit, so you can connect as many units as you like.

At the last unit in the line, you should connect a terminator plug. This stops the DMX signal "bouncing" off the end of the line and confusing the other units.

The DMX railway analogy

You could think of the DMX signal as a train with 512 carriages, each carriage containing a between 0 and 255 people, and think of each piece of equipment in the DMX chain as a station. The same train keeps going round and round the DMX circuit. When it gets to the controller, people get on and off and the number of people in each carriage changes.

Each piece of equipment is only interested in a certain number of channels; for example, 6 channel dimmer pack would be interested in 6 channels, a scan with control channels for Pan, Tilt, Colour and Gobo would be interested in 4 channels. Large scans can use up to 24 channels! (Information about DMX will be given in the instruction manuals for your equipment).

Each station (piece of equipment) in our DMX railway has someone stood on the platform counting the number of people in each carriage. We need to tell them which carriage they are interested in. To do this we set the DMX address on the equipment (usually by setting small switches). If we set the DMX address to 14 then the person on the station will count how many people in carriage 14 (if the unit is a 4 channel unit they will count how many people are in carriages 15,16 and 17 as well). This information tells the equipment which values it needs to set for each channel.

Many controllers do not output the full 512 channels. This has the effect of shortening the train - in the case of the Abstract CE controller, the train only has 64 carriages, so if you ask anyone to look for anything in carriages 65 and above (i.e. DMX channels 65-512) they won't find anything.

DMX wiring

Whilst there is a standard for DMX connectors (5 pin XLR, Pin 1=Screen, Pin 2=inverted data ('cold'), Pin 3=true data ('hot'), Pin 4='cold return' and Pin 5='hot return'), many manufacturers do not uphold the standard, mainly for reasons of cost.

Since very few people use the return facility it is possible to use 3 pin XLR connectors instead, reducing the cost to the customer. However some people wire them Pin 1='ground', Pin 2='cold' and Pin 3='hot' (taking the first half of the 5 pin standard), and other people use the European audio standard of Pin 1='ground', Pin 2='hot' and Pin 3='cold' (this is the one Abstract use).

DMX is a balanced line system, which means that a positive version of the signal is sent down the 'hot' wire and a negative version of the signal is sent down the 'cold' wire. When the signals are recombined at the receiver, any noise picked up on the line is cancelled out.

However, it's all too easy to end up with 'hot' and 'cold' connections reversed. This can cause lots of interesting effects because an upside-down DMX signal can sometimes look a bit like a real DMX signal, and it's not always obvious what the problem is.

Another common problem is excessive noise on the DMX. While the balanced line system can remove a lot of noise, if there is neon or other high voltages (even mains feeds) nearby, the level of noise picked up by the DMX cable can prevent the receivers understanding the signal. In extreme cases the noise may be so powerful that it blows up the receiver. Some products, including most of the Abstract range, have protection circuits fitted that will prevent this happening.

Quick Fixes

1. If nothing works - Reduce the system to one controller, one scan (or whatever). Connect a known working lead from the controller to the scan. If it works now, goto 2 otherwise goto 3.

2. Your wiring is faulty. Check the wiring of the connectors, that you've connected everything the right way round, no bad joints, no missing connections... it's also possible that another unit on the line is trying to override the DMX. If the wiring seems ok, connect the rest of the units up one at a time until you find the culprit.

3. Try a different controller or a different scan, if available. Either way the unit is probably faulty.

4. If the DMX works intermittently, or works all the time but occasionally does something strange, it's possible that one "leg" of the DMX is not connected and the system is using mains earth instead of the other DMX connection. You can check this by turning the system off, shorting out the far end of the DMX line and checking with a multimeter if you can detect the short at the controller end.

DMX VALUES

Abstract DMX products implement the standard USITT DMX512 protocol, with a few exceptions:

• Non-standard 3 pin XLR connectors are used for the data link, to allow standard microphone cables to be used. The 3 pin connector is wired pin 2 'hot' (true data) and pin 3 'cold' (invert data). The wiring of 3 pin connectors is not defined in the DMX standard, and on some other DMX products pins 2 and 3 are the other way round.

• The data link is regenerated in each unit. This means that you can effectively extend the DMX line indefinitely (unbuffered DMX is limited to 16 heads). It also means that you don't need to fit a terminator on the last unit in the line.

• The units normally respond to DMX startcode zero (defined by USITT as dimmer information) and dip switches 1-9 set the base receive channel. However, in stand-alone mode, they transmit and receive using a custom DMX startcode; dip switch 10 tells the unit whether to receive channels 1-4 or 5-8. A second custom startcode is used for setup commands. If you connect a non-CE range unit to the stand-alone lightshow it will probably not respond to it, unless it doesn't check for DMX startcode zero.

• CE units are equipped with a DMX auto-numbering system. Setting dip switches 1-9 to 'off' puts the unit in auto-number mode. When it completes initialisation it will send out a command giving its DMX channel to the next unit in line. Any unit receiving this command will send out a similar command giving its own DMX channel. If you have problems getting auto numbering to work, ensure that the first unit in the DMX chain is switched on last. Non-CE range products should ignore the auto number command. The autonumbering system is not included on recent Abstract products because it caused more confusion than it solved.

To add to why I actually stopped using the desk; basically I found that when working I needed to concentrate on the music and danceflood reaction rather than having my head in a controller all night. There is no point in having a DMX desk and leaving it on auto!!

I rang up Constella when I was setting it up, and asked how I could get red hearts all around the room, and strangly the Chameleons have orange hearts and red radiation stars, you would have thought red hearts were a must for DJ's............

Wow, Marky Mark

You wrote all that at ten to eight in the morning?

Obviously your brain works better than mine at that time!

cut and paste

No hint of sarcasm either Marky!

I couldn't even cut and paste that time of day.

In fact I still struggle with door handles before lunchtime.