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VDMX/QC to lights via Enttec DMX USB Pro? I'm having a hard time trying to figure out a very simple lighting rig from my mac to a single light over an enttec dmx usb pro. Does anyone have any experience with this box? It's an ftdi thing, so I'm assuming artnet won't work, but I'm willing to try just about anything. I just need to be able to send midi and get this light to turn on and off. |
Not going to happen. The FTDI OS X drivers have major stability issues resulting in system instability under fairly normal conditions, and FTDI has made no indication that they're going to be fixing this.
See also:
However, ethernet-based Art-Net DMX output (using the ENTTEC ODE, for example) has worked well for us.
I'm curious about what a setup with the ode looks like, do I have to get two of them in order to come back out from ethernet to dmx? Seems very costly.
Also, aren't there some third party FTDI drivers out there as well? I thought I read that somewhere...
I use the DMX USB Pro with an external in Max/MSP, which works really well: http://www.nullmedium.de/dev/dmxusbpro/
If you're looking for a free alternative, the above may work with Pure Data, or you can send serial messages from Processing. I've also used the latter, and whilst it's more complex than Max or Pure Data, it works.
I was gonna say the same thing Koda...so since you stole my thunder there he can also use this one (I have both):
http://prodavid.wordpress.com/dmax/
Ok!
So, I got the Enttec Open DMX Ethernet box. Let's see if I can get it working. I have my mac plugged into it via ethernet and then the box plugged into one light (it's a UV LED floor light) via DMX.
In my network settings I set my IP to 2.0.0.2 and my subnet mask to 255.0.0
Next I tried opening the send/receive quartz comp. In the viewer it looks like... something... is happening? The top number is rolling but the bottom number is static.
I can't really make heads or tails of any of the other example compositions. None of them spark any sort of activity on the light.
All I need to figure out for this show is how to turn the uv light on and off and how to fade colors on an rgb led light. I will send pizzas and my firstborn to anyone who can help out. We are trying to augment the regular VDMX set of a show with lights.
weevil@wileywiggins.com
If you didn't use NME to reconfigure your enttec box (which I wouldn't recommend anyway), I think by default the network address is in the range of 10.x.x.x.
So your computer address should be something like 10.0.0.2 / submask 255.0.0.0
Be sure to set the right address in your QC patch as well.
I tried using the NMU to find the box but it didn't see the device. I found an article on the Enttec site that says you can't use crossover to plug into the box on the mac, you need a router. So I'm going to pick up a router and try again tonight.
Assuming that's going to get it working, I saw the video where they show an example of mapping faders to a structure patch and then sending that to an rgb light, I'm assuming I'll be able to copy that. But I also need a composition to simply turn another series of lights on and off with a midi command. Is there a composition floating around that would demonstrate that?
If you unpack the box, set your ethernet port to 10.0.0.2 / 255.0.0.0 , it will work with the supplied example, assuming you are controlling a 1 channel device, using normalized values (== you are sending a 0-1 float number, where 0 is off, 1 is full on).
I would do this BEFORE trying to fiddle with NMU.
Start with only ONE light, that has only ONE control channel, set to channel #1. Once you get it working, add more lights.
Hope this helps.
I'll try again with the router and not mess with the nmu.
Which example are you referring to, there are a few compositions in the examples and they don't seem to be documented.
Some success!
I didn't have a router handy, and plugging in directly is evidently no good on the mac: http://www.enttec.com/support-center/kb/article/000075
However, I do have an airport extreme handy that I'm not using.
I plugged the ODE into an airport extreme and then reconfigured the airport with the settings I saw in a Luminaire how-to pdf (I'm not using Luminaire, but it seemed to be general instructions for just setting up a dmx interface).
I then connected to the airport express with the macbook. I tried opening some of the artnet tools example compositions, and I wasn't able to tell if I was getting any communication, but when I opened the NMU app (I know you said not to mess with it... I didn't configure anything, I just took a peek). It shows the ODE! There's an IP address and a MAC address there, and it shows the device name as OPEN DMX.
Now If I can just figure out how to get it to do something...
Hey i'm using it on a mac without a switch or router, just straight up connected. the NMU has a hard time seeing the device, but I can send DMX and control lights no problem - and thanks Franz for helping me get it setup :P (I had made the same mistake of trying to configure it with the NMU app, but apparently that's crap and has trouble connecting).
Fooey. If I go straight in I get nothing. Which example composition are you using? 'Composite'? Are you using a midi controller as well?
I think a lot of the issue I am having may be that I'm having a hard time putting my light into DMX mode because the manual that came with it nicely refers to buttons and settings that don't exist on it. Hopefully when I get that ironed out it will start working.
what dmx fixture are you using ? usually, you set the device to dmx mode via dip-switches.
The light is an american DJ UVLED Bar 16 flood light. It's got a mode button that you cycle through to get it into DMX mode, only the DMX option isn't showing up for me. I think it may have to do with the fact that we put it in slave mode previously.
I may go ahead and rent an RGB light to do my testing with this weekend.
Here's some video of our show (sans lights) if anyone is interested: http://vimeo.com/16682671
Alright- I just ran out and rented an rgb led light with good old fashioned dip switches. I'm going to try again.
Can anyone tell me what horrible mistakes I have made? I'm sure at this point there must be several. Right now everything is plugged into an airport extreme and I've got wireless off on it.
I've got the subnet set to 7 in the quartz comp because the one time the NMU was able to see the box, it showed its ip address as being 10.7.98.0 I don't know if it's still the same now because the NMU no longer sees it, but I don't have a windows machine handy to try looking for it again.