What is DMX?

This is a brief over view of DMX,

DMX is a protocol originally designed for  the dimming of theatre lighting. Imagine having even just four lights that's four cables if you want to be able to control each light independently.

Now multiply that by say fifty that's 200 lights and 200 cables as you can see that's a lot of cables

It was agreed soon after DMX 512 was invented that it would be "shared" so that it could become an "industry standard"

The DMX controller (or computer) sends small "bits" of information down down a single small cable, each DMX unit ( it can be a switcher, dimmer, light, fog machine etc) is set to a specific address, (one of 512) the unit will only react to information for the address to that which it is set to. a bit like a post man delivering the post, each letter goes to a specific address.

The information received at that address determines what the DMX receiver does. In its simplest of forms (for example) a light will switch on or off, more sophisticated DMX receivers can also dim the light. Some modern day disco lights have 6 DMX channels (some 12) :

Example

1 Dim light, 2 Colour of light, (coloured glass filters in front of light) 3 Move mirror left / right 4, Move mirror up and down 5 Pattern put in front of light (gobo) 6 speed of strobe effect (another wheel in front of the light)

Since we mostly supply Asynchronous  (variable speed) pumps if these are connected to a DMX dimmer the pump can have its speed reduced to what ever is required, reducing the height of the fountain jet. Similarly if transformers for lights are connected to a DMX dimmer these too can be dimmed. When run by our access software this makes a musical fountain.

The DMX dimmers we supply can be set to any one of the 512 DMX addresses, but since they are 4 channel they are usually set as follows:

Dimmer 1 channels 1-4  Dimmer 2 channels 5-8 Dimmer 3 channels 9-12 etc

So each Channel does a specific thing.

For example addresses 1-8 operate pumps and 9-12 operate lights