state of renard dmx firmware

[ptone]

Still new and trying to decide between LE and Renard

I'm certain I want to use DMX - so leaning toward LE

Can't find much about the DMX support on renard's beyond this brief bit on the wiki:

http://www.christmasinshirley.com/wiki/index.php?title=Renard_Firmware#DMX_firmware

Does this mean one should be prepared to generate hex and reflash with this firmware (you might guess - haven't really done much of this yet).

Does the beta firmware run on all the various flavors of ren 24 (ss, lv, etc)

How does one set the start address, or does it default to channels 1-24?

Just want to know if buying a renard board would be bad for a novice who wants to use DMX

-Preston

[dirknerkle]

Renard's DMX firmware actually works quite well. You could build a Renard SS8 controller for less than $50, so it's not a lot of money to get started and find out whether Renard is the right thing for you. Later, if you decided not to use it, there are plenty of DIYC folks who'd buy it from you.

If your goal is to animate other external devices such as talking heads, servos, and the like, then DMX is probably the right way to go. But if it's only lighting control, you'd be hard pressed to find anything better than a Renard.

[DynamoBen]

If your goal is to animate other external devices such as talking heads, servos, and the like, then DMX is probably the right way to go. But if it's only lighting control, you'd be hard pressed to find anything better than a Renard.

If you expand beyond lighting and into talking heads, servo, and what not you may want to consider the PropController. By this time next year one control board will allow DMX (or ethernet) control of everything from dimmers, to LEDs, to servos. Food for thought.

Renard has a long history here and a lot of users. Regardless of the controller you pick you are getting the support of the entire community which can be invaluable.

[dmcole]

Just want to know if buying a renard board would be bad for a novice who wants to use DMX


Preston:

I think for a first board, a Lynx Express is hard to beat (disclosure: I have an LE sitting here unbuilt and just ordered my first Renard, so am basing this on features rather than experiences). The chip comes flashed, the start-address is easy to set, it's pretty much solder-and-go.

Renard DMX channel-setting requires compiling the C code into hex and then flashing the chip. It uses a "greedy" method of processing DMX -- all the DMX channels that an individual Renard processes are "eaten" by that Renard. If your Renard is set for Channel 16 and has eight channels, the next DMX device in the daisy-chain will not see Channels 16-23, which may or may not be a good thing, depending upon your wiring setup.

I'm going to be building at least one Renard device, but plan on having it run on its own branch of DMX so that I don't have to daisy-chain anything behind it, just because of its "greedy" nature.

Regardless, as time progresses, you'll probably want to branch out into various other boards that run DMX. The Lynx line is the vision of one individual who keeps his firmware, schematics and board designs to himself. There are just too many people here -- Phil Short, DynamoBen, Budude, RPM, N1ist (the list goes on and on) -- who are interested in DMX, are actively designing devices and openly sharing their firmware, schematics and board designs. Some will be based on Renard and others will be pure DMX. You can pick-and-choose what you want.

Which is probably more than you wanted to know.

HTH.

\dmc

[budude]

As dmc mentioned, the Renard/DMX is definitely different than standard DMX devices. All of the Ren/DMX PICs can be set with the default starting address of '1' and this goes for all the PICs in all the controllers. The first PIC determines it needs the channel information for channels 1-8 which it removes and then passes on the rest. This means that all the data regenerated by the PIC is now offset by 8 channels. The next PIC inline, since it is also address '1' does the same thing and so on and so on. Essentially, the address is automatically set merely by it's location within the chain. While different than hard/soft-coded DMX devices like the LE, it's simpler to set up in some ways also. If you have only Ren/DMX devices, then the end result is no different. It does however get a bit complicated if you mix-n-match 'normal' DMX devices since they act differently. One way around this is to put all those devices first and then have one of the Ren/DMX controllers with a starting address past these devices.

With that said and again as dmc mentioned, there are other projects like DynamoBen's Propeller dimmer and RPM's various gadgets that act like regular DMX devices so you have several choices here. I personally like the open sharing done here but frankly the larger percentage of folks aren't designing their own gear - they just want something that works so in that regard, either controller would be a good choice.

[ron d]

I started with allot of renard then found the lynx stuff. At the end of this year I will have 350-450 channels of renard controllers for sale as I am half way to replacing and converting to lynx.
The renard can run dmx and I considered switching the renard to dmx last year but I felt long term the lynx was easily the better choice for me. Rj's wireless is also working flawlessly as well as the standalone wireless for dmx fixtures.
I guess this is just me stating my opinion but if i knew then I wouldnt have a pair or ren 64's and a bunch of ssrs and 10-15 ren 24's going up for sale after this season.

[mschell]

Having built both LE's and Renards, it's probably a toss-up as far as assembly, etc. It's not that hard to assemble and/or load the Renard/DMX firmware on most of the cards. I, myself, have only run it on the Ren48LSD and Ren24LV, as I was mostly interested in DC based control.

The LE is probably better for a first time build, as it is easier to set or change the address of the card.

I've had a mix of different controllers over time, and while it's nice to stay with just one card or one protocol, it's not necessary to just run one. I plan to keep my different cards, and just run them with LSP and an ECG-DMXRen8 gateway. You could do the same with just two different dongles, one for Renard and one for DMX and still have it work with LSP or Vixen.

All in all, it's different strokes for different folks, but know that there's lots of folks running the Ren/DMX firmware out here, so don't feel like you'd be blazing the trail by yourself.

[Matt_Edwards]

if you want 16ch DMX, are willing to solder, and want a pre-programmed micro-controller, I don't think you can go past RPMs 16ch DMX SSR boards.

Quality is excellent ( not that I am implying others aren't)
Layout is simple,
Support is also good.

As far as I can see it would meet all the requirements for IEC 60950 / UL1950 safety testing too. I can't say that so all boards in this hobby.

The only draw back is most member are PIC only ppl.

I too am biased to DMX, and have no experience on Renard DMX.