Manolator DMX dongle

[fstone35]

Hi
Has anyone tried writing a Vixen plug-in to use the Manolator DMX dongle? It's cheap and easy to build and it would be nice to see it work with Vixen.

[butylarz]

Hi
I'm also looking for plug-in Manolator.

[Matt_Edwards]

This might be a dumb question, have you tried the Entec Open plugin?

[dmcole]

I don't think there's going to be much interest in writing a Manolator plug-in for Vixen. There's two reasons:

*The first is that it runs off the parallel port of a PC; there are lots of posts on this and other forums debating the long-term usefulness of parallel ports, but the truth of the matter is that computers with built-in parallel ports are not made any more. So, for a plug-in author, this would be a product for a contracting market, not an expanding one.

*It depends upon the computer to deliver the DMX signal. The Vixen community has found that devices that depend on the operating system for the DMX signal do not drive music-synchronized lights very well, because of the inherent lack of multi-tasking capabilities of the Windows OS. Those who have experimented with the Open DMX devices -- of which the Manolator is one, albeit using a parallel port -- have not had a great deal of success in running music-synchronized shows.

Also, at this time Vixen is in flux; nobody knows whether the next version will support the same plug-in architecture as the 2.1 or 2.5 versions (which are different as well). Until the 3.0 version of Vixen is out, I would doubt you would have much success in finding someone who would write any kind of plug-in.

Now that his foot is better, I'm sure Labrat will start again on the USB2DMX (Yada) http://www.christmasinshirley.com/wiki/index.php?title=USB2DMX. While not as inexpensive as the Manolator, it's still under $30, which is a drop-in-the-proverbial-bucket if you're building a holiday-lights show.

\dmc

[lowrider3121]

is the labrat unit one of the start units like RPM's and RJ unit

[dmcole]

This might be a dumb question, have you tried the Entec Open plugin?

Oh, and I meant to ask that too ...

\dmc

[Matt_Edwards]

As DMC says there won't be much interest in a plugin. The PIC based Manolator dongle is only good for 256 channels. The Entec Open is good for 512 channels. If you have experience with Manolator software, the open widget will also work with Vixen.

[dmcole]

is the labrat unit one of the start units like RPM's and RJ unit

Take a look at that wiki page ... I don't know what you mean by "start unit," but the RPM and RJ dongles are near clones of the Enttec Pro and use the Enttec Pro plug-in; the YADA device uses its own plug-in and is not an Enttec Pro clone.

HTH.

\dmc

[RavingLunatic]

is the labrat unit one of the start units like RPM's and RJ unit


Info on Labrat's project:

http://www.christmasinshirley.com/wiki/index.php?title=USB2DMX

[lowrider3121]

the rpm one and rj unit do the trans coding work on the board and not the pc. I read somewhere that this unit puts the load on the pc cpu.

http://www.enttec.com/index.php?main_menu=Products&pn=70303&show=description

[LabRat]

Labrat's unit appears to have a FW issue for certain channels. I need to track this down, so don't recommend new people adopting it until that time.

On the bright side.. I'm back to thinking about this now. :)

[dmcole]

Labrat's unit appears to have a FW issue for certain channels. I need to track this down, so don't recommend new people adopting it until that time.

On the bright side.. I'm back to thinking about this now. :)

Oh, good. I like the bright side.

\dmc