"Open DMX Ethernet", Open Source???

[DynamoBen]

Stumbled on this today, wonder if they will provide a schematic and source code. It does say "open" which meant previously that they would....hmmm wait and see.

http://www.enttec.com/index.php?main_menu=Products&prod=70305&show=description&name=ode

[mrpackethead]

thats got me thinking!!!

I guess that we'll need a plugin for vixen to do dmx over ethernet!!!

Perhaps we should be looking to do our 'applicances' as dmx over ethernet 'receivers' as well..

DIY lighting guys will have to be network engineers as well as electricans, artists, musicians, computer techs.. carpenters, welders.... cooks and bottle washers!

[DynamoBen]

I guess that we'll need a plugin for vixen to do dmx over ethernet!!!


Already in progress.

[mrpackethead]

i'm just wondering what the reletive cost of doing ethernet based dmx receiver module is over the cost of doign a rs485 module..

Everyone (almost) has an ethernet card in their computer.. if we did an ethernet based controller, then we have just elimated the need for a usb/dmx on 485 dongle.

[DynamoBen]

The cost isn't a ton more, the overhead is all in firmware. However while you eliminated the dongle you've also shorten the effective distance. Ethernet is 328' whereas DMX is 5000'.

[mrpackethead]

Mmm.. 95m/385' is the limit on ethernet huh? ...

Its probably worth noting that is just 'part' of the rules surrounding ethernet.. The maximum distance on a single link of cat5 is 95m.. (if you want to say within the rules, it does work further, but you start getting problems at some point past that, depending on whats plugged into it, how your calbe was installed, and how well your terminations were done..) You can have an flat ethernet network, thats got up to 5 'repeaters' diameter ( ie a switch/hub ).. so you can actually have a theortical maximum distance of 6 x 95m if you pin it all together with copper..Then of course you've got the option to use fibre.. I personally have implemented ethernet over fibre that has spanned 85km, (~55mi) using the appropriate fibre..

Wifi is also quite an option.. and not a bad one either.. Home wifi routers are cheap and .. If fact an interesting project is brewing in my head there!!

Not sure if you are aware of a open source project called 'open wrt'.. ( www.openwrt.org ) . It takes a stock linksys, or any number of other wifi routers and reflashes them with a linux kernal.. Anyway.. i wonder if we could take a stock linksys wrt54gl box, stick some DMX over ethernet code on it, and then do some smarts in terms of some kind of controller on the back of it.. There might even be a *nix impementation of dmx / ethernet out there allready, whic could get ported across.

We could make the box, a bridge to rs485 based dmx, as it has a UART onboard, we'd just need to add a transceiver somewhere.. We could also probably also make it do some direct control of some devices that provide PWM output etc, or control some SSR boards etc.. Some thinking about this and a little bit of intial research might be a go-er..

I knew i needed yet another lighting project.. Maybe i should eat chocolate instead.

[DynamoBen]

You mean like this?
http://www.nomis52.net/?section=projects&sect2=artnet&page=node

BTW I used to certify networks for lighting installations so I'm aware of the limitations and possibilities of Ethernet networking (copper and fiber). BTW there is a big difference between what can be done and what should be done.

[mrpackethead]

Hey, they stole my idea, 6 months before i thought of it :-)...

Idea is similar.. I'll certainly read up those web pages, looks like much of th work is done.. I dont' think however that you need to have the opendmx dongle, that seems largely redundant to me...


Edit: breifly looked at the code.. Thats goign to be easy to hack together to directly drive a rs485 based bridge of the wrt box.. ( will need a tiny daughter board inside the box, a dremel to hack some of the 'ethernet' ports, and make them 'dmx-rj45' ports.. and some thin wire to do the jumpering.. Shoud'nt be too hard to make it do multi-universe bridging as well.

Maybe it can be done for $75-$80..

I had'nt contemplated doing an dmx-bridge work this year.. I was concentrating on the other end..

[DynamoBen]

You're right about the dongle but still a fun project to look at.

[mrpackethead]

You're right about the dongle but still a fun project to look at.

And very much within the scope of confident DIYers.

[DynamoBen]

With one catch...there is no ArtNet plugin at this time.

[mrpackethead]

With one catch...there is no ArtNet plugin at this time.

No artnet plugin for Vixen that is no-doubt.. Is anyone working on that?
Vixen is such a great bit of code.. adding this to that woudl be much greatness.

[DynamoBen]

No work as of today. I've been focusing my efforts on ACN which is the new official standard. ArtNet was designed to promote the need for a lighting Ethernet standard and is still in use in Europe.

[mrpackethead]

No work as of today. I've been focusing my efforts on ACN which is the new official standard. ArtNet was designed to promote the need for a lighting Ethernet standard and is still in use in Europe.

Maybe then ACN is the right way to go.. Just googled that, and theres unix libarys for the code, that most likely can be ported across...

Its got me thinking...

[Entropy]

Of course, you have to all say this after:

1) I bought a bunch of random parts at my local electronics store. (Well, not quite so random - the minimum stuff to play with AVR-USB on my Boarduino, plus some random temperature sensing/motor control stuff.)

2) I resisted the urge to buy a Buffalo router as a hack toy at Circuit City. The Buffalo WHR-G54S is $50 in B&M stores and less elsewhere, and is very well supported by DD-WRT. I wonder how fast the GPIO pins on that router could bit-bang to an external interface... I know people have implemented SD via the GPIO pins to add external storage, not sure how fast they clocked that.

Actually, if you installed a realtime kernel (not sure if RT_PREEMPT works on MIPS architecture CPUs like the Broadcom one in many wireless routers) you might be able to bitbang DMX straight out of the box...

As to distance limits - While the limit would be 95m for Cat5 or 6x95 for Cat5 with basic repeaters, I see no reason why daisy chained store-and-forward switches couldn't go MUCH farther... But how many people actually need 95m in a single direction?

[mrpackethead]

2) I resisted the urge to buy a Buffalo router as a hack toy at Circuit City. The Buffalo WHR-G54S is $50 in B&M stores and less elsewhere, and is very well supported by DD-WRT. I wonder how fast the GPIO pins on that router could bit-bang to an external interface... I know people have implemented SD via the GPIO pins to add external storage, not sure how fast they clocked that.


DD-WRT is ok, i'd personally being using open-wrt, its less freindly, but more flexible.. DD-WRT is a deritive work of open-wrt anyway, and much of the code is interchangeable..

[mrpackethead]

Have you seen any open acn code about the place?

[DynamoBen]

Yup:

Full ACN:
http://www.engarts.eclipse.co.uk/acn/openacn.html

DMX-over-ACN
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=200

[mrpackethead]

Yup:

Full ACN:
http://www.engarts.eclipse.co.uk/acn/openacn.html

DMX-over-ACN
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=200
Google did'nt even get close to finding this...

Sigh.. but thanks heaps.

[Entropy]

2) I resisted the urge to buy a Buffalo router as a hack toy at Circuit City. The Buffalo WHR-G54S is $50 in B&M stores and less elsewhere, and is very well supported by DD-WRT. I wonder how fast the GPIO pins on that router could bit-bang to an external interface... I know people have implemented SD via the GPIO pins to add external storage, not sure how fast they clocked that.


DD-WRT is ok, i'd personally being using open-wrt, its less freindly, but more flexible.. DD-WRT is a deritive work of open-wrt anyway, and much of the code is interchangeable..
Good point. For a project like this, it's probably time for me to experiment with OpenWRT.

I wonder how fast it can bitbang stuff to the GPIOs...

I recall someone mentioning Gumstix - they happen to have a series of Robostix addon boards that provide an AVR microcontroller for timing sensitive stuff.

[mrpackethead]

From their web site.

Born from the Open DMX USB and DMX USB PRO, the ODE is the industry's first affordable DMX Ethernet gateway. Out of the box, the ODE is configured as an Art-Net output node on universe 0:0 but can be easily and quickly changed using the free NMU tool. This means there are no dip-switches or thumb wheels to worry about on the ODE. The ODE is perfect for distributing DMX signals over Cat5 in a cost effective manner or with wireless ethernet systems.

http://www.enttec.com/index.php?main_menu=Products&prod=70305&show=description&name=ode

Priced at just US$249, it probably will be not very popular among the diy crowd.

I'm very keen to get one to take the top of!!

[DynamoBen]

Apparently they decided not to go open source this time...bummer.

[saladman]

Did anybody ever give this a go, and get it working? DMX over ethernet would work perfectly at my house, where I've already installed the appropriate cat5 cable on both the left and right side of the driveway (so no more xlr cables driven over nightly.)

[DynamoBen]

Did anybody ever give this a go, and get it working? DMX over ethernet would work perfectly at my house, where I've already installed the appropriate cat5 cable on both the left and right side of the driveway (so no more xlr cables driven over nightly.)

There are a couple of active projects at the moment here that are Ethernet based. Depending on what you need it to do one of them might work well.

If you are looking for an Ethernet platform to create a custom controller, the PropController might work. If you are doing RGB pixel strings jstjohnz project is worth a look. If you are just looking for an etherenet to DMX interface you could make one with the Parallax Spinnerett and the PropController code. You could also run DMX over those cat5 cables.

In short you have lots of options. ;)