Quote Originally Posted by Festus View Post
Jack,
Not running LOR controllers in DMX mode... I figured I could just swap pins 1/2 - 4/5(use pinout adapter) and use the new S3 software to set up DMX on some channels... don't have a dongle.... I thought I read somewhere that the new S3 version eliminates the need for a dongle.
You need the dongle, or an E1.31 bridge of some type, to convert the data stream to RS485.

The controllers in question do not work on Ethernet, only RS485. The Renard controllers support RS232 but not in DMX mode; that speed is pushing the limitations of the RS232 standard.

Unless you have an E1.31 device, you will be using an USB-to-RS485 dongle of some type, like your LOR dongle.

RS485 is a differential current flow used for transport; the data framing is done in LOR, Renard, or DMX protocol. Those protocols cannot share the same wires.

In your case, you won't be able to combine LOR on pins 4-5 and Renard on 5-4 and DMX on 1-2. You could feed from the LOR to the Renard; the LOR won't recognize the Renard commands, because they'll be in "reverse polarity" but will pass the signal along, since the RJ45 is connected as a pass-through device. In the Renard boards, the signal run is terminated at the board, and regenerated to go back out. This allows the Renard to strip off the applicable part of the data stream and regenerates the balance of the data stream. However, since the LOR protocol is reverse polarity from Renard, it gets ignored and stopped at the first Renard board, since the Renard will only regenerate what it can understand.

To complicate matters more, LOR uses pin 3 of the RJ45 for +9 voltage and pin 6 for ground. They do this to power things like the iDMX1000 and the mini director from the controllers without having an external power supply. The problem with that is that for greater noise immunity, the Renard boards ground all wires except pins 4 and 5, shorting out the LOR controller power supplies and an DMX signal on pins 1 and 2.

So you can't get the same cable to carry mixed protocols because of differences in the controller designs, at least not without doing bypass adapters at each controller. And since the LOR software won't allow you to do multiple protocols per dongle, you'll either have to run everything DMX (including your LOR boards, assuming they have the current firmware on them) or have separate dongles for each protocol.

Oh yeah; Ethernet using an RJ45 for connection is also a differential current transport, but at a much higher data rate than RS485.

Just because the cable will fit, don't assume the protocol and/or transport will work.