Another Entry-Level Possibility

**P. Short** · 01-18-2009, 11:46 PM

While looking for a stand-alone uart chip I came across the SN74LV8153 family of parts from TI. It might be useful for implementing a 8 to 64 channel (max) non-dimming controller (using 1 to 8 chips) which does not use any microcontroller, and would only require an RS232 receiver chip and power supply. It would need a new Vixen plugin, which wouldn't be hard to write. The disadvantages this chip are the difficulty of expansion (only 64 channels per serial port unless you use a microcontroller to create an expander) and being sole-sourced.

**NoobJacob** · 01-19-2009, 12:03 AM

I thought your Grinch was a good entry level board, unless you are talking about a chip that puts out 110 and doesn't require SSR's? If thats the case, that would be AWSOME!

**P. Short** · 01-19-2009, 05:48 AM

The Grinch is the best entry-level board that I am aware of right now, since it is fairly simple and non-intimidating But there are still issues with it. It uses the parallel port, which is becoming less and less common these days. Unlike the serial port there aren't any USB to parallel converters to allow you to add extra parallel port interfaces to laptops, so you are stuck with trying to all PCI interfaces to desktop/tower PCs. Many parallel ports do not put out the voltages required by the Grinch. And the signals put out by the parallel port are not intended for driving long distances. There are solutions to most of these problems, but they detract from the suitability as an entry-level solution.

**NoobJacob** · 01-19-2009, 12:36 PM

That's a good point and also the reason I went with the Renard! Even as a beginner though, I don't like not being able to dim lights, and would go with something more difficult to get it. I think it really adds a lot.

**A Marchini** · 01-19-2009, 08:44 PM

Originally Posted by P. Short

While looking for a stand-alone uart chip I came across the SN74LV8153 family of parts from TI. It might be useful for implementing a 8 to 64 channel (max) non-dimming controller (using 1 to 8 chips) which does not use any microcontroller, and would only require an RS232 receiver chip and power supply. It would need a new Vixen plugin, which wouldn't be hard to write. The disadvantages this chip are the difficulty of expansion (only 64 channels per serial port unless you use a microcontroller to create an expander) and being sole-sourced.

That is a pretty cool chip. And the cool thing for the new person is "no programming".
Could use 2 serial ports , one to select channel the other to pump out 64 bits at a time. Limited to 24kbs but that could crank a few channels of On/off no problem.

Tony M.