Comments on: Halloween props: DMX controlled skeleton

By: Gilliam

Gilliam — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:01:20 +0000

she would make a good teacher for us when we were in kindergarten.

By: therian

therian — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:34:29 +0000

noooo hallowing attack, 3 more months of hallowing stuff

By: Blizzarddemon

Blizzarddemon — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:56:06 +0000

shouldn’t there be a Halloween tag for all these great hacks?

By: Xeracy

Xeracy — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:10:30 +0000

post any questions you have on DMX, i can probably answer them…

quick primer tho, DMX is a control signal typically used in stage lighting. it consists of a repeated burst of data, in packets of 512 bytes(referred to as channels). depending on the address of your device and how many channels it uses, the values are interpreted and correspond to some abritrary device function.

as seen in the video, the dimmer pack allows you to choose a start address (set to 1) and each pair of plugs is then addressed 1 thru 4. now any controller you use that outputs DMX will be able to tell that dimmer pack to adjust the voltage being sent to each circuit by changing the DMX channels 1 thru 4 (0 to FF or 0 to 255). an incandescent light bulb plugged into a circuit could then be dimmed on the fly. this is just one example of DMX controlling a device.

for actual technical signal information, i know arduino has a DMX library that explains a bit of that. I also used to know of a good site that had a lot of technical writeups on DMX, but i cannot find it now.

By: Calebkraft

Calebkraft — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:21:34 +0000

@concino,
Go to the monster list. There are people there doing similar things with oscillating fans. That’s real hacking there!

By: Concino

Concino — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:49:33 +0000

Well, it of course is simple if you have $1000 worth of ready to go equipment/materials etc. :-P

By: dnny

dnny — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:35:56 +0000

DMX is just like midi, it just has more channels and beter resolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMX512-A

DMX is kind of old protocol… the next thing is RDM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDM_(lighting)

But if you justh have one solenoid to controll, why bother whit DMX?

By: darksim905

darksim905 — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:17:34 +0000

I liked the way this was presented and explained. Anybody have links to other videos like this that explain DMX a bit more thoroughly?

By: The Hare

The Hare — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:03:03 +0000

DMX needs to stick to rapping, and stay away from my hobbies.

By: Caleb Kraft

Caleb Kraft — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:54:13 +0000

whoops, thanks thethirdmoose.

By: thethirdmoose

thethirdmoose — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:26:31 +0000

http://www.halloweenmonsterlist.info/

By: pRtkL xLr8r

pRtkL xLr8r — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:24:45 +0000

…and where do we find this Halloween monster list?