DiyLightAnimation

Hardware => Bobcat DMX Servo Controller => Topic started by: soakes94 on December 28, 2011,

Title: Set DMX address as 0?
Post by: soakes94 on December 28, 2011,

If I wanted to use only 3 servo channels and 4 LED channels, is there a way to hide the other channels if that makes sense so that I dont have 5 Servo channels and 4 LED channels sitting in my sequence empty? Its for a moving head, my plan is 1 servo bottom to make it spin left and right and 1 servo each side of the light to make it easier on the servo's to move it up and down. So servos 2 & 3 would both be on the same channel. So it would be 6 channels per light (Left Right / UP Down / RGB+W) I would use some high power leds and mount it in a custom perspex box.

I just was wondering if there was a way to hide the unused channels so I'm not wasting channels and it makes it easier for sequencing and stuff.

Cheers
Stephen

Title: Re: Set DMX address as 0?
Post by: n1ist on December 28, 2011,

In DMX, you can have multiple devices responding to the same channel.  Since you can program each servo or LED's channel individually, just set the unused ones to one of the channels you are using.  They will do the same thing, but since there is nothing connected to them, it doesn't matter.  So on board 1, the servos would be on DMX channels 1,2,3,1,1,1,1,1 and on board 2, 4,5,6,4,4,4,4.  Or even beter, 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2 so if something happened to one output, you could just move the cable over without reconfiguring everything.

This would even work for devices where you can only set the start address.  If you have an LE starting at channel 1, and another at 5, and only use the first 4 outputs of the first one, there would be no gaps in your channels, however, the remaining 12 outputs of the first LE would be the same as the first 12 of the second.

As for channel 0, there is no such critter in DMX; channels start at 1.

/mike

Title: Re: Set DMX address as 0?
Post by: Steve Gase on December 28, 2011,

Are you seeking to hide them in your sequencing software? 
If so, can you not remove the undesired channels in that software?

Title: Re: Set DMX address as 0?
Post by: soakes94 on December 28, 2011,

It was really just to save channels and make it easier to understand in my head since I have a bad habbit of forgetting about blank channels when setting up and then spending hours troubleshooting why I cant get it to work.

And as for the solution from n1ist, I have no idea why I didnt think of that before haha.

Cheers
Steve