Low Cost Pixelnet to DMX option? (I.e. not the a hub)

[frankr]

Just wondering if anyone has talked about this type of option and I have just missed it.   I keep thinking it would be very useful to have a simple dongle with jumpers to select pixelnet universe and which 512 segment you want to have converted to DMX.  Just like how the hub works now but without all the overhead of a full blown hub. 

I keep running into scenarios where I want to be able to get the output of an etherdongle to DMX without having to breakout a hub to do so.


IS there anything out there like this?

I am I the only one that thinks this would be an interesting addition to our tool box?

Frank

[rrowan]

A big part of the cost of the Active hub is the micro-controller (pic) which is needed to generate the dmx data from the Pixelnet data.

I am assuming that you still need pixelnet. If not than run the EtherDongle in DMX mode with four DXM universes.

Rick R.

[frankr]

True, but the board size, 16 active pixelnet outs and all the associated rs485 driver chips add up as well.  Plus, the power supply setup makes it a bit bulky... pretty much everything you would need to build what I have in mind would fit into the standard dongle or wireless case (possibly even a smaller space like the SSC boards if you really worked the layout).  of course it would also suffer on the power supply front...

So yes it might not be an order of magnitude less expensive but would be noticeably less expensive and much more maneuverable...

Just my $.02...

[rm357]

Something like that should be possible with a board slightly longer than the ssc for the extra 485 chip needed for the dmx output and the selection jumpers... It could run off the 12v from a ss hub just like the ssc.

Who wants to design it?

RM

[RJ]

I am with Rick,

 If you are not using pixelnet why not start with DMX?
If you have the 12v feed from the hub that means you have a hub and can get dmx from it already?

RJ

[RJ]

I am with Rick,

 If you are not using pixelnet why not start with DMX?
If you have the 12v feed from the hub that means you have a hub and can get dmx from it already?

Almost seems like a solution looking for a problem to fill.

RJ

[frankr]

It was a brain storm on my part.  I wasn't even thinking about taking 12v from a hub.

I was thinking there are 16K channels coming out of an etherdongle so just for the sake of argument lets say I have two hubs and am using 3900 channels for pixelnet on each hub. That leaves me with 384 channels that I can pull from the hubs as DMX.

I have many more channels than that available but to get any more than that I need to add another hub, which as I mentioned is a bulky item (as it should be).

My thought was that all the components that are needed to get those extra DMX channels are a small subset of a full blown hub so why not have that smaller device?

Thats all I was thinking about.  Just my idle mind trying to fill in gaps.

Again just my brainstorm...
(the above example is how I ran my show last year.  I had an extra dongle so the extra DMX was easy to come by.  but with the ehterdongle and conductor solution I could see wanting to get more DMX out and not having away to do it short of adding another hub...)

 

Frank

[RJ]

Ok, with an explianation I can see it makes more sense.

RJ

[dowdybrown]

I, too, would find an ssc-like pixelnet to dmx converter very useful. In my setup, I have 1800 smart string channels, and 3 universes worth of other dmx equipment. Could certainly keep doing what I did last year - use 1 pixelnet dongle and 2 dmx dongles; but if I could get down to 1 dongle, I would do it.

Don't know if it's possible, but if the etherdongle could support 2 pixelnet and 2 dmx outputs, that would work too - without requiring any new boards.

Matt

[tbone321]

Making the hub do that would require a full redesign of the hub.  If you are going to design a new board, it would make much more sense to design a converter only and leave the hub alone.