Buying wall washers and need to know what to do

[Sloanhaus]

I am going to be buying wall washers to run off my express. I am buying the led ones so that I can change colors. What exactly do I need to buy to run these on the express using vixen. I do plan on having wireless going to the board. Someone had mentioned xlr cable and needing a converter, can someone please explain what I will need to be able to run off of vixen. Thanks



Sloan

[WWNF911]

Are you talking about the MR16 LEDS Brad? If so the Express is not designed to run those. MR16's use 12 Volts DC. You can get the 16 channel Lynx MR16 controller for those and if you want wireless you'll need a stand alone receiver.

Hope that helps.

Leon

[Sloanhaus]

No, I am talking about buying something like this

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[Murl]

It looks like the wall washer has a DMX decoder built in, so all you need is: Vixen, the Lynx USB DMX dongle, and an adapter cable.  No Express or MR16 required.

For the adapter cable, you'll need an RJ45 for the Lynx dongle on one end, and an XLR for the wall washer on the other end.  You can get the pinouts here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Of course, you don't have to plug your adapter directly into the dongle.  For example, if you're going to have a wireless Express, you can connect your adapter to the 'DMX out' port of the Express instead.

Hope this helps...

[WWNF911]

Wow Brad! I'll have to see your videos for 2009. 

[Sloanhaus]

Ok, you say I wont need to use an express,,, now I am lost... how will I control it through vixen if I dont use an express. Are you saying that I just hook up a wire directly from the dongle to the led light and than program using vixen? Also, has anyone used the software in vixen to run something like this,,, I am wondering if I am able to select the color I want and vixen figures out what intensity level to set the different channels at. Basically, I am wanting to be able to have lots of different colors at my disposal.

Thanks all

Sloan

[vairmoose]

Brad,

    Take a look at the RGB add-in for Vixen.   I think that might help on your quest for control of color.   It  groups 3 channels.   

According to the information on the auction,  the wall washer recognizes DMX-512 data directly... no additional controller required.   Just conser the wall-washer as one additional controller in your spiderweb of controllers.   

Larry   

[Sloanhaus]

OK, let me explain what I am trying to do and maybe that will help.

I am wanting to take 6 or 7 wall washers and have them run independent of each other, so that I can do chases and change the colors differently. I am also wanting to be able to use a software where I can click on red and than have it go to blue by using all the colors inbetween. I dont want to have to figure out intensity levels to get my desired color, I would like to have software that has a color matrix that I can just click on the color I want. This light is suppose to give me 16 million different colors. I dont believe that you can do this with vixen, so my next question is, can any dmx software work with the express?

[KeithTarpley]

Greetings,,,

DMX is a standard, like serial, parallel, etc.  If something uses the DMX standard then it will work with other items that use the standard.  The only issues are connectors, etc.  Just like other standards have different connector issues.  The info is on the wiki for connectors.  People here have already tried different software with some of the units without any extra problems.

Keith

[Sly]

You should still be able to use this wall washer with vixen. You will need to to make a rj45 to xlr cable and they can be daisy chained together with your other controllers up to 32 devices. (See the wiki for more info on hooking up dmx devices. Each wall wash will be on device). Vixen can control it if you can find out how many channels each wash uses and what each channel is for. I.E. Channel 1 controls red, channel 2 controls green, channel 3 controls blue, channel 4 controls strobe, etc. (Each dmx light is going to vary by model and manufacturer as to how many channels and what each channel does). A quick google did not give any info on the wall washers you were referring to and no brand name or model was given. If you can find more info on it you should be able to use it with vixen and even using other software you will still generally have to know how many channels it uses and what the channels do to control it.

[ron d]

Earlier on this topic there is a 5 pin xlr and cat 5 pinout. Is there a 3 pin xlr pinout available? 

[n1ist]

The 3 pin XLR is wired the same as pins 1-3 on the 5-pin XLR.
/mike

[ron d]

so just the orange and white/orange need to be used? below is what is says and i assume there is no ground? Amazing what i am expecting from 2 tiny wires to communicate to a bunch of dmx stuff.

The following are the pinouts, assuming TIA-568B for the RJ45 end.

For the Lnyx Equipment
XLR Pin 1 (GND) ----> N/C
XLR Pin 2 (-ve) ----> RJ45 Pin 2 (Orange)
XLR Pin 3 (+ve) ----> RJ45 Pin 1 (White/Orange