Ferndale (SE) Michigan workshop

[caretaker]

Greetings DLA members,

On Saturday May 28th 2011 (yes it's labor day weekend)from 12pm till ?? I am having a small workshop/demo at my home and if there are any members who are (or will be) in the Detroit area and would like attend please email me at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login  The plans for the day are an overview of animated lighting, demo's of diffrent software packages, demos of Lynx Express and D-Light controllers including the new open DMX protocol plus hopefully smart strings and a few other goodies. Current plan also will have a small hot dog/hamburger or pizza dinner with attendees bringing there own beverage.  Thanks for your time. 

[sirloinofbeef001]

That is a great Idea .. I would love to be there but I'm to far away. There is a lot of new ppl that have tons of questions(like me) about many things that make up this event.  It would be nice to have experienced ppl set up shopsin different states so all of us could benefit from all the different bells and whistles of christmas shows.. So here's a holler to someone in Pennsylvania to do something like this to help spread the fun.. I would also say to all, post more demos / walkthroughs ect on our post. There are 2000+ ppl on the site now and growing with no knowledge of how it works.. So great Idea caretaker. Hope it turns out great..

[inzeos]

We are doing one in NY this Spring, might be a bit closer to you depending on where in PA you are.

[sirloinofbeef001]

South central...actually, york. The only person I know of around me is someone called Lucas, but he seems to be quite busy.

[sirloinofbeef001]

Where are you having this event at inzeos

[charles59]

What is the "open DMX" protocol?  Is that something different/new?  Or just a demo of DMX for those not familiar with it?

[tbone321]

Open DMX is more of a communication protocol which is based on the FTDI 232BM USB to serial converter.  With it, the PC does all of the formatting and timing issues that DMX requires and sends it in a format that the FTDI 232BM understands.  It then converts it to a serial stream and sends it directly to a 485 chip for output to the DMX universe.  While this makes the dongle inexpensive, it puts demands on the OC that Windows based PC's have issues with and unless you have a powerful clean running machine, you can wind up with dropped packets and glitching, especially if Windows decides to shift resources. 

[inzeos]

Where are you having this event at inzeos

In the Rochester, NY area up by Lake Ontario.  Working on finalizing the details now with the wife in terms of the day.

[sirloinofbeef001]

that's still a drive but I might try to pull it off. Thanks Inzeos

[caretaker]

What is the "open DMX" protocol?  Is that something different/new?  Or just a demo of DMX for those not familiar with it?

Daryl from D-Light decided to release his controllers without any programming on the PIC chip and members of the D-Light community have come up with a DMX protocol which works with the D-Light controllers. So like Renards you can now convert your D-Light controllers over to DMX if you want to use the same protocol for everything.