Program Express for standalone operation?

[njKeever]

Is it possible to program an Express to run a simple sequence on it's own? I have some trees I'd like to put three colors of lights on and just have it slowly fade between the colors. They are far away from the house so I'd prefer to not have to run CAT5, and even if wireless would work, I'd prefer not to have the added expense and tying up a computer to run them. I'm pretty sure it's possible since it wouldn't be much more complicated that the default test sequence, so the real question is how?

[pk]

It would require different firmware in the PIC.  The Express controls the channels based upon the DMX information sent to it. 

[tbone321]

As said, you would have to rewrite the firmware for the unit but why bother.  There are already units around that do that and if you are really into rewriting, you might want to lookat Renard.  There they have the firmwares source code available whic would make any rewrite a bit easier.  RJ does not release sourc code and doesn't really like the idea of mods to his units.

[njKeever]

Thanks tbone, I didn't realize the Express firmware was not open source.

[tbone321]

No problem.  If you are using Icans on thise far away trees, you might just want to put multi-function strings on them.  Most if them already have that color to color fade function built into them.

[njKeever]

Well, I've already got clear incans, red leds, and green leds. I'm going to search around and see if I can find an off-the-shelf product that can do this.