DMX and Arduino
I’ve been googling how to transmit DMX via an Arduino… and following up on links in the DMX512 section at the Arduino: Playground…
Daniel Hirschmann’s Super DMX Shield
Ideally I’d like to buy a ready-made shield:
- SK pang electronics have an Arduino DMX Shield with USB Card Holder that uses the Tinker.it DmxSimple Library (there’s a video walkthrough on Vimeo) for ~£26 inc VAT – but it’s currently out of stock.
- But sadly the Tinker.it DMX Shield itself looks like it’s no longer available…
So it looks like I’ll be making a shield:
- Daniel Hirschmann’s Super DMX Shield seems the best bet – and since I know Daniel from Jason Bruges Studio I’m going to drop him a line to see if he has a ready-made shield, kit, or at least an etched board available. He also has online notes, resources and code examples as part an Interactive Lighting Workshop run via Openlabs which should also be really useful. [Update] Daniel does have a ready-made shield available which he’s offered at parts price and I should receive within a couple of weeks. Yay!
- There’s an arduino to DMX project listed on the monome forums – using the DmxSimple code and a shield built using instructions found at the DMX512 section at the Arduino: Playground.
- Thomas Jespersen has posted about an Arduino Ethernet DMX Controller under his Arduino Projects – based on code from this DMX Shield für Arduino – also listed on the Arduino: Playground.
- An Arduino DMX Shield listed on the Freeduino blog – though I’m not sure it isn’t the same as the Arduino: Playground shield mentioned above.
- David Sjunnesson’s (from 1scale1) DiMeX - “Interface between Arduino and the DMX protocol commonly used to control stage lighting. It also has the added functionality of an wireless XBee module” – interesting but little documented.
There’s also a fair amount of exchange about building DMC transceivers – to receive as well as to send the DMX protocol
- a DMX transceiver post on the Arduino:Playground and Receiving DMX thread on the Arduino: Forum
- The Tinker.it DMX Receiver – MOS – “a device that can receive DMX messages and control different type of lights” is still available for about 60 Euros.
- Max Pierson’s blog has a Lighting Category where he details his Arduino DMX-512 I/O Shield & Arduino DMX Reception software which does looks interesting – and the bare PCB board is available to buy from CuteDigi for $6.99 – with all the parts it comes to about another $25.
- DMX IO Module - expands the [Arduino like] Propeller Platform or Propeller Platform SD to include a 4-channel DMX transceiver.
and browsing always turns up interesting related posts:
- The Make Some Code post Arduino, OSC, iPhone and DMX – “using OSC (Open Sound Control)… to control the lights via my arduino equipped with an ethernet shield.”
- A Practical Arduino post on the DMX dimmer project – which also has other interesting Arduino projects, hardware and development.
- Justin Huynh’s Liquidware – “open source electronics” for the Arduino with a Shop selling broad range of sensors, kits, modules, components, and App Store, Projects, Wiki etc.
- An ebay.com search for arduino shield lists some interesting and affordable components…
And affordable non-Arduino solutions include:
$39 + $9 shipping on ebay
drivers: http://www.soh.cz/en/download/drivers
software: http://dmx512.svetla.org/software_en.htm
They also produce the DMX Pipe – and though there’s an FTDI driver for OS X 10.6.x the listed compatible software looks almost exclusively Windows – and a bit too ‘theatre’ like…
