Pro series dimmers and DMX

I will soon be designing the C-Bus system for a new night club and will more than likely be using pro series dimmers. Initial scene setting will be done via a c-bus touchscreen. The DJ would then like to be able to adjust the lighting levels via DMX, is this possible, I thought I heard somewhere that the pro series were either DMX or c-bus controlled but not both at the same time.

Regards,

Peter Brown

 

SO, to make it clear, the Professional Dimmers, (L5104D5;L5102D10;L5101D20) cannot be controlled by DMX.

The 12 Channel Architecture Dimmers can be. They are basically DMX dimmers with C-Bus interface card. So, it can be controlled by either DMX or C-BUS at one time. Each channel can be controlled individually. For example, You can have channel 1, 3, 5-12 controlled by C-Bus initially and then by DMX with a DMX enable key on the touch screen. In fact you have two set of data line and ask your dimmer channel to listen to either one of them.

You need external C-Bus power supply and PCI to make a complete c-Bus system.

 

There are 4 dimmers that are both C-Bus and DMX controllable. They are all 12 channel dimmers, come in 10A, 12A or 16A per channel versions, and are of the same design as normal 12ch wall-mounted dimmers such as the non-cbus ones used in theatres, clubs, etc.

The product page for these dimmers can be found HERE.

Quote from the product page:

Quote from one of the dimmer Installation Manuals:

Note, that you must run seperate C-Bus and DMX cabling to each dimmer, you should not try to run one protocol over a single cable.

And to answer one of your questions in particular, you can only run channels on DMX or C-Bus at any one time, but each channel can be selected to be controlled by one or the other individually, you dont have to control a whole dimmer from only one protocol at any given time. Switching between control by C-Bus or DMX is done via commands over the C-Bus network, so you could control what protocol each channel would respond to via your touchscreen.

Hope this helps, Regards,

Darpa

 

Thankyou

Thanks for the replies fellas, thats exactly the kind of info I was after. If this forum gets any better I will have to put it on the payroll.

Regards,

Peter Brown

 

I'm not sure thats wise Peter, most of us dont come cheaply, and we're all friends here, we dont want to send you broke

Darpa

P.S. I have done alot of work with DMX before, both touring (concert) stuff, as well as Club work, so if I can help you out in any other ways regarding that kind of stuff, dont hesitate to ask