Greetings -
Just a few notes about the new hyperDMX option soon to be available on the ECG-DMXRen8 and ECG-DR4.
hyperDMX is a combination of options that will allow up to 4 universes of data to be sent down a single RS-485 DMX line. It can be used for any use by any DMX controller designer but its principle use is for high pixel count LED protocol bridges that use DMX universes to drive pixel strings.
hyperDMX adds two options to the standard DMX slave software:
- The option of using alternate start codes (ASC) to multiplex up to 4 universes over a single line. This is allowed under the DMX standard and will play well with other controllers that only accept the default start code of zero. The trade-off is that in order to send two universes you must allow for approximately 50ms updates, to send three universes 75ms, to send four universes 100ms.
- The option of increasing the transmission rate to a non-standard multiple of the standard 250Kbps. Depending on the distance between transmitter and receiver a simple RS-485 point-to-point connection is more than capable of working at much higher speeds and modern microcontrollers are capable of handling the faster rates. Being non-standard this option will not play well with other controllers on the same line. We feel that since its purpose is to transport multiple universes to a single controller which then drives up to 2048 channels (approx 680 pixels) that this deviation can be acceptably managed.
The approximate update rates that can be performed using variations of these options are as follows:
| | Warp 1*
250Kbps | | Warp 2
500Kbps | | Warp 3
750Kbps | | Warp 4
1Mbps |
| 1 Univ | | 25ms | | 13ms | | 9ms | | 7ms |
| 2 Univ | | 50ms | | 26ms | | 18ms | | 14ms |
| 3 Univ | | 75ms | | 39ms | | 27ms | | 21ms |
| 4 Univ | | 100ms | | 52ms | | 36ms | | 28ms |
*Warp 1 is the only speed that is standard friendly
We fully expect that the ECG-DR4 will be able to support any of these rates on all four slaves simultaneously. So for an ECG-DR4 you could drive four hyperDMX capable pixel controllers each with four full universes at a 28ms update rate.
Due to design limitations and total bandwidth limitations we expect that the ECG-DMXRen8 will only be able to drive an aggregate total of 16 universes also. So with 8 slaves it would only be able to do a mix that totals 16 universes. One example would be: 4 universes on Slave #1, 4 universes on Slave #2, 2 universes on Slave #3, 2 universes on Slave #4, and 1 universe on Slaves #5-8. This would allow standard DMX devices on Slave #5-8 and hyperDMX compatible devices on Slave #1-4. Any other mix that does not exceed sixteen total universes should be acceptable. We will not limit you to 16 universes we just believe that you may start experiencing overruns and dropped packets if you exceed that number.
Of course neither the ECG nor the DMX controller will probably be able to detect the transmission speed that is set and therefore must be independently configured to operate at the desired speed. This may lead to some additional confusion during hookup and testing.
Well, enough for now, back to work on the software that makes this all work ....
-Ed
