CBus Home Automation with DMX Pixel strips

daveymit

New elf
Joined
Dec 24, 2012
Messages
2
Hello all!

I would very much appreciate some advice on what i'm trying to achieve. I am building a house in the coming months and wanted to incorporate some LED pixel strips (3 to be exact). I wanted to control it via an input device within cBus (hopefully someone out there has had previous experience with incorporating into cBus). Here is my conundrum:

I will have a DMX gateway that communicates directly with cBus which gives DMX output. I want to be able to not only control the 3 output levels of the RGB, but to be able to control the preset modes thats incorporated into the set drivers. Thus requiring a 4th output. Does anyone know of any driver which supports this? Also, what if i wanted to create vairants for each of these modes? Am i going to have to have some sort of control panel for this level of intricacy?

Please any help would be MUCH appreciated as this is racking my brain!

I'm open to ANY suggestions of ways to control or different types of drivers/strips etc.

Thanks again!
Dave
 

tuppetsdad

Funding & Tech Support
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Oct 5, 2010
Messages
549
Location
Melbourne
Hi Dave . I have C-Bus and also a DMX interface unit. So far have just used it to control RGB floods via DMX to RGB dimmers. Pixels wil be a different story.
You can set up each output from your DMX with different levels . There are 12 states and you can define multiple outputs for each state and a level for each state so you can then select via the C-BUS logic (I have an old Homeminder so can do it in it but Wiser is similar). Otherwise if you don't have a central controller (like Homeminder or Wiser) you can select the various levels via inputs or sequence via timers. Have not yet tried writing new values into the DMX units but looks easy enough as just C-Bus variables.

Not sure what you mean by control the preset drivers, Please explain more.
 

David_AVD

Grandpa Elf
Community project designer
Generous elf
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Jun 12, 2010
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4,681
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Victoria Point (Brisbane)
Some DMX controlled RGB stage / DJ lights have some extra channels that invoke preset patterns, colour changes, etc. eg. DMX channel 4 will select a bunch of colour fades at various rates, channel 5 will strobe the output, etc.

You can probably buy DMX controlled RGB DC boards that have the same features. Maybe check with Ray Wu and others on AliExpress.
 

daveymit

New elf
Joined
Dec 24, 2012
Messages
2
Thank you all for your feedback, much appreciated.

Firstly, tuppetsdad, I understand what there is to know regarding normal RGB control and how i would integrate and control them via the DMX gateway. The 4th channel i refer to is one that i have been told about on one of the cBus forums. Apparantly some specific DMX drivers have a specific channel for the 'modes'. ie, typically a dmx driver has dip switches for the different modes (Different colour modes, fades, strobes etc), and then one dip switch for 'custom' changing (which will be the set levels from the 3 outputs from the DMX gateway). Apparantly these other driver types can also accept certain output channels that either cycles or sets the different preset modes the drivers incorporate. Hopefully this is a little clearer??

Blickensderfer, Thanks for the research although i have come across this forum before and it covers what i mentioned above with the general RGB mixing outputs.

David_AVD, You're getting closer to what i want. Do you or anyone know of a LED pixel strip and driver that accomodates this? The lights need to be a strip in the certains positions.

So to clarify, im after a DMX driver that has the standard 3 channels for RGB, as well as another channel that can cycle through the preset modes that are stored in the driver. For instance, i want to be able to press a button (Cbus input device) to change between a fade mode to a strobe mode during operation.

If this is possible, was also wondering how i would go altering not only the mode but the parameters within that certain mode. Maybe i'm trying to bite off more than i can chew.... surely someone has done this or similar before?

Cheers again guys,
Dave
 
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