AAHmega60

The AAHmega60 (also known in chat as an M60) controller accepts DMX input and drives 60 DC channels.

• Quad (4)zone DC input (5V - 40V) (large screw terminals)
• 4x 30A blade(ATX automotive style)fuses (30A overall max per 15 channel zone)
• 60 DC outputs (5A max per channel)
• Output terminals arranged as V+, Ch, Ch, Ch (suits RGB)
• True isolated DMX input (2x RJ45 sockets for looping)
• Jumper for terminating DMX cable
• Remaining zone/s will continue working if other zone/s fuse blow or aren't in use
• PCB size is 238mm x 115mm
• Supplied fully built and tested
• Upgradeable firmware (via ICSP header). A USB socket is supplied for firmware updates but as at firmware revision 1.3 this isn't enabled
• Integrated test mode
• Jumpers for changing between LOR and ESTA network wiring
• 4 Zones of user selectable output voltage. Via pulse width control a lower voltage than the power supply can be output. 5V, 12V, 24V, 32V or 100% can be selected. This allows a common power supply to power lights of 4 different voltages
• Dipswitch selectable start address

The 4 large 2 way green connectors on the PCB are the DC inputs from your power supply/supplies. Each zone (15 channels) of the AAHmega60 can use a separate power supply, or you can feed all zones from one common power supply. Separate wiring (back to the power supply) for each zone is recommended to minimise voltage drop. The V+ terminals are positive and the V- terminals are negative. All V- terminals are connected together on the pcb so the power supplies in use must be able to have the V- terminals joined. For almost all power supplies this will be the case.
There are no jumpers required when using different voltages or for any voltage withing the 5V to 40V range.

Each zone of the AAHmega60 has a 10 Amp blade fuse installed at shipping time. For greater protection, you can replace them with lower value types if the maximum current draw from that zone will be significantly less than 10 Amps or conversely if a higher current is required they can be replaced with a fuse up to 30A. The fuses used are conventional ATX automotive fuses.

There are 60 channel outputs; 15 per zone and 30 per side. Each zone can be run at the same, or a different supply voltage and each zone has its own zone voltage jumper for reducing the output voltage. The channels are arranged in groups of 3 (with a common V+) to suit RGB applications, but they are all individual circuits.

The maximum load per channel is 5 Amps, but the overall limit per zone is 30 Amps. This means that you can't turn on all 15 outputs of a zone with the maximum load. In reality, this should not be a problem as most loads will be less than that. A fair degree of care will need to be shown with the wiring if high currents are used. A short distance between the power supply and the pcb and thick cables will be required if the full 30 amps per zone is to be used.

There are two RJ45 connectors for DMX input / passthrough. They are wired in parallel so it makes no difference which one is used as input. The RJ45 connection is jumper selectable to allow for either LOR or ESTA standard wiring.
See the user manual for details.

If there is only 1 connector in use the termination jumper for the DMX line should be installed as there should always be a termination at the end of DMX lines. If both connectors are in use then the jumper shouldn't be installed.
See the user manual for details.

There are 3 small LEDs near the centre of the PCB adjacent to the micro.

• Red LED: Power,
• Blue LED: Mode,
• Green LED: Data

Red LED: 5V power to micro and electronics


Note: Test mode takes precedence over normal running. Errors/status message other than test mode won’t be displayed if in test mode.

When you receive your AAHmega60, it will be likely set to DMX start channel 1. That is, it will respond to channels 1 to 60. To change the start address the 10 way dipswitch labelled "DMX START" is used. The address is selected using a binary counting sequence. To make it easy to select the start address a table with the full 512 dmx addresses in binary is included in the user manual.

Note: There is no need to restart the AAHmega60 to use the new address. The address can be changed at any time time with power on or off.

The firmware can be updated via the onboard ICSP header and will eventually also be update-able via the usb socket. Details of the procedure are in the user manual.
The latest version of firmware is V1.9. The latest firmware can be found at http://www.hansonelectronics.com.au/product/mega60/ on the SUPPORT INFORMATION tab. Extract it and use the instructions in the back of the manual. A pickit2 or pickit3 is required.

User Manual Ver 2.1