Thread: DMX Vampire in Coffin (MIB)

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Wow! that was amazing, too high tech for me but amazing! Maybe someday

I thought it would be helpful to those that are new to DMX and VSA to see how I programmed all of this. First off, here is the schematic: For a bigger picture, go to this link and click "full size": MiBschematic.jpg - Image - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting



Now here is a screen print of the actual routine on the computer:



Now before you can write any routine, you have to designate the devices that you are going to use. To do that, bring up the settings window. This is what you see:



Under the tracks and names, you see that for DMX I have several 'tracks' for the DMX light. That is what is so great about DMX. One light, in a way, is four lights. One dimmer/strobe light. One red light. One green light and one blue light. To top that all off you can combine the colors to get yellow, purple, turquoise, white and every other color combination you can think of. Isn't that neat!

Looking right again you see 'Type'. For DMX devices, there are only two 'types' you can select; DMX dimmer and DMX relay.

Continuing to look right, you see 'ports.' On this screen print, you see "none" but that is because this is a screen print on my office computer, not the actual laptop. If I had done a screen print from the laptop, you would see "Enttec" under the ports. That is because Enttec is loaded on the laptop computer, not my office one. This is important to designate or else the DMX signal wouldn't be sent through the Enttec. Your DMX light would just look at you and do nothing to your utter frustration!!!! Not that I didn't do that dumb mistake... LOL!

Anyways, continuing on...As you look right, you will see the 'address' that is important. DMX allows you 512 addresses. That is bleeping amazing! For my little MIB I think I used a grand total of 11 addresses. I just scratched the surface of what DMX is capable of.

The next area to the right is the values and that is what you set the perimeters of what you want the device to do. For example, on the DMX light value 0-1 is blackout, value 2-127 is slow strobe to fast strobe. Value 128-255 is intensity (dimming) of 1-100%. Is that cool or what?! The flexibility is mind-blowing.

This shows what window pops up when you click on one of those blue bars (events). This is where you tell the device what to do:




This is another event that I double-clicked on to show that in order for my solenoid to fire, I had to change the event to be a pulse bar:



Well, I hope this gives everyone a better idea of DMX and VSA programming. This is my first try at this and I'm sure anyone could easily top this and make an awesome prop.

wow Terra that is awesome! I was always somewhat confused about the DMX stuff but now looking at your setup it's really actually fairly easy. I really want to do this now lol. At least I have some of the stuff already (compressor, VSA, speakers). I can see tying in my 3-axis bucky routine with other animated props. I may have to hold off until next year though... since Halloween seems to creeping up super fast now. Great Job!!!

i am afraid! thats so great!!!!

Congratulations and thanks for the thanks.

Very nicely done, and a great illustration of what can be done with DMX using mostly off the shelf parts..... this is not high tech, once you know the Basics all the stuff Terra is using is plug-n-play, its no more complicated than setting up you TV/DVD/VCR/sat box

The great thing about this prop is it only uses maybe 20 DMX channels out of 512, and now you have the start of a DMX infrastructure you can just plug the next prop in to this one and run them all off of a single computer.

Originally Posted by Phoenix_UK

Congratulations and thanks for the thanks.

Very nicely done, and a great illustration of what can be done with DMX using mostly off the shelf parts..... this is not high tech, once you know the Basics all the stuff Terra is using is plug-n-play, its no more complicated than setting up you TV/DVD/VCR/sat box

The great thing about this prop is it only uses maybe 20 DMX channels out of 512, and now you have the start of a DMX infrastructure you can just plug the next prop in to this one and run them all off of a single computer.

sure setting up the vcr is one thing but programming it is another lol, i agree completely, now you can connect just about anything to dmx so the possibilities are endless.

Well, I ordered the Enttec Open USB DMX and the DMX relay/timer box last night. Yours looks so good, I think I will do that to my coffin. I already have VSA, the solenoid, cylinder, speakers, fog machine, lights, etc. Still have to get theChauvet DMX-3F converter for my fog machine. Started to order it, and the place has a store local that I can pick it up from. You did a great job on yours Terra.

Originally Posted by malibuman

Well, I ordered the Enttec Open USB DMX and the DMX relay/timer box last night. Yours looks so good, I think I will do that to my coffin. I already have VSA, the solenoid, cylinder, speakers, fog machine, lights, etc. Still have to get theChauvet DMX-3F converter for my fog machine. Started to order it, and the place has a store local that I can pick it up from. You did a great job on yours Terra.

do you have a chauvet fogger? there is a chance it could work for other fog machines but i don't know which one's , and as terra figured out, it won't work with the cheap one from cheap lights

Originally Posted by guitarist155

do you have a chauvet fogger? there is a chance it could work for other fog machines but i don't know which one's , and as terra figured out, it won't work with the cheap one from cheap lights

I've got one of the bigger ones, but I may have to buy their Chauvet Hurricane 650 to use with it. I don't want to put my big one in it.

Originally Posted by malibuman

Well, I ordered the Enttec Open USB DMX and the DMX relay/timer box last night. Yours looks so good, I think I will do that to my coffin. I already have VSA, the solenoid, cylinder, speakers, fog machine, lights, etc. Still have to get the Chauvet DMX-3F converter for my fog machine. Started to order it, and the place has a store local that I can pick it up from. You did a great job on yours Terra.

Cool! Don't forget the DMX terminator, the 5 pin to 3 pin converter and DMX cables. The DMX terminator is put at the end of your DMX chain to tell it that it is the end. The Enttec outputs the DMX signal via a 5-pin DMX so you need the 5 pin to 3 pin converter so you can plug in your other DMX items (cables, lights, fog adapter) that use 3-pin DMX. A caveat about the cables: some places call their microphone cables DMX cables. They are not the same! Get true DMX cables not ones that use XLR (microphone) cables instead. They look the same but the insides are different.

In regards to the fog machine, I recommend to anyone reading this to stick with the Chauvet brand foggers. I tried a cheapie fog machine that the company said would work. NOT! It damn near fried my DMX chain. You see, some fogger's remote outlet has power that comes out of it. Well, a lot of electricity through your DMX chain is bad, very berserky bad!

I like the size and output of the Chauvet 650 Hurricane for inside my MIB. I had plugged in my Chauvet 1050 for testing and quickly realized that it was waaaayyy too much fog. Plus, it will get too hot in my vamp's coffin.