Thread: DMX Vampire in Coffin (MIB)

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Thanks for the info...........Dam i need to do some OT...........I have the compressor.the toe pincher......the ram.....the fog machine......speakers and sub woofer...power strip and the lap top to run it ....OK so at lest I'm moving in the right direction. Now how to get the wife to let me do it.and do i have enough time!...............DAM....
Rottin corps

Originally Posted by 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.

Just to let you know you can use the cheap foggers with your set up Terra, you just have to hack the switch for the fogger and run it to a dry contact of a 110V relay and plug that into your DMX relay. You can save a few dollars that way if you have the skills to do the hack. I don't use DMX to control my foggers, but I do use the hack to operate them with my SLC controller.

What hte hell is a dry contack dMX..........from clueless

Originally Posted by rottin corps

What hte hell is a dry contack dMX..........from clueless

A dry contact is a switch point on a relay that has no power run to it. This is where you connect the hacked switch wires from the fogger to.

+++ WARNING SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT +++

There is of course one other component which can be added to this system that would greatly improve it, Exorcist (well DMXorcist).

Using VSA to drive DMX props is great, but there is one itty bitty issue, and that is you can only play 1 routine over your DMX chain at a time, this means that if you have multiple props or ambient effects then you could have conflict problems should you want your DMX network to do more than one routine at a time.

DMXorcist blows this limitation open, where VSA can only play 1 DMX routine at a time DMXorcist can play 16 routines simultaneously.

DMXorcist is not officially available yet, however, the good news is that people who buy Exorcist before this Halloween can get a free upgrade by volunteering to beta test.

Originally Posted by 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.

Yea, I've got the dmx terminator ordered, also the 3pin to 5 pin converter. I've got a friend who messes with this stuff and told me you can use the microphone cables and just rewire them. But I'll probably get the DMX cables anyway. Also Terra, I wanted to ask you if you are worried using your lights in there with the fog. I was'nt sure if they were waterproof or not, since fog is basically water vapor. I have the same lights as you have, but may pickup the cheaper par lights with the color gells to use instead.

Originally Posted by Phoenix_UK

+++ WARNING SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT +++

There is of course one other component which can be added to this system that would greatly improve it, Exorcist (well DMXorcist).

Using VSA to drive DMX props is great, but there is one itty bitty issue, and that is you can only play 1 routine over your DMX chain at a time, this means that if you have multiple props or ambient effects then you could have conflict problems should you want your DMX network to do more than one routine at a time.

DMXorcist blows this limitation open, where VSA can only play 1 DMX routine at a time DMXorcist can play 16 routines simultaneously.

DMXorcist is not officially available yet, however, the good news is that people who buy Exorcist before this Halloween can get a free upgrade by volunteering to beta test.

Yes, I would love to have the DMXorcist, but its just way to much money to spend on right now. Maybe later.
Sorry, I was looking at the Exorcist price on Skulltronic's site.

Originally Posted by malibuman

Yea, I've got the dmx terminator ordered, also the 3pin to 5 pin converter. I've got a friend who messes with this stuff and told me you can use the microphone cables and just rewire them. But I'll probably get the DMX cables anyway. Also Terra, I wanted to ask you if you are worried using your lights in there with the fog. I wasn't sure if they were waterproof or not, since fog is basically water vapor. I have the same lights as you have, but may pickup the cheaper par lights with the color gels to use instead.

Ohh, I didn't think of that potential problem. I hope it won't be an issue. I'm going to be cutting more air/light holes into the coffin so hopefully that will cut down on the excessive moisture building up. The reason I went with LED lights is because I was afraid that with all the banging from the prop it would break the filament in the incandescent bulb. Though, I'm starting to think that it's not violent enough to do that, but I have the LED's now

I wanted to say a word about DMX addressing with the VSA routine. For some stupid reason, with some devices, you have to change the address one down. For example, for my DMX relay, the address on it is 1 but on VSA I had to use address 0. So, if your DMX device isn't working, try lowering the address you gave it on VSA by one. I had to do the same for the fog adapter address (its address is 50 but on my VSA it is 49). Now the Chauvet lights were right on the money, address 32 on it and address 32 on the VSA program. Go figure! LOL!

DeathMaster: You are correct. I went the DMX fog adapter route because I'm too afraid to tinker with 110 v wiring right now and I wanted a plug and play option. But, I've gained so much confidence with this project I think I may tackle that in the future, if need be.

WARNING...... conventional par cans get very very hot, and because they get very hot they have venting, the venting can allow fog to get into the light which could cause a short. also by the time you get a couple of par cans, gels,bulbs you could have just gotten the dmx color splash.

also, dmx cable is completely different than mic cable, dmx cable uses 120ohm cable, mics do not, so no matter how mic cable is wired it's still not dmx cable.
if you want to make your own you can get stranded cat5 cable and the xlr connectors, this is how alot of installers build their cables and it is specified in the dmx standard. make sure the cable is stranded though as the solid core will break if it is moved around alot.


i have a how-to on dmx control and high end dmx control in the how-to section and will be happy to answer any questions.

The problem with mic cable is you whilst its well documented that mic cable is not suitable for DMX, there is always someone who will take a mic cable plug it into a DMX network and demonstrate that its working just fine, thus proving that those who say that mic cable is not suitable are wrong....

yes, its true a mic cable in a DMX network will probably work......BUT......

....its also true that when you have a DMX network thats playing up then 90% of the time the problem is traced to a mic cable.

Its kinda like the old ratio math questions, where a bath with both taps full on fills at 10 gallons per minute, and with the plug removed it empties at 1 gallons per minute.... now when you want to fill the bath the smart thing to do is to put the plug in and turn on both taps, however, if you know your math its also possible to fill the bath with the plug removed, it just takes a little longer.

using a mic cable is like removing the plug from the bath, yeah it will still fill, but not so well, using two mic cables is like removing two plugs and so on all the while the bath will still fill, just a little bit less efficiently each time you remove another plug..... until that is your wife flushes the toilet, and reduces the water supply which causes your bath to stop filling