Detailed Technical Specifications

Flavor Control
Transmit modes
Intercept and Modify
Graphic Receive routine
Viewing Received Levels on a PC
Additional RDM Information
Advanced RDM Software

Flavor Control - Variable DMX512 Timing

The DMX512 standard is widely used in theatrical lighting and effects. Different equipment uses different aspects of the standard for a wide variety of purposes. The DMX512 standard allows wide variation of certain parameters. We allow you to vary five important parameters of the transmitted signal to help the DMXter4 mimic as many products as possible. We group these parameters into presets which we call ‘flavors’. The DMXter4 provides you with eight flavors, three of them user-defined. Those parameters you can vary are:

• Break Length in μs
• Mark After Break Length in μs
• Numbers of slots sent
• Interslot time in μs
• Mark Before Break  in m/μs (Interpacket Time)
• Receive can measure all the above, and it can measure the interslot time between the START Code and the first data slot.

Transmit

The DMX4 RDM V4.00 code includes the following transmit routines:

• The DMXter4 can ADJUST ONE SLOT at a time.
• It can AUTOFADE thru a dimmer system, bringing each successive dimmer up to full and down again.
• It can ADJUST A RANGE of dimmers to the same level; the range may be set to any width. Optionally it can cycle thru  ranges.
• It can ADJUST ALL SLOTS to the same level.  
• SEND/EDIT SNAPSHOT can resend data recorded from a console, or let you build or edit that data as it is sent
• The DMXter4 supports the alternate start code messages that are a feature of E1.11 including:
• Send and receive text packets
• Send the DMX512A hex 55 test packet.
• Send and receive System Information Packets (SIP)
• SIP software allows monitoring the number of packets received, while keeping track of three different types of errors. This code may be used to monitor working systems in the field or help with the development of new systems supporting SIPs. The extent of this code can be judged by the fact that it adds a dozen new menu items. Many of these items are cursor menus with four or five different parameters per menu item.

Intercept and Modify

This feature  allows you to receive a universe of DMX  while resending the same universe. You can inspect any of the slots and take control of those slots, modifying their levels.This means you can share the lighting system, taking control of just the slots you need to do your work.  This routine also cleans up DMX512 with unusual timing, allowing the use of  receivers that require a conservative DMX flavor.

Graphic Receive routine

This routine allows 32 slots to be viewed at once for a quick overview. Each slot is displayed as a 10-state bar graph. One state shows which slots are at zero, one state shows which slots are at full. The remaining 8 states show intermediate levels. Optionally the exact level of the first displayed slot can be read in all three number formats.

Standard numeric display
Graphic display of 32 slots
Graphic display of 16 slots with a numeric readout of the first displayed slot

Viewing Received Levels on a PC

If you have a PC with a terminal emulator installed you can now view the DMX levels on your PC. 
The display on the PC will  look similar to the one below which displays slots 1 through 128 in percent format.
Three other pages are available to show all 512 slots. Decimal and hex format displays are also supported.

  DMXter 4 RDM   View Levels Page 1 (1-128)
  PROTCOL:DMX%   Receiving Data
   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20
 100 100      57  86  12
             
  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  29  30  31  32  33  34  35  36  37  38  39  40
                              100              75  50     77  76  50          56
             
  41  42  43  44  45  46  47  48  49  50  51  52  53  54  55  56  57  58  59  60
              90           2 100                            
             
  61  62  63  64  65  66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74  75  76  77  78  79  80
                                                             100
             
  81  82  83  84  85  86  87  88  89  90  91  92  93  94  95  96  97  98  99 100
              22                           31                             39 
             
101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108  109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120
    100                         44                 45          71        100
             
121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128
 79             100  

Additional RDM Information

The DMXter4's RDM support is still growing.  The first RDM release is aimed mostly at managing RDM responders, since there are still a limited number of consoles that are RDM controllers. Software to monitor transactions between an RDM aware console  and a group of responders is under development.
We hope the following list shows the power already in the DMXter4 RDM.
Software V4.08 is now released.
These release notes are a supplement to V4.00 manual and to this page.

Discovery

• Discover all responders on a system
• Discover any new units connected since the last discovery.
• Add UID manually Available only if ‘Advanced RDM’ is fitted
• Remove UID manually Available only if ‘Advanced RDM’ is fitted.

Select Current Device
Select the current device using the Identify mode, or select it blind.

Display Device Information
This item displays device information including all required PIDs and some optional PIDs. If the responder does not support a request, you will be so informed. V4.00 software handles the following:

• Device Model
•    With the optional descriptive text
• Device Label
• Manufacturer Label
• Software Version
•     Numeric version
•     Human readable version number.
• Current DMX Address
• Slot Footprint
• Personality
• Current Personality
• Number of available personalities
• Sub-device Count   
• Sensor Count
• Product Category
• Category Number   
• Category Descriptive Text
• RDM Protocol Version
• Device Hours
• Power cycles
• Lamp Hours
• Lamp Strikes

Set DMX Address

Set DMX personality

Sensors

• Scroll through the available sensors
• Display for each sensor, the type, the unit of measure, the multiplier and the current value.
• Display: the allowed range, the maximum and minimum value detected, the normal values, and a recorded value.
• Request that the responder resets the minimum and the maximum value of the current sensor.
• Request that the responder records the current value of this sensor.
• Request that the responder reset the min/ max values for all sensors in that responder.

Edit Null Start Code packet data. While querying responders, the DMXter4 continues to send Null Start Code data to responders (receivers). You may edit those values.

Choose DMXter4 RDM controller  user options

View Responder Timing

• Response delay in μs
• Break length in  μs
• Responder MAB in  μs
• Responder inter-slot time in μs
• Total response packet length in  μs

Advanced RDM Software

The Advanced RDM software is an extra cost option, available to developers and verifiers.

The Advanced RDM software  saves the raw data from the last RDM request and response packets.  It also saves the raw data from the last RDM request and response packets that met the capture requirements, (see below) It saves important data on the last RDM 200 packets. To access this data, the user browses the stored packet data. This may be done either on the LCD screen or dumped to the screen of your PC. There it may be analyzed or saved.

 Browse Packet History
 The results below are shown as they would look on a PC but the same data is displayed using 3 windows on the LCD display

  TIME TN  CC   NAME            RESULT             CC  PID   PDL   CC  PID   PDL
      14.64 00h SET  IDENTIFY DEV    BROADCAST          30h 1000h 01h
    * 14.72 01h SET  IDENTIFY DEV    GOOD RESPONSE      30h 1000h 01h  31h 1000h 00h
    * 14.79 02h GET  DEV MODEL DESCR GOOD RESPONSE      20h 0080h 00h  21h 0080h 14h
      14.86 03h GET  DEVICE HOURS    RESPONSE TIMED OUT 20h 0400h 00h

 *           The packets marked with an ‘*’ are ones that met the capture requirements
Time      A time stamp in seconds since the RDM controller software was  started
TN          The Transaction Number
CC          Command Class name in human readable form
Name     The name for this PID
RESULT  Result code (error reasons will show up here)
CC           numeric CC of request
PID          request PID numeric code
PDL         length of request data payload
CC           numeric CC of response (if any)
PID           response PID numeric code (if any)
PDL         length of response  PID data payload
   
View Capture Request Packet
The last request packet that met the capture requirements may be viewed here.

View Capture Response Packet
The last response packet that met the capture requirements may be viewed here.

View Previous Request Packet
The most recent request packet can be viewed here.

View Previous Response Packet
The most recent response packet can be viewed here.

The capture menu is next. It allows you to set up to 8 slot-based capture criteria. These criteria may be for a request, or a response, or they may be split between the two.  Further criteria allow for capturing ‘all’ packets that met the above or only ‘good’, packets with ‘errors’,  or only misformed packets. A final restriction can be set to capture only packets of a set length.

Build Custom Request
This menu allows the construction of special packet types. Since DMXter4 is fully RDM aware, it can prompt you thru the construction of the packet telling what each entry means. It will calculate the checksum and do other housekeeping. However, it will let you edit the full packet. If you wish to send an absurd packet it will let you.

Scope Trigger Output
This menu allows the generation of a trigger pulse after a request, a response, or  a captured packet. It is most useful when used with a digital storage oscilloscope.

Send Information to USB
As well as the packet history mentioned above you can dump the Table of Devices (TOD) to your PC via the USB port.

Downloads:
DMXter4 RDM Brochure (pdf format)
DMXter4 RDM User Manual (pdf format)