DMX512?

[Stoney3K]

Hello everyone,

I've just scratched the surface on LinuxMCE and found out about its enormous feature set. I installed it on a Mac Mini (planning to use it as a Hybrid) at the moment, so I can toy around with it...

I recently moved into my new flat and planned ahead -- the master bedroom has dedicated CAT5 (Audio, LAN) and RG58(CVBS)/RG6(DTV) cabling installed, and has its own amplifier, which is currently linked directly to my vintage Bang & Olufsen stereo receiver.

From the start, I intended to do home automation and start with the lighting. Now I work in professional PA systems, so I wanted to look into using DMX512 as a control protocol, as it can be just as useful around the home as it can be on stage.

Various manufacturers create kits for 230V (incandescent, halogen), 0-10V control voltage (for HF fluorescent ballasts) and 12VDC (LED) dimmers, and, obviously, commercial dimmer packs are readily available (albeit a bit huge).

All of my future fixtures will be LED, and controlled by RGB. To what extend does LinuxMCE have support for multi-color fixtures at the moment? Do I need to create three dimmer fixtures for each LED strip or spot in my home?

I will start coding on something that makes DMX512 work with LinuxMCE, once I get the hang of the system a bit. I have an Enttec OpenDMX USB dongle, which has great Linux support already, so closing the loop to LinuxMCE should not be very difficult.

[jimbodude]

No support for colored lighting that I know of... but since everything in LinuxMCE revolves around simple commands - there is no reason that you couldn't have a "set lighting color" command that you send to your DMX Device...  You could go the 3-dimmer approach, which would fit the current stuff a bit more cleanly, but setting the color would be more involved.  You could create 3 dimmer devices per color-supporting light, and do the RGB calculations inside the DMX device to create one DMX message if you wanted to avoid installing 3 physical dimmers where one color dimmer could be used.

I'd suggest you do some further research into LinuxMCE development and how DCE works in LinuxMCE - search the wiki, ask questions as they come up.

[Kooma]

This might help, it's a bit similar to your needs: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Chromoflex_RGB_LED

[gonesurfing]

hi
i am currently working on two dmx interfaces using  gsd and ruby,however i hit a small problem when i tryed to run the ruby(syntax error)i am not a progammer so ive had to do some reading and i think i have worked it out but i am away from my core until the end of feb(skiing in japan)
one dmx interface is very simple and wil give 112 dmx channels
there is some free software (a web server) for the enntec usb pro which could maybe work but it would need some work, here are some links to my posts http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=9206.0
http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=9378.msg64212#msg64212 
have a read
steve