Playing with MIDI, reading a lot, browsing through musical equipments… and DMX cames out.
DMX is like a custom RS-485 network. A master device sends data at 250 kHz to slave devices, each of them listening to a different “channel” or address. Typical DMX devices (“fixtures”) are stage lights but you can find fog machines, laser projectors, bubble machines, relay boards, analog interfaces…
On a studio scenario you can even join MIDI with DMX so you can create a performance combining music and lights or other kind of effects.
Generating a 250 kHz stream of data isn’t difficult, there are FTDI devices that can do that. I could use the same kind of setup I use to generate LEGO Power Functions IR signals to generate DMX signals.
In fact, people are already doing it. There are a few tutorials on how to create a DMX controller for less than $10 but I prefer this one (it costed me a bit more than 10€ but it was really straightforward, just a FTDI485 cable and a XLR 3-pin female connector.
It can be used with QLC+ (an open source DMX controller software) but that’s overkill for a MINDSTORMS EV3 so after a short search I found a python library to use it directly (dmx485).
So you connect your DYI DMX adapter to your EV3:
[1218334.312176] usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0403, idProduct=6001
[1218334.312248] usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[1218334.312287] usb 1-1.2: Product: USB-RS485 Cable
[1218334.312322] usb 1-1.2: Manufacturer: FTDI
[1218334.312355] usb 1-1.2: SerialNumber: FT4NMHF6
[1218334.800717] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
[1218334.936770] usbcore: registered new interface driver ftdi_sio
[1218334.937337] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for FTDI USB Serial Device
[1218334.938673] ftdi_sio 1-1.2:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
[1218334.939512] usb 1-1.2: Detected FT232RL
[1218334.956748] usb 1-1.2: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0
Here it is assigned to ‘/dev/ttyUSB0’
Now we just need to install ‘dmx485’:
pip3 install dmx485
(if you have a fresh ‘ev3dev’ installation you probably need to install ‘pip3’ first)
For testing, the script on ‘dmx485’ homepage is enough but I adapted it for my first python DMX script to control my cheap DMX RGB PAR spotlight (after reading the manual to find how it works – it uses 4 DMX channels for Master, Red, Green and Blue values)
!/usr/bin/env python3
import time
import dmx
import random
random.seed()
CMD = [0]*512
CMD[3] = 255 # Master Dimmer
CMD[4] = 0 # Red Dimmer
CMD[5] = 0 # Green Dimmer
CMD[6] = 0 # Blue Dimmer
BLANK = [0]*512
DELAY = 0.2
sender = dmx.DMX_Serial('/dev/ttyUSB0')
sender.start()
# WHITE
CMD[4] = 255
CMD[5] = 255
CMD[6] = 255
sender.set_data(bytes(CMD))
time.sleep(2)
sender.set_data(bytes(BLANK))
# RED dimmer
CMD[4] = 0
CMD[5] = 0
CMD[6] = 0
for i in range(0, 256, 8):
CMD[4] = i
sender.set_data(bytes(CMD))
time.sleep(DELAY)
sender.set_data(bytes(BLANK))
# GREEN dimmer
CMD[4] = 0
for i in range(0, 256, 8):
CMD[5] = i
sender.set_data(bytes(CMD))
time.sleep(DELAY)
sender.set_data(bytes(BLANK))
# BLUE dimmer
CMD[5] = 0
for i in range(0, 256, 8):
CMD[6] = i
sender.set_data(bytes(CMD))
time.sleep(DELAY)
sender.set_data(bytes(BLANK))
# MASTER dimmer
CMD[4] = 255
CMD[5] = 255
CMD[6] = 255
for i in range(0, 256, 8):
CMD[3] = i
sender.set_data(bytes(CMD))
time.sleep(DELAY)
sender.set_data(bytes(BLANK))
# RGB random
CMD[3] = 255
CMD[4] = 0
CMD[5] = 0
CMD[6] = 0
for step in range(50):
CMD[4] = random.randint(0,255)
CMD[5] = random.randint(0,255)
CMD[6] = random.randint(0,255)
print(CMD[4], CMD[5], CMD[6])
sender.set_data(bytes(CMD))
time.sleep(DELAY)
sender.set_data(bytes(BLANK))
It was amazingly easy.
Now the tough part is using this same USB DMX adapter to listen to DMX signals and make my own LEGO MINDSTORMS DMX fixture. I am not keen to continuously polling the bus so I probably have to spend a few more euros to buy a smarter USB DMX adapter that offloads the reception task.