DMX lights, the basics

Before DMX:In the past disco effects were pretty much stand alone, they would either be just switched on or off, or have their own microphone doing their own sound to light. Of course, different effects in different places would pick up different sound levels, and they would all operate independently.Stage lighting was even more difficult, with massive "dimmer racks" by the side of the stage, and miles of wires connecting them to a lighting desk further back from the stage.The DMX solution:DMX uses a single cable to control 512 channels of light control. A simple dimmer might use a single channel per light to control the brightness. A scanner might use many channels for a single unit, one channel for each of: brightness, Gobo (pattern) selection, colour, X position, Y position, zoom, rotation speed, etc. etc. Even with 8 channels per unit you can still control 64 unit from a single cable.DMX Cabling:The official DMX standard is for a 5-pin XLR connector, carrying two seperate DMX channels (or two copies of the same signal allowing for a primary and backup).But most of the lights and controllers you will find on eBay use a 3 pin XLR, which allows the use of microphone cables (not officially, but over reasonable lengths it works fine). Watch out because there are two incompatible ways to wire the 3-way connector. For instance to mix Chauvut and Abstact equipment you need a cable with two of the wires swapped over.Each of the lights has an input and an output. You run a lead from the controller

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