Hey folks, I have a set of DMX controllable lights at my job that we got years ago that I am trying to control with Touchdesigner. They have wireless capabilities but sadly the company appears to have gone out of business and the manuals that came with the lights are very vague.
What we have is a number of DMX lights and 1 DMX controller. The controller and lights can be hooked up wirelessly. The company that made them is Lumin Lights. Basically what I am trying to do is instead of controlling them with the included controller is to control them with Touchdesigner. I was able to hook up to one of them over wired DMX using an Enttec USB to DMX interface.
What I would love to do is control them with Touchdesigner wirelessly, but I have been a bit stumped at how to do so. Enttec doesn’t appear to have any wireless DMX devices. They do have ethernet ones but not sure how I’d make that work.
I’ve found products like this that do wireless DMX but I’m wondering if that’s totally necessary since the lights themselves can recieve a wireless signal.
The Lumin Lights wireless controller says it’s a 2.4Ghx wireless controller. I’ve also attached photos of the controller and lights. Thanks!!!
All these cheaper / older wireless DMX things are different, so I can almost guarantee buying a random wireless DMX thing off amazon will not work with the built in antennae - especially the one you linked to, Xartrick, since it seems to explicitly mention a standard called “QuickDMX”.
If you were trying to imply that maybe because it’s 2.4GHz it would just work stand-alone with WiFi, then you can let that idea go because none of the wireless DMX standards use or work with WiFi - quite the contrary in fact: using these around 2.4GHz WiFi could cause interference in both.
You MIGHT be able to actually get one of the lights to be a “transmitter” itself - aka plug hard-line DMX into the “DMX IN” 3-Pin XLR port of one light, and then set it to “MAST” or something (in the little LCD menu thing) and all the others to “SLAV” with their wireless on and it might just work.
Also based on the “D-Fi/ID” text on the lighting board in your first picture, you might be able to get it working with a “D-Fi” based Wireless DMX transmitter such as one of these:
Or, considering that the transmitter shown in this video looks similar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4LtZPZQNVo
you might actually be able to use the product you originally linked to, though maybe go with one that explicitly mentions the word “D-Fi” in the description like maybe this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CQH5JRF
But don’t come back here all sad if it doesn’t work. There is no guarantee at all that any of the stuff linked above will work with the existing wireless built into your lights. These older / cheaper lights were made during the “wild west” of wireless DMX so there’s no guarantee that the actual protocol is the same - even though the frequency is. If you can already afford to throw away a couple hundred bucks just to see if that wireless DMX system works, it might be a good idea to just buy a whole new wireless DMX system from a more reputable / modern source like the RC4 or “Wireless Solutions” brands. If you’re trying to use these wireless PARs in a volatile enough area (aka far away from eachother, lots of metal / interference, RF-absorbing-meat-bags walking around carrying RF emitting phones) you will be well served by these more robust products.
Either way there are plenty of good resources on the net for digging more into DMX, especially since this question has nothing to do with TouchDesigner though it’s not a big deal around here since most of the moderators are very polite Canadians.
Some other good places to ask questions about DMX info would be:
Gahhh, that’s what I might have thought. These things look pretty ghetto but I figured I’d ask just to make sure. Thanks for those resources y’all! I’ll dig in a bit more. I know this wasn’t very Touchdesigner related either but didn’t know where else to ask.
though it’s not a big deal around here since most of the moderators are very polite Canadians.