Category: Controllers

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Controllers: Light-Switch – Switch-Edit lamp personalities

The Switch-Edit software is downloaded from the product page, under the Resources section.

Occasionally, after installation, the Switch-Edit software does not list any lamp personalities. This problem occurs due to the different international names for the ‘Program Files’ folder.

To fix this, use the menu: Tools – Fixture Library Folder.

Navigate to the folder shown below and press OK.

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Controllers: moody fade time detail

All versions of moody (with a DMX512 port) output a total of 42 slots (or channels) of data. The first 40 slots are filled with colour information in either 3 slot footprints for RGB or 4 slot footprints for RGBW. For example, the largest moody – the “moody y10” – outputs 4 x 10 slots.

moody products which produce less data will still output 42 slots – the unused slots are just zero.

The final slot: slot 42 contains the firmware version number.

The penultimate slot: slot 41 is used by the “moody f” series to identify the programmed fade rate. For those users wishing to programme an accurate fade time – the following table allows you to do so:

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Controllers: dVnet – using dual-NIC configuration

dVnet has the ability to operate as a network translator / soft-patch. This can be done using one or two network cards.

The input protocol is always Art-Net and the output protocol can be selected between Art-Net, KiNet and sACN. This example describes how to translate Art-Net to KiNet on separate network cards. The Art-Net is assumed to be in the standard 2.x.y.z IP range with a subnet mask of 255.0.0.0. The lighting console generating the Art-Net should be set to broadcast, the input network NIC of dVnet should be set to an IP address of, for example, 2.0.0.100.

Assuming that the KiNet is to output on the 192.168.10.x range (subnet 255.255.255.0) the output Nic should be set to an IP address of, for example, 192.168.10.100.

In dVnet, the output Nic must be selected as the active NIC in the driver window.

The attached files can be loaded to provide detail of the method by which the patch is set. In the first example, Art-Net is received on Pipes 101-110 and converted to KiNet Port Out protocol on pipes 1-10. These are unicast to 192.168.10.1 through 192.168.10.10

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Controllers: dVnet – importing from Excel

You’ll find the import from CSV button in the Pixel Map tab. From here the process of importing a properly formatted CSV is straight forward. You just need to find and open your pre-existing CSV file. Please note that you must not have the file open in any other applications (Excel or NotePad) as the import will not work.

In order to make a dVnet CSV file you need to have the following line as the first line of the file. Attached is an example which can be used with the example show which installs with dVnet.

Name, Type, X, Y, Width, Height, Fixture #, Pixel #, Pipe, Start, Footprint, Red slot, Grn slot, Blu slot, Yel slot, Wht slot, Int slot, Group.

Each subsequent line of the CSV file will be a single pixel within your map.

  • Name is required though this can just be a number
  • Type would be the type of fixture this pixel is in – optional
  • X & Y are the co-ordinates that this pixel will take on your map
  • Width and Height are the relative size of this pixel
  • Fixture this will be a number representing the fixture that this pixel is a part of
  • Pixel # represents which pixel this is within its fixture. As all the fixtures in the example file only contain a single pixel this number will always be 1. However if you are using a fixture with 4 LEDs this would be between 1 and 4.
  • Pipe see the notes below on pipes
  • Start is this pixels DMX address
  • Footprint is the number of DMX slots this pixel occupies
  • Red slot which of the slots for this pixel contains data for the red channel (typically 1)
  • Grn slot which of the slots for this pixel contains data for the green channel (typically 2)
  • Blu slot which of the slots for this pixel contains data for the blue channel (typically 3)
  • Yel slot which of the slots for this pixel contains data for the yellow channel (typically 0 for RGB pixels)
  • Wht slot which of the slots for this pixel contains data for the white channel (typically 0 for RGB pixels)
  • Int slot which of the slots for this pixel contains data for the intensity channel (typically 0 for RGB pixels)
  • Group is optional

Please note that we have implemented a ‘pipe-centric’ way of patching pixels. When patching pixels you first select the pipe that the fixture is on (between 1 and 300) then the fixtures start address which will be its DMX address between 1 and 512.

By default each pipe is patched 1 to 1 with its respective universe and will unicast as Art-Net. However you can patch a pipe to any Art-Net or sACN universe using the ‘Pipe patch’ tab.

Lastly there is an export to dVnet function within the latest release of Colour-Tramp.