RDM and simple status reporting

[Jim Acker]

I have a DMX need where I am controlling an effect remotely via DMX. Lets call it a smoke machine. I turn the smoke machine on remotely, and after a few moments, the smoke machine heats up and goes into a "ready" state. A local 24 volt lamp on the smoke machine say's "I'm ready" . I would like the ability to turn the smoke machine on via DMX and get an indication at the control panel when it is in a "ready" state. Then, using another DMX command, I would like to cue the smoke when I want it. This seems terribly simple to me, which means that it is either impossible or will cost four thousand dollars to engineer. Any thoughts on how to do this economically? Does anyone have any RDM hardware that I can get to do this? Jim

[ericthegeek]

For RDM to be much help, you'd need a smoke machine that supports RDM. Then it could use one of several mechanisms provided by the RDM protocol to let the controller know when it was ready.

If the smoke machine doesn't support RDM, you're in a tough spot. It would be possible to build an RDM photosensor that would sense when the 24 v lamps comes on and report that to the controller via RDM, but I'm not aware of anyone that builds such a product.

RDM really has to be built into the product by the manufacturer. It's not something that you, as an end user, can easily retrofit into a device*.


*The Wybron Infochip can be used to add basic RDM support to some non-RDM fixtures, but it won't offer the level of functionality you're requesting. It only allows you to set DMX addresses remotely, and won't allow you to read status back from the unit.

[nomis52]

Like Eric, I don't know of a product that will do this out the box. You may want to try contacting these companies:

http://www.helluk.com/
http://www.jese.co.uk/
http://www.dfd.com/