What does DMX512 mean ?

DMX512 protocol by the American Stage Lighting Association (USITT) proposed a data dimming protocol, it gives a light controller and lighting equipment communication protocol standard, because it was proposed in 1990, so the full name of the protocol is USITTDMX512 (1990). The proposed protocol provides a good standard for using digital signal to control lighting equipment.

DMX512 is a digital dimming protocol, it can be applied to the stage, theater, studio and other places of dimmer and other control equipment for digital control, suitable for a multi-point master-slave control system, its interconnection form adopts a multi-point bus structure, there is no information path blocking problem, its connection is simple, high reliability.

Although the lighting control system has been developed into a networked control system, the DMX512 signal system is still the most widely used system, even if it is a large networked lighting control system, the end of the control is still a large number of DMX512 signal control.

Compared with other protocols, DMX512 protocol has the following characteristics:

(1) The signal is transmitted based on differential voltage, and the anti-interference ability is strong;

(2) Using RS-485 bus transceiver, the signal can be transmitted long distance;

(3) The data refresh is fast, regardless of whether the output of the optical device needs to be changed, the host must send a control signal, the time between the data frame and the data frame is less than 1s, if the dimmer does not receive a new data frame within 1s, it can be known that the data has been lost;

(4) The implementation is simple and does not require special hardware equipment support

DMX512 protocol by the American Stage Lighting Association (USITT) proposed a data dimming protocol, it gives a light controller and lighting equipment communication protocol standard, because it was proposed in 1990, so the full name of the protocol is USITTDMX512 (1990). The proposed protocol provides a good standard for using digital signal to control lighting equipment.