controlling spotlights in the living room ceiling by DMX

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pascalspits
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controlling spotlights in the living room ceiling by DMX

Post by pascalspits »

Hi,

I'm installing a matrix (5 x4) of LED-spotlights (12V DC - not RGB, just white) in the ceiling of our living room.
I want my domotics software (running on a Synology 414 or a Raspi, haven' made my mind up which software to use yet) to control (dim) each LED-spotlight individual, over Ethernet (LAN), so we can program "zones of light in our living room ...
so I basically need a 20-channel low power 12V DC LED-spot dimmer

I know there are tons of relais-cards out there that can be hooked up to the LAN and controlled by Domoticz, but now I need to dim (PWM ?) these 12V DC spotlights over LAN ...

Arduino DMX shield or a USB-DMX ?

connecting the DMX to my domotics software (haven' made my mind up which one to use yet) by USB, and sending the DMX signal to DMX LED dimmers ?

... then, making dummy dimmers in my domotics software (haven' made my mind up which one to use yet) for each of the 27 DMX channels ?

for example, could this work ?

I also found this : http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product ... 53991.html

But the main question remains : can my domotics software (haven' made my mind up which one to use yet) control these boxes and send out DMX commands to control DMX channels ...
Last edited by pascalspits on Mon Apr 27, 2015 8:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
Akatar
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Re: controlling spotlights in the living room ceiling by DMX

Post by Akatar »

perhaps a zwave stick with (a couple) fibaro rgbw modules?
they are wireless so no worries for the cables
pascalspits
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Re: controlling spotlights in the living room ceiling by DMX

Post by pascalspits »

Akatar wrote:perhaps a zwave stick with (a couple) fibaro rgbw modules?
they are wireless so no worries for the cables
20 fibaro modules (for each spotlight) ?!

wow, that's gonna cost me an arm and a leg !
Akatar
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Re: controlling spotlights in the living room ceiling by DMX

Post by Akatar »

5 lights per module.
4 fibaro modules, that's expensive indeed.........
pascalspits
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Re: controlling spotlights in the living room ceiling by DMX

Post by pascalspits »

wow, 5 lights per module ?
that changes the game indeed !

now that I've looked into it, indeed, RGBW channels can be used as independent channels as well ... didn't know that !

thanks a lot for this usefull info !

but, when I look, I see RGBW = 4 outputs
where is the 5th ?
Digit
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Re: controlling spotlights in the living room ceiling by DMX

Post by Digit »

Maybe you could use the JeeNode Dimmer Plug. I used it to individually control a bunch (12 or 13 IIRC) of white LED strips on the stairs.
It's based on a PCA9635 which can control 16 channels so you would need 2 of those. i2c so easy to do with a RPi or an Arduino (as I did).
Read more here: http://blog.hekkers.net/tag/staircase/
Akatar
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Re: controlling spotlights in the living room ceiling by DMX

Post by Akatar »

pascalspits wrote:wow, 5 lights per module ?
that changes the game indeed !

now that I've looked into it, indeed, RGBW channels can be used as independent channels as well ... didn't know that !

thanks a lot for this usefull info !

but, when I look, I see RGBW = 4 outputs
where is the 5th ?
oeps my mistake
rgbw are 4 channels
raymonvdm
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Re: controlling spotlights in the living room ceiling by DMX

Post by raymonvdm »

If you group the leds in four groups one RGBW module would be enough i think. As long as you keep the attached leds under 144 Watt (12Volt)

http://www.fibaro.com/manuals/en/FGRGBW ... .1-2.3.pdf

If you really want to control each led individually you can use one of these

http://www.proled.com/en/products/91-mb ... annel.html
Running HS3PRO on PC with Z-Wave / OpenTherm / Plugwise / RFXcom / MQTT / XAP400 / Logitech Media Server and Squeezelite on PI`s
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