User manual AVOLITES TUBE

[. . . ] dAFTdATA have considerable experience within the IT networks world as well as lighting industry working in the fields of design and installation. Avolites have considerable experience with the manufacture of lighting related products, as such it seemed a natural partnership. eDMX is designed to allow people everywhere to use the now readily available IEEE standard of 802. 11 wireless Ethernet as a transport mechanism for USITT DMX 512. The construction of a simple wireless network allows users to send their dmx wirelessly within the constraints of the wireless network instantly with no response difference from that of using cables. [. . . ] - Page 8 Firstly a name for the session is required, this can be anything, but if the user is planning on reconfiguring the Tubes on a regular basis then an easily remembered name such as eDMX is ideal. Next you must set the hyperterminal parameter to use the COM port that you have connected the RS232 cable to. Next the hardware parameters have to be detailed, these are as shown below. eDMX Operators Manual. doc 10/05/2004 13:37:00 2. - Page 9 Finally when a successful connection is made then the user should be able to bring up the WENDI prompt as shown below by depressing the return key on the attached computer's keyboard. Now that the Tube is in contact with the hyper terminal interface, it may be configured as to the user's specification. The Tube has a simple RS232 interface which allows it to accept and display configuration data from command prompt style instructions. The interface has been developed to allow communication in a manner similar to the configuration scripts of most network switches. To start with it is suggested that on the PC connected to the Tube, that the user types: sh conf The sh represents an abbreviated show command. The user should be presented with the following detail. eDMX Operators Manual. doc 10/05/2004 13:37:00 2. - Page 10 We will now detail each line respectively: IP Address This is the IP address of the unit. One of the benefits of the eDMX system is that it utilises full IP addresses which enable the routing of the eDMX data across all kinds of switched and unswitched networks. No two Tubes or devices should be given the same IP address on the same network. IP addresses work like a fixture address in moving light terminology, instead of giving each Tube a start address we give each one a unique number, thus we can tell the network that Tube 1 is an encoder and Tube 2 is a decoder. The available IP addresses are 192. 168. X. 1 through 192. 168. X. 250 X can be configured by advanced users to something other than 1, but the default is 1 and we strongly recommend that you keep with this unless there are good reasons to change. The address 192. 168. 1. 255 is reserved and as such should never be used as an IP address of a Tube. Subnet Mask This is a TCP/IP specific detail and should only be changed from its default of 255. 255. 255. 0 by experienced users. Default Gateway This is a TCP/IP specific routing detail and should only be changed from its default of 0. 0. 0. 0 by experienced users. Wifi Mode Wifi Mode specify the topology of the wireless network. The standard way is to use the system in Infrastructure mode, which utilises the WAP as a data marshal and signal booster. In Ad Hoc mode the Tubes communicate with each other directly, although this might sound easier with less things to go wrong the power of transmission and reception is seriously limited with the Tubes communicating with each other directly and every Tube must stay in communication with every other for the network to work. Finally by using the Infrastructure mode switching physical frequencies via the allocated channels within 802. 11 can be performed simply by eDMX Operators Manual. doc 10/05/2004 13:37:00 2. - Page 11 assigning a new channel to the WAP as opposed to having to change every frequency manually on every Tube. More information on the WAP channel allocation can be found later on in this manual. If set to decoder mode the Tube will decode the data from the wireless network and output DMX from the female 5 pin XLR. The green LED under the female 5 pin will be lit if the Tube is working as a decoder. eDMX Operators Manual. doc 10/05/2004 13:37:00 2. - Page 12 DMX Target This is the target address of the decoder to which the encoder will send its data across the network to. The usage of the address ending with 255 dictates that the encoder will send the dmx data out to every decoder on the same network. [. . . ] - Page 17 4. A note on other wireless networks. There is a tool available as freeware known as "network stumbler" This is a PC based package that allows you to discover other networks which might exist. The software can be run on a laptop and shows instantly what channels are in use, the signal to noise ratio of the devices in question etc. It is highly recommended that this program is run on a wireless capable laptop at show time to show the presence of any other wireless networks. 5. Running a show To enable maximum flexibility at show time it is recommended that a wireless networked enabled laptop is present and running both the WAP configuration software and the latest version of netstumbler. This allows for identification of rogue wireless networks and offers the instant ability to switch channels instantly. [. . . ]