**Please Note - This page is actively being created. More content and corrections are currently being made. We are holding updates due to a busy holiday season. Look for more DMX help in the spring! Last update - 12/01/11**

This is a beginner guide to DMX, all the answers I wish I had upfront before I got started.

DMX is a system used in theaters and special effect departments to control lighting and effects. In the most basic form, you have 512 channels to control devices. All devices on the DMX network are daisy-chained and have their own ID set. Say I have a 4 channel dimmer pack and set the ID as 1, DMX channels 1-4 out of the 512 will dim/control those lights on the dimmer. The next device would have an ID of 5, and would respond to a certain number of channels after as designed by the manufacture. To tie this all together, any of the 512 DMX channels can be a device ID. A device's first channel will be it's ID, and will respond to additional channels as it needs, as in our 4 channel dimmer-pack example.

To connect fixtures, you will need DMX XLR signal cable. A XLR cord is like the one pictured, a round connector, with pins in a 'U' shape on the inside. DMX specifications call for a 5-pin XLR connector, but from what I have seen in theaters and professional lighting gigs, a majority are using the 3-pin XLR connectors. We will talk about adapters latter between the two formats. Do you really need special DMX cables, or will XLR microphone cords work? The correct answer is to use DMX cable. Microphone cable will work, and I do personally use it to connect the 3 fixtures I have in my living room. However, most people will say to use the other, for signal clarity and cross-talk.Microphone cable is designed for analog audio, and is thicker to handle that. DMX cable is thinner and designed for digital signals. If you have microphone cable, I would use it on a small setup, but starting to run lines outside, over distances, or to multiple fixtures, I would look into getting DMX wiring.

Settings IDs are commonly set two ways, the first on a menu system in the light (read the manual that can with your fixture), or dip switches. Dip switches are arranged in a group of 9 toggles. Starting at number 256 down in steps to 1. Say you want ID 21 for a device. You start at 256, is the desired ID higher or equal to 256? No, keep that toggle off. Same goes for 128, 64, and 32. At 16, since 21 is in the higher or equal to group, you switch that on. At the 8 toggle, you are now adding. Is 16 + 8 less than or equal to 21? No, its 24, leave it off. At 4, you do the same thing 16 + 4 = 20, so you flip that switch on. And from here you can just see that you need the 1 toggle to make 21. To set IDs you are pretty much just adding up, the picture on the right is set to ID 21, which means it will start responding to DMX channel 21. Why does the picture have a switch 10? That is for a setting in the fixture, it has nothing to do with the ID.

What is the actual control method? DMX channels have a range of 0-255, and each fixture can interpret that value differently. I have a LED RGB flood fixture that uses 4 channels set at ID 21. The first 3 channels control red, green, blue linearly, and the fourth channel controls the over-all mode.

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