DMX Terminal:
This project was finished around 2002. It translates a standard PC RS232 signal into the Digital MultipleX broadcast standard from 1990 for 512 channels with 8 bit per channel. This DMX signal is used for professional light controling. Today, it is also used in semi-professional systems and controllers are quite cheap in the meantime. However, DMX light controlling was very expensive around 2002 and there was no cheap interface on market for PC based light controlling. So I decided to do it by myself and this was the result:
It is a PC interface which was connected via RS232. I know that some of you never heard something about RS232, but remember the time! Today, you would most probably use USB2.0. An ATMEL 80C52 was used which is based on an 8051 microcontroller. The power supply is quit big, but this system was build for maximal stability. We were using this system for complete theater productions. That means, sometimes more than 14hours operation without break or reset. Here is an interior view:
On the left hand side is the board with the microcontroller and on the right hand side is the power supply. I do not use the standard 5Pin DMX/1990 connector, because 3Pins are just enough and most devices are using them, too. Both, the board with the microcontroller and the one for the power supply are self made products also used in other projects. I have just a picture from an older microcontroller board prototyp:
You can see the place for the microcontroller and some peripheral stuff. The assembly was a 100% hand made. Thus, I choose the big IC-packages and not the very tiny SMD versions... However, the hardware is the one ting, the software is an other thing. The software for the microcontroller was written directly in ASM8051 and the software for the PC was written in Delphi. I used the system for many theater productions and also to play around with my light equipment at home. The terminal works quite stable without jitter or all the stuff that could happen... It is just working!
This circuit board is a newer version. It's about 10 years old:
