Peter Nyboer

Up until recently, I had been searching high and low for a good solution to working with DMX over USB. There's a lot of information, but it mostly seems to center around Artnet or a no-longer-available external (for Catalina) on nullmedium.de. It took me quite a while to figure it all out, so here's the simple solution I wish I would have found at first. I hope this pops up early in the search results! 

It seemed to me that DMX should be simple with the serial object, since DMX is basic serial commands. I found some information on Peter Elsea's site at 

http://www.peterelsea.com/Maxtuts_advanced/Controlling_DMX.pdf

which was close, but seemed a bit confusing on how it organized the data. 

I eventually stumbled on a git hub repo that essentially recreates the DMXUSBpro external in a serial-based abstraction:

https://github.com/thomasfredericks/DMX_USB_PRO_MAX

Here's the abstraction reposted here with some additional clean up and notes for posterity:

comment

message

print

split

number

zl.iter

join

append

zl.join

zl.len

route

serial

loadbang

inlet

Here's a nice patch to create a umenu of serial ports for easy selection:

iter

button

umenu

prepend

 - to the mfg site for the USB DMX solution I bought on Amazon. It uses the same FTDI serial chip as the Enttec, so it's compatible. 

Up until recently, I had been searching high and low for a good solution to working with DMX over USB. There's a lot of information, but it mostly seems to center around Artnet or a no-longer-available external (for Catalina) on nullmedium.de. It took me quite a while to figure it all out, so here's the simple solution I wish I would have found at first. I hope this pops up early in the search results! 

It seemed to me that DMX should be simple with the serial object, since DMX is basic serial commands. I found some information on Peter Elsea's site at 
http://www.peterelsea.com/Maxtuts_advanced/Controlling_DMX.pdf
which was close, but seemed a bit confusing on how it organized the data. 
I eventually stumbled on a git hub repo that essentially recreates the DMXUSBpro external in a serial-based abstraction:
https://github.com/thomasfredericks/DMX_USB_PRO_MAX 
Here's the abstraction reposted here with some additional clean up and notes for posterity:

Here's a nice patch to create a umenu of serial ports for easy selection:


Here's a link - https://dmxking.com/usbdmx/ultradmxmicro - to the mfg site for the  USB DMX solution I bought on Amazon. It uses the same FTDI serial chip as the Enttec, so it's compatible. 

Thanks Thomas Ouellet Fredericks for your patch!

Up until recently, I had been searching high and low for a good solution to working with DMX over USB. There's a lot of information, but it 

dmx-with-serial-object-and-enttec-usb

Thanks for that Peter. I had the same problem a few months ago, but unlike you I didn't manage to figure it out. The project didn't go ahead, but I've definitely saved your very helpful info in case I need it in future. Cheers!

Great. Also, for the record, these are the LED lights I've been testing with 

https://www.amazon.com/Litake-Lights-DMX-512-Lighting-Projector/dp/B01KZPDVQO/

Great. Also, for the record, these are the LED lights I've been testing with https://www.amazon.com/Litake-Lights-DMX-512-Lighting-Projector/dp/B01KZPDVQO/ 

DMX with serial object and Enttec USB