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DMX 101: A DMX 512 Handbook
18 Elation Professional ®
The figures on the following pages illustrate several different applications using various DMX products.
Samples include:
• Dimmer Control
• Intelligent Fixture Control
• Dimmer & Intelligent Fixture Control
• Distributed Control
As mentioned earlier, dimmers normally use one DMX Channel per light. They translate DMX Values in a
linear fashion, with 0 being off and 255 full on.
Intelligent fixtures use one DMX Channel per parameter (such as pan, tilt, color, gobo, etc.). How does the
controller know which channel controls each parameter? Each intelligent fixture has a DMX Channel Mapping
that matches control channels and parameters.
• Channel 1: Pan
• Channel 2: Tilt
• Channel 3: Color
• Channel 4: Gobo
• Channel 5: Dimmer
Pan and tilt functions are linear, but color and gobo functions present a challenge. Imagine a wheel with six
colors plus open (no color). How does the controller tell the fixture which color to use? The fixture assigns a
DMX Value Mapping to each color.
• 0-35: Open
• 36-70: Red
• 71-105: Cyan
• 106-140: Green
• 141-175: Yellow
• 176-210: Blue
• 211-255: Magenta
The DMX Channel and Value Mappings are typically saved into a computer file for each DMX controller. This
file is called a Fixture Profile. In order to use a particular fixture with a controller, a current profile must be
loaded. Most controllers (such as Elation’s CompuLive software) come pre-loaded with thousands of fixture
profiles from many different manufacturers.
5. Sample Applications
5