About DMX-tools
Company
History: In 1993, as a hobby, I began doing sound
and lighting for local band shows, something I've continued to this
day. My first lighting equipment was a 16-channel controller and
a couple "DIM-BAR" fixtures from James Lighting. They used a mic.
cable control interface that James called "MUX-64." It was
robust, well-built gear - very reliable... thirteen years later, I'm
still using it.
Over time, I expanded the system - a fog
machine, more lights, more dimmer packs and a bigger controller (still
all James equipment). Eventually I had several thousand dollars
invested just in dimmer packs. Then I decided to add intelligent
lights to the mix.
Nobody makes intelligent fixtures for
"MUX-64," so I wound up buying a DMX-512 controller for the
"movers." It isn't easy to choreograph a decent light show when
your "movers" are on one controller, your conventional lights are on
another and the only synchronization comes by simultaneously pushing
the right buttons on both controllers. It's even more difficult
when you're trying to mix the sound at the same time. I wanted to
get all my lights on one controller and asked several lighting dealers
about protocol translators, but none of them seemed to have a
clue. I decided I'd design my own... eventually.
"Eventually" came with the "dot-com
bomb" and the bursting of the telecom bubble. The tech sector was
hit really hard and in November of 2002 I was laid off from my job as
an Electronics Engineer. That gave me the time, and a decent
severance package gave me the initial financing to design my first
product: the DMX-lator I. I began
using it in my own system in December of 2002 and, after a few
refinements and a lot of additional testing, began selling it in March
of 2003.
I quickly began getting requests for
other variations of the old mic. cable interface. These led to a
circuit revision and two additional software versions which, together,
allow the DMX-lator
I to translate DMX-512 to Sunn-plex, ETA Ultra-plex, Lightronics
LMX and NSI Microplex and Microplex-128, as well as the original James
Lighting MUX-64. Additional customer requests asked for
translation in the other direction, and the DMX-lator II was
born.
From mid-2003 to mid-2005 I went through
some rough times. Financing I had expected to help pay for new
product development fell through and I struggled just to maintain my
original product line. But things are improving and I've been
able to get development going again.
Customer requests continue to help
"flesh out" my
product line. In January of 2006, I released the DMX-lator III,
for Yorkville LP-304 light bars. It was pushed to the front of
the queue by the volume of requests I began receiving.
Translators for 0-10 volt analog and AMX-192 are back in active
development and should be released later this year.
Mission statement: To provide reliable, reasonably-priced electronic "tools" to make lighting equipment from different manufacturers "play nicely together."