USB DMX512 Controller
2009-06-15 03:16 by Ian
Awhile ago I was asked to participate in a business venture with a friend. My task was to design and build a device to serve as a bridge between a computer and a DMX512 chain. I went through two different USB PHYs and found the PDIUSBD12 to be a little too involved given the simple task we had in mind, plus I currently have very little knowledge about Win32 driver development. This code does work, but be warned: I abandoned work on it shortly after I found I wasn’t going to be paid, and so it isn’t cleaned up, optimized, or even commented nicely. Both versions of this code do work (USB enumerates, DMX512 chain is constantly refreshed, UI works, etc), but there are no drivers for the PDIUSBD12 version. I don’t know how to write them yet. The FT8U245AM came with royalty-free drivers that I made the appropriate changes to. Please do not take either of these listings to be an accurate sample of my programming. They were incomplete projects, so I am only putting them here with the hope that somebody will get useful insight from them.
- UserSerial using the PDIUSBD12 PHY
- UserSerial using the FT8U245AM PHY (The better version)
- Win2000 Drivers for the FT8U245AM version of the program.
- Quick java program to demonstrate basic device operation.
- The only draft of the protocol specification for the device.
- And if the above is too dense, here is all of the e-mail correspondence with the head software engineer in Singapore.
Once again, no single one of these docs will fully explain how this thing works, but it was a work in progress. Good luck to anyone who can make something useful from it. All I ask is credit for my work.
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