Since its first release in early 2005, I have made a number of improvements to the DMX side of the circuit. These improvements add greater protection to the interface. The DMX lines are now fully galvanically isolated, and have over voltage and protection. They are also protected from excessive current draw. These improvements not only offer better protection to the host computer, but also to the interface. Since the revision 1.2 improvements I have now redesigned the PCB around a specific high quality case, which was I think one of the main elements lacking with this interface.
I have been interested in lighting for a number of years, but found that the good lighting desks, that can control moving lights, are well beyond the range of my budget as an amateur. Being interested in electronics as well I thought about building myself a lighting desk, but soon decided that as a software guy it was going to be a better idea to write one for my G4 powerbook. Please check out the open source project called LightsOn, it aim is to develop a robust framemwork for lighting applications.
I had one reservation, real time control. By this I mean faders are really easy to use in a live environment, but reacting quickly to change several channels at the same time with a mouse is a lot harder. This is why the USB DMX interface has the ability to receive a full universe. The idea being you can use a basic (cheap) lighting desk to send fader positions into the lighting application. This gives a powerful combined solution, real analogue control over a highly configurable lighting application.
Since I have put a lot of effort into the firmware, and the hardware design, I saw no point in being the only person to benefit. This site is dedicated to helping people build the hardware, and write applications to use it.
