Gilderfluke&Co DMX-512, Serial, and MIDI Output Smart Bricks - Manual (Page 29)

7) Moog / length mode: One of two modes to support serial control of Moog electric mo-
tion bases
i) Monitor Channel: This command is used to select a channel that is used to build up a serial
string byte-by-byte from the animation data, and then send it out at the appropriate time. It
can be used to send any ÔspecialÕ commands you might need to send to the equipment
being controlled by the BS-Serial. Any string of any length up to 256 bytes can be built up and
sent using this feature. It is typically used to send commands to the serially controlled equip-
ment that doesnÕt need to be sent regularly. Typical of these commands are initialization and
de-initialization strings.
This command asks for the address of an eight bit value in the animation data. If you enter
an address of 255/0FFh, this feature will be disabled. Once set (and configuration mode exit-
ed), the BS-Serial will begin monitoring this location for any non-zero values. Once it finds one
non-zero value, it starts buffering whatever values it finds in this location in each subsequent
frame of animation data into a buffer. If it then finds two consecutive frames of animation
data with a zero value in them, it will then immediately send out the entire string that has
been built up.
The advantage of using this mode of sending strings is that any string can be built up and
sent from the animation data. The disadvantage of this feature is that it takes as one frame of
time for each entry ion the string to be buffered in before it can be sent. A 200 character
long string will take 202 frames of data to build up and send out. This translates to almost
seven seconds at 30 FPS.
Data for these strings is typically hand entered using PC¥MACsÕ OffLine editing tools. The
target channel may be defined as either a single eight bit analog or as eight separate digital
functions within the same byte. If it is defined as an analog, you can use the ÔSet to a Value...Õ
commands to enter each frame of the string (be sure to turn off the ÔCut/PasteÕ options under
the ÔPreferencesÕ pulldown). If it is defined as eight digital channels, you can just draw in the
binary data as needed.
j) Rexroth Channels....: This is a Rexroth Mode specific command. This command is used to set
up which animation channels are sent to which Rexroth DCC cards. These channels must be
legal addresses for the resolution that has been set for the BS-Serial card.
8) Eight bit resolution outputs can be set to any address.
12) Twelve bit resolution outputs can not be set to any address that can evenly be divided
by three (0, 3, 6, & 9 are examples of illegal 12 bit resolution addresses). If the first
twelve bit resolution output is addressed at a value which when divided by three yields
a remainder of one, then you must set the Ôfirst channelÕ when saving the Eprom file
from PC¥MACs and setting the Eprom offset (command ÔaÕ above) to the channelÕs
address MINUS ONE. If the first twelve bit resolution output is addressed at a value
which when divided by three yields a remainder of two, then you must set the Ôfirst
channelÕ when saving the Eprom file from PC¥MACs and setting the Eprom offset
(command ÔaÕ above) to the channelÕs address MINUS TWO.
16) Sixteen bit resolution outputs can be set to any even number address. Examples of
these are 0, 2, 4, 8 & 10.
The Rexroth DCC cards currently support baud rates of 9600, 19.2 KBaud and 38.4
KBaud. There is no reason to use anything but the highest rate available. The maximum string
length for a Rexroth quick write command is eight bytes. The maximum number of DCC cards
you should try to control is fifteen when using thirty FPS and 38.4 KBaud. If you use the Ôframe
rate /2Õ feature, you can double this to control thirty DCC cards simultaneously (but this isnÕt
recommended).
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