DMXEnttecPro

Control the Enttec DMX USB Pro with Python3

Installation

This package solely depends on pyserial. You can install a recent release on PyPI:

pip install DMXEnttecPro

or by getting the repository from GitHub and doing something along the lines of:

git clone [email protected]:SavinaRoja/DMXEnttecPro.git
cd DMXEnttecPro
pip install .

Getting Started

If you don't know the serial address of the DMX controller yet, you can do the following to identify it:

python -m DMXEnttecPro.utils

which will give you some detailed information on all COM ports like this:

COM4
  name: None
  description: USB Serial Port (COM4)
  hwid: USB VID:PID=0403:6001 SER=EN055555A
  vid: 1027
  pid: 24577
  serial_number: EN055555A
  location: None
  manufacturer: FTDI
  product: None
  interface: None

Once you know your serial address, setting up a connection to your Enttec DMX USB Pro is simple:

from DMXEnttecPro import Controller
#dmx = Controller('COM4')  # Typical of Windows
dmx = Controller('/dev/ttyUSB0')  # Typical of Linux

Then you can set channel values easily (DMX Channels are 1-indexed, and Controller maintains that convention for you.) with:

dmx.set_channel(1, 255)  # Sets DMX channel 1 to max 255
dmx.submit()  # Sends the update to the controller

In some environments where you may not be assured of the precise string of your COM port, I recommend using a uniquely identifying mark like the serial number or product ID. Some helpers exist in DMXEnttecPro.utils:

from DMXEnttecPro import Controller
from DMXEnttecPro.utils import get_port_by_serial_number, get_port_by_product_id
my_port = get_port_by_serial_number('EN055555A')
my_port = get_port_by_product_id(24577)
dmx = Controller(my_port)

Auto-submission

You may supply auto_submit=True to instantiation of Controller to tell it to automatically submit changes on any action changing channel values:

dmx = Controller('/dev/ttyUSB0', auto_submit=True)

The argument submit_after=<bool> can be provided to any action changing channel values and it will take precedence over the configured auto_submit value of the Controller.

DMX Size Configuration

The size of the DMX universe defaults to 512 channels. There are occasions where finer timescales can be achieved in DMX by constraining this. dmx_size=<int> may be supplied to instantiation of Controller.

dmx = Controller('/dev/ttyUSB0', dmx_size=256)  # use only 256 channels

DMX Timing Control

Contoller.set_dmx_parameters can be used to adjust the packet timing for DMX. The most likely to be used feature is to change the output rate of packets. The device supports integer rates from 1 to 40Hz

dmx = Controller('dev/ttyUSB0')
dmx.set_dmx_parameters(output_rate=1)  # Output at 1Hz

or sending as fast as possible where the rate will be directly linked to the size of the DMX channels being submitted.

dmx = Controller('dev/ttyUSB0', dmx_size=512)  # 44Hz max rate
dmx.set_dmx_parameters(output_rate=0)

dmx = Controller('dev/ttyUSB0', dmx_size=32)  # 646Hz max rate
dmx.set_dmx_parameters(output_rate=0)

The relation to rate and DMX channels is given by 1,000,000 / (140 + (44 * UNIVERSE_SIZE))

Acknowledgments

DMXEnttecPro evolved from my re-write of pysimpledmx for compatibility with Python3.

pyenttec is another good package.

Developing

So far I have only utilized features with which I am personally familiar and have wanted. Please submit any issues or feature requests along with usage needs and I would be happy to evaluate them.