Dmx troubles.

[apdevelopments]

Hi guys.
ive been busy buying up loads and loads of laser junk for my laser project.
amongst all this junk I picked a NJD Merlin dmx lighting desk.
I remember these from the 90s and thought it would be perfect to control my laser switches.
so I thought.
i connected it up to my newest laser. A laser world cs1000 rgb mk2.
i got nothing. So I tried a old mans trick of swapping the pins on the dmx cable to reverse the data polarity.
It started to work.
I managed to get one effect from the controller. And the black out switch working.
apart from that it does nothing else.
i have one welcome projection changing colours and that’s all it does.
Am I missing something?
the desk obviously transmitting data because I get one effect and can turn the beam on and off.
but it does not matter what I move or press nothing changes.
Has dmx changed since the 90s.
i don’t suppose this old desk is analogue and today’s controllers are all digital dmx.
any help would be great.
many thanks

[aberry]

Has dmx changed since the 90s.
i don’t suppose this old desk is analogue and today’s controllers are all digital dmx.

No, DMX is still DMX*. It's always been digital. You might be thinking of AMX or LMX, which were analog. On possible issue with older controllers is that they may not send a full 512-slot DMX frame, which can cause issues with fixtures that don't accept s

Looks like the Merlin is programmable, so you probably just need to find a manual for it an figure out how to configure it for whatever layout makes sense for your laser.

* There is the addition of RDM, but since all RDM communication is initiated by the controller it's only a possible issue with old fixtures that don't ignore non-zero start codes connected to RDM-enabled controllers.