Can XLR work instead of DMX?

[avelaWorship]

some months ago our church obtained some lights and we were told that XLR cable would get the job done if we didnt have DMX.... is this true? what problems would i have by using XLR if any? I would really appreciate your help

[petereit]

Can it? Sure! I've even heard of people running DMX down a barbed-wire fence and it worked.

Problems? You're sending a digital transmission through analog spec wiring. The signal quickly loses its phase and leads to unpredictable responses from the lighting fixtures. A fixture that worked just fine suddenly doesn't work at all -- or it turns itself on for no reason.

But if you have a small handful of simple fixtures, you can probably get away with using XLR. Just know, however, that when the gremlins show up, they rode in on your XLR cables.

[waynehoskins]

And just to clarify, XLR is a connector type, not a cable description. DMX is a signal protocol standard, not a cable description. 3-pin XLRs are used for audio, but 5-pin (and nonstandardly, 3-pin) XLRs are also used for DMX data.

I think you meant "can microphone cable work instead of data cable for sending DMX data?" To which the answer is a resounding maybe. It has been used many times, over long distances, sure, but it's not supposed to work. When it fails, it shows up as "gremlins" in the lighting rig -- things not responding as they should -- because parts of the data got clobbered by losses, rolloffs, and reflections in the transmission line.

The proper cable is anything that's rated for RS-485 serial data. There are some Belden and other part numbers that meet that. An inexpensive option is Category 5 cable, the stuff used for computer networks. It's not "officially" RS-485 rated, but it is recently officially accepted in the DMX standard; the transmission line is close enough to the specified parameters for it to be officially okay. That standard calls for using the orange and green pairs for data, both wires of the brown pair for ground, and cutting the blue pair.

[Mustangnaz]

I only have anecdotal evidence that it works. We added three LED PAR64 cans on our upper stage and just used one of the existing mic cables we already had run. We've run them manually with our physical board as well as computer controlled. When we synchronized them with our Christmas light display they never had a problem fading in/out, changing colors, and flashing quickly. It's a good 100' run, then 15' between each fixtures. If you already have mic cable, give it a try. If you have to buy cable, might as well get the right stuff.

[Esoteric]

What they said above. But as I understand it, CAT5 cable can only be used in the DMX512 standard if it is run in grounded metal conduit.

[avelaWorship]

Originally Posted by petereit

Can it? Sure! I've even heard of people running DMX down a barbed-wire fence and it worked.

Problems? You're sending a digital transmission through analog spec wiring. The signal quickly loses its phase and leads to unpredictable responses from the lighting fixtures. A fixture that worked just fine suddenly doesn't work at all -- or it turns itself on for no reason.

But if you have a small handful of simple fixtures, you can probably get away with using XLR. Just know, however, that when the gremlins show up, they rode in on your XLR cables.

LOL!!! Thanks, I enjoyed the humor... I already have them running on MIC cable... 6 PAR56 LED and 4 3ft LED colorstrips... I notice that when I create a chase and try to use the faders to control fade time and speed I have a really hard time to regulate it to the speed and fade time I need.. I wanted to know if I would get a better result using DMX cable??? Or maybe our mixer is too low budget??? its an Elation DMX Operator ret.$200

[avelaWorship]

What are "Gremlins"????

[[Admin] osborn4]

Originally Posted by avelaWorship

What are "Gremlins"????

Gremlins

[hoosierdraft]

Originally Posted by avelaWorship

What are "Gremlins"????

Related to "Murphy" who usually shows up around midway through the first song in your worship on Sunday. Then tends to leave after everyone else.

[pilchards]

Originally Posted by avelaWorship

What are "Gremlins"????

an LED par64 doing a strobe effect during an intense prayer session when it was turned off - that's a gremlin!

[ECC Media]

We've got a setup of DMX over Cat5e Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) cable in grounded conduit and it works fine. Our DMX length is around 250 feet end to end. If we wanted to pay more for the shielded Cat5 cable, it may not have needed the conduit but the conduit already runs overhead anyway so it made it easy to pull the Cat5 through the ceiling over to the stage lighting!

Many places I've seen also use Cat5 cable for their DMX signal. Long runs are the enemy of digital transmission and any lighting installation needs to take cable impedance into consideration before claiming that Cat5 cable will work everywhere!

[Esoteric]

We use CAT5 for 90% of our installations, but it should always be used in grounded conduit and never used to make extensions.