LUX Italia has developed a user-friendly lighting control
device designed to operate with DMX fixtures. The P1 is a "simple"
wall switch, based on a touchpad capacitive sensor, for full color, warm white
and single color DMX lamps.
The core of the device is a custom 16-bit MCU,
implementing DMX512A and OpenDMX. The latter is based on DMX512A, but offers
more possibilities such as file transfer, synchronous operation, and
diagnostics, and it is a public-domain, license-free document (see below for
more details).
The MCU uses a proprietary algorithm to translate finger
position on the color wheel into a DMX signal, with a response time of 40 Hz.
Four channels – red, green, blue and amber – are used.
There is also a "white" area in the center of
the color scale. Gordan Rancic, director of technology R&D for LUX Italia,
says that this are is not a "simple" white. "If you touch
exactly in the center of the circle, you will reach 100% of all four
channels," he says. "But if you move your finger for example, to the
red color (but still inside white area), your white will gain in the red
channel and lose some green channel. In this way you can 'trim' your white
color as you like!"
To the right of the color circle, a dimmer surface allows
the user to change the intensity of the chosen color from 1 to 100%.
The four P1-P4 buttons are defined "user
program" buttons. "When you choose a color and intensity, just
'press' the program button for over 3 seconds and the new settings will be
stored," says Rancic. The P1 also has four different dynamically changing
color programs. New programs can be created on a PC and transferred to the unit
using a USB memory stick.
"You can connect up to eight P1 units within the
same DMX network," says Rancic. "One of them will become a 'master'
while the others will operate as slaves. From the user point of view, nothing
changes: you can switch the light on using one unit, change it with other unit
and turn it off with any other of the eight P1s."
The P1 is powered with 80-240 VAC, consuming around 0.6W
when active, and 0.1W when the light is off (only this is only the case when
OpenDMX protocol is used, since there is a "Stand By" command that
does not exist on DMX512A). Rancic says that the system was designed with the
end user in mind. "The Whole system had to be user-friendly," he
says. "You can't give 8 push-buttons to the user telling him "this is
the red channel, this is green' and so on, and then expect him to correctly mix
red, blue and amber to get violet."
From September 2007 two different forms of the P1 will be
available, one of which is a luxury model costing about GBP 300 with mahogany
"wings" and a special body resin similar to Mont Blanc pens. The
standard model (P1L) will be just in plastic, planned for mass market, with a
price of about GBP 150. Rancic says that the P1 potentially be used wherever
DMX lamps are installed. "We are now working closely with some architects
that found P1 very interesting for boutiques, jewelry stores and luxurious apartments,"
says Rancic. "The P1L was designed with hotels and yachts in mind. For the
future, we have to wait that people start to use full color lamps at
home..." LUX Italia is the brand of Phoenix Service, an Italian company
that is involved in electronic design. "About one year ago we decided to
focus our forces on LED lightning, and at the beginning of April 2007 LUX
Italia was born," says Rancic. "Our aim is to produce 'Luxury
Lighting Appliances', and some of our very innovative devices are now almost at
the end of development."
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