Control DMX light from WLED

Questions
1

For the pool, I have a flatLED 7.8 with 12 RGBW LED. It’s currently controlled from an eldoLED POWERdrive with RF controller which allows me to select a few solid solid colours only. I figure there must be a better way.

The LED controller has a DMX control so I was thinking that could be a start. I’m looking to use WLED and only WLED to control the pool LED; I’m not looking to use any other interface since WLED integrates so nicely with my home automation system over MQTT. It would make for some nice pool lighting automation :smiley:

On the WLED DMX output wiki, I found a reference to Robert Oostenveld’s hardware setup with a MAX485 to the WLED TX-pin. I’m looking to use an ESP8266 as the controller.

I have a few questions on this approach that I hope you as a collective can help with:

  • Is this approach feasible? Can I control a DMX light with WLED only? Would the multiple LEDs be individually addressable as if they were on a strip (with all of the effects that then allows)?
  • Reference to the TX-pin: is that the WLED defined GPIO (default 2) or is another meant?
  • Is it just a case of wiring up as per Robert’s example and done? Or what else is needed in addition to (instead of) the MAX485?

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions on this subject!

2

All good, all done. To answer my own questions:

  • absolutely, you can control a DMX light from WLED, although I have not found how/whether a multi LED DMX unit can be control individual of its LEDs. For now though, I’m happy to use it as a single big LED, regardless however many individual LED the unit is made up of.
  • you set your own TX pin; just follow the instructions in the DMX Output wiki
  • yes, just wire the TX pin to the MAX485 as shown and you’re off

One thing that initially confused me: when I compiled my own DMX enabled WLED binary, I could not connect to the WLED-AP. For some reason, it would not recognize the standard password. What I did was first flash the standard WLED build and then provided an OTA update with the DMX enabled binary. Worked a treat!

3

HI, can you explain how to got it working? I’m struggle with the LED Settings for DMX Out in 0.14-b3

4

I have some info on using the DMX out feature on my webpage: