Installation Guide

Installing a DMX show controller
in a permanent installation

This is the practical side of the job: where the controller physically goes, how the network and universes get planned, what happens when the building loses power at 3am, and what you hand to the venue on the last day. Written for integrators and installers who have already decided what they are fitting — including those fitting something other than ours.

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DMX Core 100 web dashboard showing live output status during commissioning

An install is not a show. It is a thing that has to still work in five years.

On a production, somebody is in the room. If a cue misfires, a human fixes it in the moment. A permanent installation has none of that. The designer leaves, the console goes back to the rental house, and whatever is left in the rack has to start itself every day, recover from power cuts nobody tells you about, and be operable by staff who were hired long after you finished.

That changes what matters. Channel counts and effects engines get all the attention when you are specifying, but the things that decide whether an install ages well are duller: a sane address plan, a device that boots straight into running, a schedule that survives an outage, and an interface the venue cannot accidentally break. Most of this guide is about those.

Mounting & power Network & universe planning Unattended operation Roles & handover
Permanent architectural lighting installation in a multi-zone commercial space

The commissioning sequence

Roughly the order things want to happen in. Steps two and three are the ones that cost money if you get them wrong, because they are the ones that are hard to change after the ceiling closes.

Decide where the controller lives, and how it is powered

Three broad options, and the building usually picks for you. A touchscreen in a standard 2-gang electrical box where staff need to reach it. A 19" rack mount where the rack is the natural home and nobody should be touching it. A desk stand where the space is temporary or the controller moves. DMX Core 100 takes Power over Ethernet or an 8–28 VDC input, so a single Cat6 run to a PoE switch is often the whole power and data story — which matters when you are trying to avoid a local socket in a plastered wall or an outdoor enclosure.

Plan universes by channel count, not fixture count

Add up channels per zone, divide by 512, then add headroom for the fixtures the venue will inevitably add. Write the plan down before anything is patched — the address plan is the document that gets lost, and it is the one the next person needs most. DMX Core 100 addresses up to 800 universes at 40 Hz (600 at 60 Hz) on the appliances and on the $599 Full software licence, so headroom is not usually the constraint; the constraint is remembering what you assigned.

Choose transport, then make the network boring

Art-Net or sACN over the building network for anything beyond a handful of universes; DMX-512 for short local runs to fixtures with no network port; KiNet where the fixtures are Color Kinetics. Put lighting on its own VLAN or its own switch if you can get it, and give the controller and every node a static address or a DHCP reservation. Almost every "the lights went weird" call a year later is a network change nobody connected to lighting.

Get the show in — usually by recording it

On most installs a designer programs on a console the venue is not keeping. Capture it rather than rebuilding it: DMX Core 100 records Art-Net, sACN, DMX-512 or KiNet at the protocol level and stores it protocol-neutrally, converting on output, so a show recorded over one transport can replay over another. Recording is free and unrestricted in the demo, so you can capture on site on the designer's last day and sort the licence out afterwards. More on record & playback.

Set up automation, then zones

Schedules with sunrise/sunset and offsets for anything that should follow daylight, input triggers for anything that should follow the building, and zones so each area runs its own program rather than the whole venue sharing one state. Zones are what stop a restaurant's terrace and dining room from arguing with each other, and they are much easier to define now than to retrofit.

Lock the interface down and hand it over

Give the AV manager full access and everyone else exactly what they need — 24 permission-based roles and installer-customisable menus mean the front-of-house tablet can be three buttons and nothing else. Then hand over the address plan, the patch, the schedule and a contact. Leave yourself remote access if the venue wants ongoing support.

The part that actually decides whether an install ages well

Unattended operation is the whole game in a permanent install, and it is the least demonstrable thing on a spec sheet. Test it rather than trusting it.

Pull the plug during commissioning

The single most useful test you can run, on any controller from any manufacturer including this one. Cut power mid-show, restore it, and watch the room without touching anything. You are looking for three things: does it come back at all, does it come back into the right state, and does it know what time it is. Do this before handover, not after the first outage.

No desktop session to get stuck behind

On the DMX Core 100 appliance the software is the device — there is no operating-system login, no update prompt and no dialog box waiting for a mouse that is not there. This is the substantive argument for an appliance over a rack PC in a building nobody is maintaining, and it is worth weighing honestly: if the venue already has managed IT and a maintained rack PC, the software licence on that PC is a perfectly good answer.

Clock that survives the outage

A real-time clock with battery backup plus network time sync means the unit knows the correct date and time when power returns, so schedules and sunrise/sunset events resume on the right day instead of restarting from an epoch. A controller that loses time after every outage turns a daylight-following facade into a support call.

Drift detection on the nodes

An install does not only drift at the controller. The native Advatek PixLite integration auto-discovers controllers on the network and monitors board temperature, supply voltage and per-output current live, with firmware and port-config drift detection — so you find out that somebody reflashed a node before the venue does.

Remote access without a VPN

A cloud tunnel (one year included) means you can look at the system from your office rather than driving out to read an error off a screen. Fleet management across multiple sites lives at portal.dmxcore.com, which matters once you are maintaining more than a couple of installs.

Documentation that outlives you

Not a product feature, just the thing everyone skips. The address plan, the IP plan, the patch and the schedule, left somewhere the venue can find them. The next integrator to open this rack will either bless you or curse you, and it is entirely determined by this step.

When we are the wrong answer

We would rather be honest than oversell. If any of these describe the job, buy the other thing — you will be happier and so will the client.

The whole job is one or two universes on a loop

A shop window, a plinth, a single facade element replaying one look forever. A small dedicated player — an Enttec S-Play Nano, or a DIN-rail player from someone like DMX4ALL — costs a fraction of any software licence and disappears into the enclosure. Buy one of those. Come back when the site has zones, a schedule, several protocols, or more universes than the box can address.

You are scaling to landmark channel counts

Whole-building facades and very large pixel arrays controlled as a single canvas are what the Pharos LPC X and VLC families were built for, and they are genuinely good at it. If that is the brief, buy that. Our range starts to be the sensible answer well below that ceiling.

Somebody needs to design and operate a production live

DMX Core 100 is not a console. Consoles and show-authoring software — ChamSys, grandMA, QLC+, Lightkey and the rest — exist to design and operate full shows for theatre and live events, and DMX Core sits downstream of them, recording what they output and replaying it. It has fixture control and will serve as a lightweight console for setup and small jobs, but specifying it as a replacement for a production console is the wrong call.

The content is generative or video-driven

Madrix, MadMapper, Resolume and Lightjams build generative pixel and video content, and sound-reactive or interactive content is their job, not ours. They are complements: design the content there, then record and run it here. How that pairing works.

Frequently asked questions

What is a DMX show controller in a permanent installation?

It is the device that runs the lighting after the designer has gone home. In a permanent install there is usually no operator and no console left in the building, so something has to hold the programming, start it on a schedule or a trigger, and keep running unattended for years. That is a different job from designing the show, which is done on a console or in show-authoring software. A show controller stores what was designed and executes it reliably.

How do I plan universes and network for a permanent install?

Count channels rather than fixtures, then add headroom. Work out the channel count per zone, divide into 512-channel universes, and allow room for fixtures the venue will add later. Decide the transport next: Art-Net or sACN over the building network for anything beyond a few universes, DMX-512 for short local runs to fixtures that have no network port. Put lighting on its own VLAN or its own physical switch where you can, and give the controller and every node a static address or a DHCP reservation so an outage does not reshuffle the install.

Does a DMX controller keep running after a power cut?

It should, and this is worth testing rather than assuming. On the DMX Core 100 appliance the software is the device — there is no desktop session for someone to log into after a reboot — and a real-time clock with battery backup plus network time sync means the unit knows the correct date and time when power returns, so schedules and sunrise/sunset events resume on the right day rather than restarting from zero. The honest advice for any controller, ours included, is to pull the plug during commissioning and watch what the room does when it comes back.

Can I record a show from an existing console and play it back unattended?

Yes, and this is the usual workflow on an install where a designer programs on a console the venue is not keeping. DMX Core 100 captures Art-Net, sACN, DMX-512 or KiNet at the protocol level and stores it protocol-neutrally, converting on output, so the show can be replayed over a different transport from the one it was recorded on. Recording is free and unrestricted in the demo, so you can capture on site before any licence is bought; a licence is needed to put playback into production.

What should I hand over to the venue at the end of the job?

A locked-down interface, an account per person who needs one, and documentation of the address plan. DMX Core 100 has 24 permission-based roles and installer-customisable menus, so the AV manager can have full access while front-of-house staff see one page with the three buttons they actually need. Hand over the universe and IP plan, the fixture patch, the schedule, and who to call — and leave yourself remote access if the venue wants you to keep supporting it.

Do I need dedicated hardware or will software on a PC do?

Both work, and the choice is usually about the building rather than the features. The software runs on Windows, macOS and Linux and is identical in capability, so a rack PC that is already specified and maintained is a legitimate answer. A dedicated appliance is the better answer when nobody will be maintaining a PC, when the room wants a touchscreen on the wall in a 2-gang box, or when a general-purpose computer with automatic updates and a login screen is a liability in a space that has to just work.

When is DMX Core 100 the wrong choice for an installation?

When the whole job is one or two universes replaying a single look forever, a small dedicated player such as an Enttec S-Play Nano or a DIN-rail player from DMX4ALL is cheaper and simpler — buy one of those. When you are scaling to landmark channel counts across a building facade, a Pharos LPC X or VLC is built for that and we are not. And DMX Core 100 is not a console: if you need to design and operate a theatrical production live, that is a job for a console or show-authoring software, and DMX Core sits downstream of it.

Commission it on your own bench first

Download DMX Core 100 free in full-feature demo mode and run the whole sequence — record a show, build a schedule, set up zones and roles — before you specify anything. No signup, no expiry, and recording is unrestricted.

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