Lumotics Solution Integrates Incompatible Lighting
As lighting systems get ever more versatile the issue of integrating legacy systems on board a yacht with something new and exciting becomes ever more important as owners seek to improve on what they have already without necessarily going for a total refit.
The Lumotics DMX-S2L originally began life – as is often the case with innovations developed by Lumotics – as a solution developed for an individual client. This owner wanted to interconnect the sound system on board his large, luxury catamaran with the lighting to deliver a variety of preset light shows synchronized with the music.
For this kind of project Lumotics already offers a highly regarded S2L (sound-to-light) unit using its own protocol, however this particular yacht already had a dimmable lighting system using a DMX control system, which the owner wanted to retain. He also wanted to keep his programmable logic controller (PLC) – a rugged and highly flexible computerized control system usually found only on larger, more sophisticated vessels. This required a custom solution.
In just three weeks Lumotics designed, built and programmed a unit that could take in momentary (on/off) contact signals (from the switches) and output DMX commands for both sound to light and single color lighting control. In accordance with the owner’s wishes, this particular unit allowed four on/off buttons to activate red, blue or green lighting along with sound-to-light effects on the DMX network. In order to assist with the quick turn-around required the unit was dispatched preprogrammed for a simple 11-wire connection. All that remained to be done was to screw it to the required bulkhead and connect it up.
The success of this controller, along with the recognition that there is a growing market for this kind of device, led to it joining Lumotics’ expanding product line-up as the DMX-S2L.
Off-the-shelf DMX converters do exist already, but the DMX-S2L provides an integrated, cost-effective, wirelessly-controlled solution for both static and sound-to-light control of systems that are designed for momentary push buttons. It also comes with an internal Wi-Fi router that allows remote adjustment of any of the settings on the system from anywhere within range using a laptop or tablet.
Lumotics has rapidly become a leader in the development and production of customized and semi-custom lighting control units, many of which then go on to becoming available to the wider market. New enquiries are always welcome.
