ABSTRACT

Years ago, before there was a digital lighting control standard, automated lighting manufacturers were left to their own devices in the area of control and control protocol. Some used digital signals for control, and others used 0-10 volt analog control or some other analog scheme. As a result, almost every automated lighting controller was proprietary to one type of fi xture and every fi xture was wired directly to the controller or to a repeater box. Cross-pollination among different manufacturers’ gear required the use of converters and adapters. Analog control cables were fat bundles of wire that amounted to a wire per parameter per fi xture. In those days, automated lighting was pretty much limited to four or fi ve parameters, but even small analog systems had big wiring requirements, and most analog controllers were limited to eight or 16 instruments. The connectors alone took up quite a bit of real estate on the backs of analog controllers.