RC4 Wireless takes DMX dimming up a level
- Details
The RC4 Magic Series 3 SX innovations cross the entire RC4 family line: the popular RC4Magic 2.4GHz products, the new RC4Magic 900MHz series for use in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil, the LumenDim line, which is compatible with the Lumen Radio CRMX protocol, and finally, the W-Dim products, which work with all Wireless Solution W-DMX devices. The product started shipping in late August.
The design team at RC4, led by James David Smith, chief product developer (and founder), has continued to advance the state of the art in terms of wireless dimming. He explained, “At RC4 Wireless, we're no longer limited to industry-standard 16-bit LED dimming. The RC4 Series 3 dimmers provide a maximum of 19-bit resolution for a total of 524,288 steps when using 615Hz PWM. RC4 delivers 8 ‘micro steps,’ within each of the 65,536 steps delivered by common 16-bit technology. You can see the difference, particularly with high-wattage high-brightness LED sources.”
“If you thought 16-bit was great, you'll be amazed by 19-bit,” Smith added.
Users who work with PWM frequencies - most especially those in the motion picture industry - will immediately see the benefits. “For the first time, a slow smooth LED fade is available for high-frame-rate slow-motion videography. 5kHz PWM moves from 13-bit for RC4 Series 3 to top-quality 16-bit with the Series 3 SX, for smoother dimming with motion picture cameras than ever before,” noted Smith.
“At 20kHz PWM, our SX dimmers still deliver a whopping 14-bit resolution with 16,384 steps. Even at 40kHz, our SX products deliver a respectable 13-bits of resolution, a visible improvement over 10-bit, and tremendously better looking than other high-speed PWM dimmers delivering only 8-bit resolution with very steppy bottom-end fades.”
The RC4 Series 3 SX dimmers now feature RC4 Curve Tweak, which enables dimmer curve crossfading to each individual dimmer. Smith reported: “For each dimmer output, the curve can be adjusted with 256 increments from a pure linear curve to a pure inverse-square-law (ISL) curve. Together with RC4 ColorMatch, RC4 Curve Tweak ensures perfect color rendering by ensuring the dimmer is perfectly matched to the light generation characteristics of any LED.”
The RC4 Curve Tweak also gives designers the opportunity to flex more of their creative muscles. Smith explained: “Using RC4 Curve Tweak with the SX dimmers, designers can create red-shifting with RGB, RGBA, and RGBW light sources.”
RC4 has also made significant advancements in terms of the AC Wave Synthesis features available on the Series 3 SX dimmers. “AC Wave Synthesis on our SX 4-channel dimmers is now available separately for two pairs of channels, allowing one device to separately ring two telephones or control other AC loads, each with their own pair of dynamic DMX control channels,” noted Smith.
(Jim Evans)
