irill Safin made a DMX translator board to control lighting on a staircase from a theater lighting board over the DMX protocol.

The Amadeus Staircase was a rolling staircase that consisted of 8 steps, a total of 8 feet wide, with a small 3 foot step at the top. The intention was to allow control of the staircase lighting from a theater lighting board over the DMX protocol. There was no standard way to achieve this in an easily programmable fashion by default, so the DMX Translator board was developed. It has the following features:

• Teensy 3.6 primary controller
• RS485 differential to TTL Serial converter IC to interpret DMX packets
• DIP switch for DMX address selection (0-511)
• DMX input & output connectors, to allow daisy chaining.
• Indicator LED for status indication.
• Four unique LED strip outputs to control four LED strips from the controller, including level shifter.
• Ability to selectively terminate DMX (for channel 511).

The device was powered by a 12V car battery and an inverter, and the final mounting and connections are shown here: