Pimp my strobe!

The BOTEX SP1500-DMX is a very popular stroboscope here in Germany because of it's high intensity and low price. On the other hand there were some problems with firmware stability (Deadlocks, unwanted flashing,...) and some advanced features were missing.

So a complete new firmware had to be written with the help and support of many VT-Companies:

supported strobes
features
installation
channel mapping

supported strobos

Botex SP-1500 DMX (Rev. 2.3, Rev. 5.2, Rev. 5.4)
Showtec Titanstrobe 1500W
StarWay Superflash 1500 DMX
American DJ S-1500 / DMX (a.k.a. MZ Vision ST-2000 DMX)
Lite Works WS-3000SX

The firmware was written for a mains frequency of 50Hz!

features

seamless rates between 2-13Hz in the normal mode
Blinder mode with 14Hz, 15Hz, 16.6Hz, 25Hz und 50Hz
Random mode (normally distributed, variable trigger threshold)
full 8bit resolution of the intensity. (gamma-corrected via C3 dimmer curve)
Simulation of the tubes temperature to prevent it from melting
special function for instant single flashes.
SYNC function for syncing all modified strobes.
some stand alone modes selectable via DIPs
instant shut down if the DMX signal is lost.
open source (GPL, code is written in AVRASM)

installation

1.	If you have a DMX-Transceiver or STK500, write the firmware to an ATmega8515-16PU and select the crystal as clock source. (On the resources site you can find a manual for programming AVRs.) If the write was successful, the red LED of the transceiver starts flashing.
2.	Remove the original controller from it's socket. (Mark pin1 ;-)
3.	Bend pin9 (RESET) of the new controllerso that it is not connected with the target board.
4.	Put the new controller in the socket of the old one.

After these few steps your strobe uses a controller with much higher performance.

channel mapping

DMX channel	value	function
1	000 - 255	Speed / Trigger
2	000 - 255	Intensity
3	000 - 049 050 - 099 100 - 149 150 - 199 200 - 255	Normal Blinding Random Single Flash SYNC