Device Patch & Universe Setup Manual

The Device Patch & Setup screen is where you configure physical DMX output universes, pair hardware dongles, patch lighting fixtures, assign channel footprints, and organize equipment with tags.

After hanging moving heads, open each fixture's individual control page and use Position Calibration & Movement Limits alongside color calibration. Align Pan/Tilt with offsets and inversion, then narrow the common movement trajectory without losing those corrections.

🔌 Universe Configuration & Hardware Pairing

Unilighter supports multiple independent DMX universes (512 channels per universe).

Connecting Hardware Interfaces

  1. Open the Setup screen from the sidebar or by navigating to /#/setup.
  2. In the Universes panel on the left, click Add Universe or select an existing universe.
  3. To transmit to physical lights, click Connect Output and select your hardware interface:
    • USB DMX: Standard uDMX or FTDI USB-to-RS485 interface connected directly via USB.
    • Wireless BLDMX: Bluetooth DMX transmitter paired wirelessly.
    • Network DMX (Art-Net & sACN): Broadcast, unicast, or multicast DMX over local Ethernet / Wi-Fi via Unilighter Desktop.
  4. Click Connect. When active, the universe indicator illuminates in green.

Note

Offline Pre-Programming & Visualizer: You do not need to select a dummy driver to program offline. When an interface is disconnected or unassigned, Unilighter's internal engine and the 3D Stage Visualizer remain fully active, rendering all scenes, animations, and node graphs in real time without physical hardware.

Free output sessions

Free allows 30 minutes of continuous physical DMX output per project session. The top bar shows the remaining time. The timer starts when a physical output begins sending; editing a project without output does not consume the allowance. All universes and temporary fixture-editor outputs share the same timer. Disconnecting or reconnecting hardware does not reset it.

DMX output session timer in the console top bar

At 00:00, the console sends a blackout frame and disconnects physical outputs. Editing, saving and visualizer previews remain available. Close and reopen the project to begin another session. Pro has uninterrupted output.

Updated Unilighter Desktop shells and Unilighter Mobile APKs enforce the deadline in the native output engine, including while the console renderer is suspended, and acknowledge the final blackout transfer before stopping. FTDI worker output also owns its deadline. Older native hosts rely on the running console timer and receive a zero frame through their existing buffer API with a short wait for transmission; update the host for independent enforcement and acknowledged blackout. A disconnected or unresponsive interface cannot confirm that fixtures received the final frame.

💡 Adding & Addressing Fixtures

To patch fixtures into a universe:

  1. Click + Add Device in the universe toolbar.
  2. Select a fixture definition from your library, or Import one from Open Fixture Library in the same dialog. You can still create or edit profiles in the Fixture Profile Editor.
  3. Configure addressing parameters:
    • Name / Label: Assign a recognizable name (e.g. Spot Front Left, Wash Back #3).
    • Operating Mode: Select the channel mode matching your physical fixture's dip switch / menu setting (e.g. 16ch Extended, 4ch Basic).
    • Start Address: Set the starting DMX channel (1–512). Unilighter automatically calculates and displays the ending channel footprint.
    • Quantity & Offset: Patch multiple identical fixtures at once with automatic consecutive address spacing.
Device patch list with centered fixture names and a compact tag column for occasional long tag sets

Fixture name buttons stay aligned regardless of how many tags each fixture has. The tag column adapts to typical tag sets across the whole project: an occasional long set scrolls in a compact strip, while common long sets receive more room. If a set only needs a little extra room, the column expands slightly to fit it before using horizontal scrolling. Unused width goes to fixture name buttons. Search keeps the same column widths.

Names and channel ranges are centered together, switching to left alignment only when the tag column occupies more than half the list width. Long names are shortened with an ellipsis; hover to read the full name, manufacturer and channel range. The channel range remains visible on the button.

Tags stay on one line at their normal size. Scroll sideways with a trackpad or horizontal scrollbar, or focus the strip and use the arrow keys. Click a tag to open its fixture group. Fixtures without tags show No tags in the same column; when no fixture has tags, the column only reserves room for that placeholder. On narrow screens, the tag strip moves below the centered name and edit/delete buttons.

⚠️ Address Collision Detection

The Setup device list highlights every fixture with overlapping DMX addresses in red. Overlaps are checked within the same Universe, including fixtures hidden by the search filter. Adjacent ranges with no shared channel are allowed. Hover the device name for the overlap explanation.

Edit the fixture's Universe, Channel or Mode and apply Repatch to resolve the conflict. The highlighting updates automatically when the patch changes or a conflicting fixture is removed.

Editing and repatching a fixture

Open Edit device using the pencil button beside a fixture. Name and tag changes apply immediately; closing the dialog keeps them.

Edit device and New device keep a compact width when you open the tag picker or assign many tags. Selected and available tags wrap onto additional lines; scroll vertically when the form is taller than the screen. On phones, the form opens as a bottom sheet.

Compact Edit device dialog with wrapping tag choices, a changed channel address and an enabled Repatch button

Universe, Channel and Mode apply only when you press Repatch. The button stays disabled until one of these differs from its value when the dialog opened. Returning all three to their original values disables it again. Select an available Universe and mode and an integer start address from 1–512.

Repatch preserves the fixture's current name, tags, 2D position, 3D height, mounting rotation and visualizer overrides. Changing the operating mode still changes the controls and channel footprint supplied by the fixture profile.

🏷️ Organizing Fixtures with Tags

Instead of rigid submaster groups, Unilighter uses dynamic Fixture Tags:

Selected fixture tags, the preserved stage search text, and matching available tags in the device dialog
  • Open a fixture's pencil button to edit its tags, or assign tags while configuring New device. Press + beside the selected tags, then choose an available tag or type a name and press Add or Enter (e.g. #Beams, #Washes, #FrontStage, #BackTruss, #VIP).
  • Typing filters available tags by any matching part of the name, ignoring case. Selecting a suggestion keeps your search text without adding an unfinished name. Clear the field with its right-hand clear button to see all remaining tags; Add or Enter adds the typed name and clears the field after a successful addition.
  • A single fixture can carry multiple tags simultaneously.
  • Tags immediately populate across the Live Dashboard, Device Control Widgets, Keyframe Animation tracks, and Node Graphs.
  • To rename a tag throughout the project, open its Device Control page and double-click the tag in the navigation bar. See renaming and merging tags for the confirmation and conflict rules when the new name already exists.

🔀 Multi-Head & Pixel Bar Patching

For multi-cell LED bars, pixel battons, and multi-emitter fixtures:

  • Unilighter maps both master channels (Dimmer Shared, Strobe Shared) and individual cell emitters (Head 0, Head 1, ... Head N) within a single device container.
  • You do not need to patch separate individual sub-devices for each pixel head; all heads are managed together while remaining independently controllable in scenes and animations.

For a complete architectural breakdown of SHARED_HEAD, dimmer inheritance, and sub-emitter targeting, see the dedicated Multi-Head Fixtures & Pixel Bar Architecture Manual.

🔄 Batch Actions & Rig Cloning

  • Duplicate / Clone: Select any fixture or group of fixtures and click Duplicate to replicate profiles and tag assignments to new start addresses.
  • Universe Migration: Move fixtures seamlessly between physical universes by updating the target universe selector.
  • Print Patch Sheet: Click the Print icon in the patch header to generate high-contrast printable paperwork with a 512-channel universe occupancy grid, rendered binary DIP switch diagrams, and fixture schedule tables for stagehands and riggers.

Import, search and universe-aware patching

The device list follows the project's Universe order, with fixtures sorted by starting channel inside each Universe. Adding or repatching a fixture automatically places it in that order. Use the search for device name, fixture, manufacturer or tag. The add-device form offers quick universe and mode choices. Suggested addresses are calculated from devices on the selected universe rather than from the whole project.

Use fixture import when the fixture is missing from your library, then check its selected mode and channel footprint. Output types that require Desktop, including Art-Net, sACN and a network Solo link, are dimmed when the current browser host cannot provide them.