DMX dip switch calculator

This is an easy to use DMX dip switch calculator to help you quickly find out what setting you need to set your dip switches to, to work with your DMX controller requirements.

A short DMX overview

When using multiple DMX receivers that you are looking to individually control from a DMX controller or DMX desk you will need to set each DMX receiver to its own address. You can have up to a total of 512 individual addresses (zones or fittings) that could be independently controlled through DMX. To have multiple zones or fittings controlled together you can set those DMX receivers as the same address setting on the dip switches.

How the DMX dip switch calculator works

A standard DMX receiver / fitting should have 1-10 dip-switches that can be switched up or down. DMX addresses are actually worked out using binary, the 1-10 switches actually represent the values below:

Dip-switch – Binary number:

switch 1 – 1
switch 2 – 2
switch 3 – 4
switch 4 – 8
switch 5 – 16
switch 6 – 32
switch 7 – 64
switch 8 – 128
switch 9 – 256

By setting the switches in combination, you can get any value from 0-511 (that’s 512 channels).

For colour-changing LED fittings, the dip switches you choose will be based on the number of channels each LED fitting needs. e.g. – if you have 5 RGB DMX fittings that each use 3 channels (1 red, 1 green & 1 blue), you would set your dip-switches for every third channel, like this:

RGB DMX LED fitting – Channel number:

LED fitting 1 – 1 (plus channels 2 & 3)
LED fitting 2 – 4 (plus channels 5 & 6)
LED fitting 3 – 7 (plus channels 8 & 9)
LED fitting 4 – 10 (plus channels 11 & 12)
LED fitting 4 – 13 (plus channels 14 & 15)

By using the calculator above, you can instantly work out the dip-switches to set for each required DMX address number.

Our Dip Switch Calculator is Free to use anywhere! Including your own website.

Please feel free to use our online DMX dip switch calculator. You can even simply put this on your website, blog or anywhere! Simply copy the coding below into your website on the page you want the calculator to be: