This is a 5 foot (~1.5m) long XLR-3 cable capable of better communications for lighting and special effects through standard or digital communication protocols. We specifically like to use this cable with our ESP32 Thing Plus DMX to LED Shield but it can also be used with DMX fixtures that utilize an XLR-3 jack.
This cable possesses a 24AWG diameter and is terminated with a 3-pin male XLR connector at one end and a 3-pin female XLR connector at the other.
Note: The usage of 3-pin XLR connectors for DMX signals is technically prohibited by section 7 of ANSI E1.11 - 2008. Please take care not to confuse lighting cables with audio cables.
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As I posted on the interface board, DMX explicitly disallows 3-pin XLR - see section 7.1.2. It must be 5-pin XLR to be DMX. The only other connector allowed is RJ-45 for fixed or permanent installs. For more, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMX512#Connectors. You should remove the term 'DMX' from this product to eliminate confusion.
In theory there's no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is.
In practice, for better or worse, 3 pin XLR for DMX is everywhere, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.
What would actually concern me is whether or not this is proper 120 ohm impedance cable, not mic cable (which is the usual problem with 3 pin DMX.)
Agreed that it's very concerning that it's not listed anywhere if this is 120 ohm cable or not. On the other point, SparkFun should not be encouraging people to violate the very explicitly laid out spec and contribute to the problem. Especially since it's popular to get SparkFun items to learn on, and people shouldn't be learning the wrong thing at the start.