This project controls the GRAFIK Eye QS control panel via a QSE-CI-NWK-E over its serial interface. It uses the OLA project to take a DMX device or a network DMX protocol (e.g. sACN/E1.31) and drive the 6 available zones. It also speaks MQTT for Home Assistant control, with MQTT auto discovery so the light appears automatically.

I run this on a Raspberry Pi (a Pi Zero works) on Raspberry Pi OS / Raspbian 13 (Trixie). OLA is no longer packaged for recent Debian/Raspbian releases, so it is built from source at the 0.10.9 release tag with install-ola.sh (see below), following the OLA build guide.

DMX and MQTT are independent, optional components. Serial control of the QSE is always active; you can run with DMX only, MQTT only, or both.

What you'll need

• A Raspberry Pi running Raspberry Pi OS (a Pi Zero is enough; a Pi Zero W or any model with networking is needed for sACN/MQTT). These instructions assume Raspberry Pi OS / Raspbian 13 (Trixie).
• A USB-to-serial adapter wired to the QSE-CI-NWK-E's serial terminals (the config example uses a Prolific PL2303-style adapter; any 3.3 V / RS-232 adapter that matches your wiring works).
• A GRAFIK Eye QS with a QSE-CI-NWK-E network/serial interface.
• For DMX: a lighting console or software sending sACN/E1.31 on your network.
• For MQTT / Home Assistant: a running MQTT broker (the Docker setup below includes one).

Overview

The setup is three steps once the Pi is ready:

1. Prepare the Pi and get the code (step 0) — flash the OS, get a terminal, clone this repo.
2. Install OLA (step 1) — only if you use DMX. This is the slow part (~1–2 h on a Pi Zero).
3. Install the control service (step 2) and configure it (step 3).

Installation

0. Prepare the Pi and get the code

If you're starting from scratch, flash Raspberry Pi OS with the Raspberry Pi Imager. In the imager's settings (the gear / "Edit settings"), set a username and password and enable SSH — remember the username you choose; you'll use it everywhere below as <user>. Modern Raspberry Pi OS no longer defaults to the pi user, so don't assume it; use whatever name you set here.

Boot the Pi, then open a terminal on it (directly, or over SSH: ssh <user>@<pi-address>). Install git and download this project:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y git
git clone https://github.com/GRMrGecko/lutron-dmx-control.git
cd lutron-dmx-control

All the commands below are run from inside this lutron-dmx-control directory.

Throughout this guide, replace <user> with the username you created above. If that username is not pi, you must also pass it to the installer (TARGET_USER=<user>, shown in step 2) and substitute it in every systemctl/journalctl command (e.g. lutron-dmx-control@<user>, not @pi).

1. Install OLA (only if using DMX)

If you set dmx.enabled: false, skip this step — OLA does not need to be installed.

Otherwise build and install OLA (the daemon plus the Python client bindings the control script uses). On a single-core Pi Zero this takes roughly 1–2 hours; the script adds temporary swap on low-memory boards so the compile does not run out of memory.

bash ./install-ola.sh

This installs the build dependencies, clones OLA at the 0.10.9 tag, and builds and installs olad plus the ola.ClientWrapper Python module. Override the version or build directory with OLA_VERSION= / BUILD_DIR= if needed.

2. Install the control service

install.sh installs the Python dependencies, the control script, the config file and the olad@<user> / lutron-dmx-control@<user> systemd services. By default it installs for the pi user; pass TARGET_USER=<name> for a different user.

sudo bash ./install.sh
# or, for a non-pi user:
sudo TARGET_USER=james bash ./install.sh

The service is enabled (starts on boot) but, on a first install, is not started immediately — the freshly installed config still has placeholder values. The installer prints the exact edit-then-start steps; see step 3 below. On a re-run with an existing config it restarts the service to pick up the new version.

Note: the systemd unit runs /home/<user>/lutron-dmx-control.py, so <user>'s home must be /home/<user>. If it lives elsewhere, the installer warns you to adjust ExecStart in lutron-dmx-control@.service.

3. Configure

Edit /etc/lutron-dmx-control/config.yaml (installed from config.example.yaml) and set:

• serial.device — your serial device (use ls -lah /dev/serial/by-id/).
• qse.integration_id and qse.zones — to match your GRAFIK Eye unit.
• dmx.enabled / dmx.universe / dmx.start_address — for your DMX layout. dmx.lockout_sec (default 5) sets how long an active DMX signal locks out MQTT control. Set dmx.enabled: false to run without OLA/DMX.
• mqtt.broker, mqtt.username, mqtt.password — if using MQTT. Set mqtt.enabled: false to run without MQTT/Home Assistant; paho-mqtt is then not required.

The config is searched for at --config PATH, then $LUTRON_CONFIG, then config.yaml next to the script, then ~/.config/lutron-dmx-control/config.yaml, then /etc/lutron-dmx-control/config.yaml. It holds the MQTT password, so it is chmod 600 and excluded from git (config.yaml in .gitignore); only config.example.yaml is committed.

Then start (first install) or restart (after edits) the service: sudo systemctl start lutron-dmx-control@pi (use restart if it is already running). Check it came up cleanly with journalctl -u lutron-dmx-control@pi -f.

OLA / DMX configuration

install.sh configures OLA for network DMX only (E1.31/sACN) by default: it disables every OLA plugin except e131. This matters because olad's serial/USB device plugins (e.g. usbserial) otherwise auto-probe and grab the QSE's serial adapter (/dev/ttyUSB*), conflicting with this program. The plugin configs live in ~/.ola/ if you want to change this later.

To enable a different/extra plugin, stop olad, flip its config, and restart:

sudo systemctl stop olad@pi
sed -i '/^enabled\s*=/c\enabled = true' ~/.ola/ola-artnet.conf   # example: also accept Art-Net
sudo systemctl start olad@pi

Receiving sACN (patching the universe)

For olad to actually receive sACN, an E1.31 input port must be patched to your OLA universe — the OLA universe number is the sACN universe (e.g. universe 3 = multicast 239.255.0.3). Registering the universe from the client is not enough; without a patched input port olad never joins the sACN multicast group.

install.sh does this automatically: it patches the E1.31 input port to the dmx.universe from your config.yaml. To do it (or change it) by hand:

# Find the E1.31 device id, then patch input port 0 to your universe (here 3):
ola_dev_info
ola_patch --device 1 --port 0 --input --universe 3
# Confirm the multicast join on your active interface (eth0 wired, wlan0 on a Pi Zero W):
ip maddr show dev eth0 | grep 239.255.0.3
curl -s http://localhost:9090/get_dmx?u=3      # confirm DMX values are arriving

You can also patch from the olad web UI at the Pi's IP, port 9090. The patch is saved in ~/.ola/ and survives restarts/reboots.

Note: on the console/desktop sending sACN, a "changes only" / "send on change" option means it only transmits when levels change. Prefer a continuous stream so olad has data immediately after a restart.

Home Assistant & MQTT (Docker)

I run Home Assistant and the Mosquitto MQTT broker in Docker via docker compose. A minimal compose.yaml:

services:
  homeassistant:
    container_name: home-assistant
    image: homeassistant/home-assistant:stable
    volumes:
      - ./hass:/config
    environment:
      - TZ=America/Chicago
    restart: always
    network_mode: host
  mqtt:
    container_name: mqtt
    image: eclipse-mosquitto
    volumes:
      - ./mosquitto:/mosquitto/config
    restart: always
    network_mode: host

network_mode: host lets Home Assistant discover the broker and the control script publish to it on 127.0.0.1:1883. Bring it up with docker compose up -d.

Mosquitto config

Mosquitto needs a config and a password in the mounted ./mosquitto directory. ./mosquitto/mosquitto.conf:

per_listener_settings true
allow_zero_length_clientid true
listener 1883 0.0.0.0
allow_anonymous false
password_file /mosquitto/config/pwfile
acl_file /mosquitto/config/aclfile

./mosquitto/aclfile (grant the mqtt user full access):

user mqtt
topic readwrite #

Create the password file (use the same mqtt user/password you put in config.yaml):

docker compose run --rm mqtt mosquitto_passwd -c -b /mosquitto/config/pwfile mqtt 'your-password'
docker compose restart mqtt

Home Assistant integration

In Home Assistant, add the MQTT integration (Settings → Devices & Services) and point it at the broker (host 127.0.0.1, port 1883, the mqtt user/password).

With mqtt.discovery: true (the default in config.yaml), the light is published via Home Assistant MQTT discovery and appears automatically — no YAML needed. To disable discovery, set mqtt.discovery: false and add the light manually:

light:
  - platform: mqtt
    schema: json
    name: lutron_qse_nwk
    state_topic: "lutron/qse-nwk"
    command_topic: "lutron/qse-nwk/set"
    brightness: true
    color_mode: true
    supported_color_modes: ["brightness"]

Recommended: watchdog

Enable the hardware watchdog on the Pi to auto-reboot on a system crash.

Add to /boot/firmware/config.txt (or /boot/config.txt on older images) under the [all] section:

watchdog=on

Uncomment RuntimeWatchdogSec in /etc/systemd/system.conf and set it:

RuntimeWatchdogSec=10s

Reboot to apply.