Find your own brands & devices with DaMatrix Synapse

DaMatrix ships with a device library, but every job has gear nobody else has drawn yet. Synapse is the search tool built into the DaMatrix device library. It finds real front and rear panel photos for the exact model on your job, reads the specs, finds the manual and checks the price, then saves the result as a device you can drop into any rack.

Building your own library is free. Anyone can add categories and brands, create devices, and use panel photos from their own computer, including ones you saved from a Google image search. The Synapse web searches are part of DaMatrix Pro. Everything you save lives in your own library, so your devices keep working offline.

What is free and what needs Pro

• Free: add categories and brands (CAT, ADD), create devices, add panel photos from your computer, reuse photos already in a brand folder, save devices, add them to your project, and import a library someone sent you.
• Pro: Synapse searches (FIND, LIST, SPEC, MANUAL, PRICE and Find Front or Rear Online), Publish to Shared Library, MY CLOUD LIBRARY, and exporting device packages or libraries.

Open MY LIBRARY

Open the device library from DaMatrix. The top level is MY LIBRARY, sorted into categories (Networking, Core & Stage IO, Video Distribution and so on), with one folder per brand inside each category.

• Back: up one folder.
• MY LIBRARY: jump to the top level.
• Plus: add a category.
• Minus: delete a category.
• Down arrow: export MY LIBRARY (or the folder you are in) to a file (Pro).
• Up arrow: import a library someone sent you.
• Question mark: opens this knowledge base.

Add a category

Click the plus button at the top level and name the category the way you think about your jobs, for example Video Distribution. You can also select an existing category from the search panel by typing CAT followed by its name.

The Synapse commands

The search panel on the left takes short commands. Type one and press Enter. CAT and ADD are free; the searches are part of Pro.

• CAT <category>: select a category, for example CAT Networking. ADD and the searches below then work inside it.
• ADD <company>: add a brand folder to the selected category.
• LIST <vendor> (Pro): read the brand's official product catalog and list its current models. Click a model to prepare a FIND for it.
• EDIT LIST (Pro): inside a brand folder, set the official website and catalog pages Synapse should read for LIST.
• FIND <product> (Pro): search for front and rear panel photos of a model.
• SPEC <product> (Pro): pull the spec sheet details into a saved device.
• MANUAL <product> (Pro): find the direct PDF manual.
• PRICE <product> (Pro): find current market prices for reference.

Add your brand

Pick a category with CAT (or by opening it), then type ADD and the brand name. Synapse creates the brand folder and opens it. If the brand already exists in that category it simply opens the folder you already have.

Add a device yourself (free)

Found a good panel photo on Google Images or the maker's site? Save it to your computer, open the brand folder, click the plus button to create a new device, and add the photo from your computer. Do the same for the rear panel, set the rack size, and save. No search credits needed.

Let Synapse find it (Pro)

Type FIND with the brand and model, for example FIND Ubiquiti UDM Pro Max. Synapse searches the web and shows the panel photos it found, each tagged with its likely face and source site, plus links to the product pages it read.

Choose Front, Rear or Both, click the photo you want, then Add. To finish a device you already saved, pick it under Attach and the photo becomes its missing face instead of a new device.

The badge under the commands shows how many searches you have left this month. Every FIND, SPEC, MANUAL, PRICE and LIST uses one.

Finish it in the device editor

Open any saved device to check it before you use it. Give it a clear title, choose Rack device or Field device, and set the rack width and height so it sits correctly in the rack.

• Replace Front (or Rear) From Computer: use a photo saved on your computer.
• Find Another Front Online (or Rear) (Pro): run a new Synapse image search for that face.
• Use Existing: reuse a photo already saved in this brand folder.
• Save device: saves your changes to your library on this computer.
• Add to Current Project: puts the device in the project you have open.
• Publish to Shared Library (Pro): uploads a copy to your cloud library.
• Export Device Package (Pro): saves a single file you can send to a teammate (rack devices).

Inside a brand folder

Inside a brand folder the toolbar changes: the plus button creates a new device by hand, the pencil lets you rename, move or delete what is in the folder, and the down arrow exports just this brand.

MY CLOUD LIBRARY (Pro)

Devices you publish to the shared library appear under MY CLOUD LIBRARY, so they follow you to any computer you sign into. Copy one back into MY LIBRARY to get a separate local version with its images, dimensions, ports, specs and pricing. The cloud copy stays as it was.

Still missing a brand?

Tell us at [email protected] and we will engage our active community to add it to the device library.

Interested in helping us grow the device library? We are looking for builders who know their trade's gear.