Sean Meighan
Welcome => Do You Need Help? Post it here => Topic started by: mberta2 on May 21, 2015, 07:28:09 AM
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Hey everyone. I am finally working the bugs out on my setup for this year. I am running into an issue with my LOR controllers lagging (like 5-10 secs behind) when run through xlights. I'm running them using the LOR dongle as a usb network. It's 96 channels. That, along with 2-27ch rbg controllers running on usb as well, I think it's just too much. I'm under the impression that my best option is to run my LOR controllers in dmx mode for better results. I have been searching for a while now and it seems like there is alot of info on it, but no full tutorial from start to finish on how to switch LOR to dmx and then add them to xlights. Could you guys point me in the direction of some good, reliable information on doing this? Thank you so much in advance.
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The auschristmaslighting.com website is a good resource. Here's a link that has a nice presentation that I've always used for figuring out the LOR to DMX mapping settings:
http://auschristmaslighting.com/forums/index.php?topic=1139.0
But...5-10 secs delay doesn't sound right. Are you saying there is no lag when running the equipment through LOR software? When I've mentioned the LOR stuff lagging I meant in the millisecond range not several seconds and that was only when I was running several hundred channels to their CCR ribbons.
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I have sold off all my LOR controllers, but years ago when I combined LOR and Lynx in the same show, I used my LOR in DMX mode and all I had to do was to make a simple little adapter cable. The LOR controllers already understand DMX and I used a Lynx usb dmx dongle. Very easy, but I did not use any LOR software as I converted to vixen at that time.
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I had it setup for all 96 channels and it was way behind in xlights. In LOR it is dead on, perfect. I dropped down to 32 channels in xlights and it works perfect. So I'm guessing it's just too many channels to use in xlights with the LOR dongle. Am I correct by saying that running it in dmx will solve this problem?
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O ya, setup at 96 channels in xlights I roughly timed the lag. It's about 2 to 3 seconds. I exaggerated a little before. Haha
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If it works in LOR and not in xLights then it sounds like a software problem.
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Do you have the High speed LOR USB adapter?
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I didn't know there was a high speed lor usb adapter. I have the small black one that comes with the startup package from wowlights
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I think they are red in color. Just know that not all lor hardware will work with the 500k speed. I think the older generation boards will not. Another thing, I've been told that some of the 250k adapters will run at 500k. It's worth a shot.
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I'm not following the 250k and 500k. Sorry guys. I'm not a tech guy by any means. Just a holiday light enthusiast trying to figure this all out. Haha.
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250k means 250,000 bits of data per second.
500k means 500,000 bits of data per second.
When the instructions are sent out the USB port to your light controller at 40 times per second (25 ms timing with Xlights) you can easily get up to 250,000 bits of data per second trying to be sent. If your LOR controller can't receive and process that much data, you'll get apparent lag. Some blame the software, some blame the cable, the controller the USB to serial adapter, but they're all part of the start/finish end points to make the lights do what you want.
Translation: Your wife talks to you at 500k speed, but you hear everything at 250k, and a few seconds later you say HUH? That is the pause/lag/delay in the lights you see.
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Makes sense. Thanks for the explanation. So where do I start? If I buy the high speed adapter and use that, is that all I need to do? My controllers are all newer (4 purchased last season and 2 this year.) Any settings I need to change? Would I be able to avoid all of this if I ran my LOR controllers in dmx? If so, how do I go about doing that?
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I'm sorry about my ignorance. I'm really trying to understand this stuff. I don't just want to fix it, I want to understand how it gets fixed. I'm learning here.
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Yes the easiest way to speed up those LOR controllers would be to put them in DMX mode. There plenty of resources out there to help get the LOR controllers and wiring set for DMX.
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Could you point me in the direction of a good, reliable, place to start?
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Could you point me in the direction of a good, reliable, place to start?
I gave you a link with a presentation on how to do that in my first response. A lot of us use a Falcon Pi Player (FPP) to run our show. That will output E1.31 data. Then the easiest way is to use a controller card like a J1SYS P12 or the new Falcon controller that has DMX output ports. So you have 1 ethernet cable going to the yard. If you're running a lot of controllers like me you may need to have an ethernet switch out in the yard to branch to your controllers. The controller running my pixel tree has 2 DMX outputs. So I run one output into an LOR CCR controller and then it daisy chains to another CCR and then 2 LOR 16 channel controllers. Then my other DMX output goes into an LOR 16 channel controller and then daisy chains to 3 LOR CCRs. Every ethernet cable in the yard can be wired normally except for the first cable that goes between the DMX output and the LOR box. LOR like everything else has to do it backwards so you have to make your own cable and flip a couple wires. When you get into doing this stuff it's best if you learn how to make your own ethernet cables. It will save you tons of money and you can make them the length you need.
But answer me this...are you really running a 25ms sequence in xLights? Steve keeps mentioning 40 FPS but I've not seen you mention that rate or 25ms sequences anywhere. Most people would run 50ms sequences because there is not much benefit in going any faster.
I used to run the LOR equipment with a normal RS-485 USB dongle and I had 48 A/C channels and 450 CCR channels and there wasn't any visible lag. If LOR software can run it then so should xLights or we have a problem we need to fix.
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Sorry I did see that link. Ya, the more I think about it, I think I would like to keep it usb with the lor dongle. I like to use twinkle and shimmer alot. But ya, it's 96 channels, works good in lor and lags in xlights. I don't know what to do.
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Well now you've got another wrinkle. I'm pretty sure we don't do Twinkle and Shimmer the way LOR is doing it. I believe they built in special features in their controllers. Unless xLights is doing something I haven't learned about yet I don't think it produces any hardware specific output. We produce sequences that can be played to any hardware which means we have to avoid using something that is LOR specific. We do those type of effects in software which doesn't always come out the same and maybe not as nice as doing it in the hardware.
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I sequence my LOR channels in LOR S3 advanced. Then I start a new sequence in nutcracker, importing that lor sequence into nutcracker. When I dropped the channel count down to 32 everything worked fine, even the shimmer and twinkle effects.
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When I go back up to all 96 channels, it lags again.
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When you created the sequence in xLights what timing did you pick 25ms, 50ms, or 100ms?
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And along with the above question. How are you playing the sequence in xLights? There are several ways and that can make a difference. Are you viewing the lights while you view the preview on the Sequencer tab? Are you saving the sequence and then playing it back on the Preview tab? Are you saving the sequence and running it from the scheduler? etc.
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I haven't really done much sequencing yet. Trying to figure out all the hardware issues before I get too far. The one I have been using for testing I think I selected 25ms.
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I am viewing the lights while running the sequence in the sequence tab.
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Would it make a difference if I was viewing them in the preview tab or running it from the scheduler?
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Ok lets switch it to 50ms...you don't need 25ms and that's causing double the traffic, file sizes, and data stored in xLights. I'm not sure what you have in the 25ms sequence but you should create a new one and select 50ms. If you have effects you want from the 25ms then get all your models setup in the new 50ms sequence then save and close it, open up the 25ms sequence and copy them to the clipboard, and then open up the 50ms sequence and click near the start and paste them. Then Save the sequence and move over to the Preview tab and use the Play button down lower on that page to start it. I'm not 100% sure the Sequencer tab is capable of keeping up with everything it needs to do at 25ms. I'd have to check with Dan if he thinks there might be a difference. But the Preview tab is designed to play the sequence as it's main purpose. I move all my files to an FPP to play my sequences so I really don't have a good feel for how well xLights performs as a player.
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Wow I just tried viewing it in the preview tab. It's all messed up. The whole house preview on the screen is all messed up. The nutcracker effects that I put in are spot on. The lor elements in the preview are super fast, like double speed. Way off. And the physical LOR controllers are still way behind and super slow. This is not working. Something is really wrong here. I'm ready to pull my hair out.
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Ok I tried making a new sequence. I set it to 50ms and added the LOR sequence. I added in a couple of quick nutcracker effects to it and saved it. I then opened in the preview tab and pressed play. The nutcracker stuff was working fine again. The lor stuff was working fine in the preview, but not the actual lights. Still really, really lagging. It almost looks like random flashing it's so slow. Hmmmm.....
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Make sure you've shutdown all the LOR stuff like the LOR Control Panel. It will conflict if you left it running.
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Ya I made sure of that. I ran into that issue when I was first learning how to use Nutcracker
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How are you adding the LOR data to the sequence?
When I'm troubleshooting I like to isolate things. I would probably start a new directory and on the setup tab just define the one USB device with 96 channels and test that by itself with your imported LOR data.
With all the other RGB stuff you are mixing in all it would take is for you to mess up one model definition to screw up those LOR channels. If you have any of the RGB models accidentally defined with the default starting channel of 1 then they will be trying to send their data out to the LOR hardware.
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Hey Gilrock, I just gotta say, even if we don't figure this out, thank you so much for the help.
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I started over, only adding the 96 lor channels to the setup. I tried running it. Same thing. At 96 channels there is a ridiculous amount of lag ( literally 5 to 10 seconds). The shimmer effect from lor looks like a slow flashing light. I drop the channel count down to 16 and voila, it's close to perfect (still a little off but now we are taking ms, nothing really noticable). Starting to get frusterated.
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You never said how you are adding the LOR data to xLights. Is it a data layer? Is it imported as effects with the new import feature. Is it added to the fseq file using the Convert tab?
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I use the new import feature. When you use the new wizard and it asks if you want to import a sequence
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So all the LOR data gets converted to effects using that option. At that point you are really just playing Nutcracker effects on the channels. Maybe it would help to describe how you have all the hardware connected including cable lengths between controllers. Could there be a bad controller in the middle that you aren't using when you try less channels? I'd love to see a video of what your seeing.
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Well actually you said all the channels work with LOR so it can't be a bad controller in the mix.
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Gil, before you go down that route, you need to explore WHY the 96ch soft limit is there in the first place.
http://nutcracker123.com/forum/index.php?topic=267.0 (http://nutcracker123.com/forum/index.php?topic=267.0)
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Yeah but in that thread they blame it on LOR protocol but they still claim it should be capable of doing 96 channels. If LOR software is working then why would xLights have a 5-10 second delay? That's not lag...that's something screwed up somewhere in either the hardware or software or setup.
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Mberta, can you post a screen shot of your network setup from xLights?
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I'm gonna have to continue tomorrow. Heading to work now. Thanks for everything so far.
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For now I only had one lor controller hooked up. The cat5 cable I am using is pretty long but in good shape.
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The cat5 I am using now is 50ft. I have it setup for all 96 channels, but I only have 1 controller hooked up right now. (Unit 5 is the one, it was the easiest to access at the time. I do have a screenshot but it's an older one. Everything is the same as this screenshot except all of the universes have been bumped up one. I didn't know at first that I had to leave universe 1 open for the LOR stuff and I had my rgb controllers starting at 1. (http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/05/22/1a4db745e2688f1cf8d32fd18f4b98e9.jpg)
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I would have posted a current one, but I'm at work till 2am.
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Is that COM5 hooked up to real hardware when your running your tests? What about the E1.31 output does it have somewhere to go? I know my system lags bad if I try to drive IP addresses that don't exist but I'm running Unicast so I don't know how Multicast would react if you don't have anything connected. When I said start over and just define the 96 channels did you do that in this setup page as well?
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Yes the COM5 is hooked up as well as the E1.31. Would it make a difference if run it in unicast instead of multi? And yes, I deleted everything and added just the 96 channels of LOR.
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If I did want to try running my LOR controllers in dmx, what would I need to do? I know you have to make a quick adapter (I watched the PowerPoint from auschristmas) if I make that cable and connect it to a output on my pixlite16 and then to my LOR controllers, is that all I need to do?
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If the Pixlite is like other cards you will program it with the universe you want it to send out that DMX port. Then your LOR controllers will need to be set to the correct channel offset inside that DMX stream. So if you have two 16 channel boxes the first is set to 1 and the second to 17. They start on certain boundaries and there is a table showing all this in that presentation.
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I might try dmx tomorrow. When u am making that adapter that they show in the presentation, do I need more than those three wires or are those the only wires I need?
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If you use 6 wires following the pin mapping they show on the slide then the cable will work in both directions which means it doesn't matter which side you plug in. You can do it with 3 wires but then you need to know which side goes into the LOR box.
I think it's easier to build a cable using all 8 wires because it will slide in the connector easier so this is how I built mine and it will work either way you plug it in. Make sure you label the cable so you know it's a DMX to LOR conversion cable and not standard ethernet.
One side is standard 568B:
1 WHT/ORG
2 ORG
3 WHT/GRN
4 BLU
5 WHT/BLU
6 GRN
7 WHT/BRN
8 BRN
Then the other side:
1 BLU
2 WHT/BLU
3 WHT/GRN
4 WHT/ORG
5 ORG
6 WHT/BRN
7 GRN
8 BRN
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I just made a quick spliced together 3 wire adapter (going to the store tomorrow to get the right tools to make own cables). Works great. Lights are perfect. No noticable lag at all. Looks like running in dmx is my best option. I know I lose twinkle and shimmer but o well. Less cables running out to the yard too so that's a plus. I might get rid of the actidongle on com5 and run that though my pixlite16 as well. That runs my 2-27ch rgb controllers from Holidaycoro.com.
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Thank you to everyone who helped me get this figured out. I don't know where I would be without forums.
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You still have twinkle and shimmer... it's just done thru DMX... not the built-in LOR twinkle and shimmer... so it's somewhat different, but it's still there :-)
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Ya I actually noticed that. I was doing some more testing just to make sure I really had it fixed and I saw that it was working. Not quite the same but nothing that I would complain about. This is such a good feeling. Now I can continue sequencing and building props. I put everything on hold until I had this figured out. No use doing that stuff if I can't figure out how to run the show. Haha. Thank you to everyone again for all of the patients helping me through this. The holiday lighting community is pretty awesome.