Sean Meighan

Hardware => Falcon Hardware => Topic started by: ergolpe on November 23, 2019, 01:07:49 AM

Title: Help setting up xLights for Falcon Diff Receiver..
Post by: ergolpe on November 23, 2019, 01:07:49 AM

Hello fellow xLight'ers. :)

I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong, and figure with some screenshots and explanation, somebody likey can set me straight.

I have a recently purchased F16v3 running SW version 2.53, with a Falcon differential 4-port receiver connected directly (no expansion board) to the first serial port of the F16v3 (so Ports 1 - 4 should be able to be directed to output.

I set the serial outputs to Pixel Data, and redirected 1-4 to ports 29 through 32 respectively.
I have 32 universes, sized at 510, all set to E1.31  When I test the controller output I can get my pixels to turn on on the differential receiver and run the test patterns locally on the Falcon no problem.

In xLights (using 2019.65), I am not able to output to any of the strings on the differential receiver, but strings connected to the F16v3 ports all output fine. I set the differential receiver in both "traditional mode", and in "smart mode", but still nothing is output. (I tested my RJ45 and that's all sending signal just fine.)

When I draw my strings, I usually set the Start Channel to the starting address within the target universe..  It works fine for the strings on the main board, but nothing outputs when I set the higher channel numbers (in this case my string starts on Universe 13 at start channel 6751, which is the start channel listed on my string ports in the Falcon string setups.)   However, when use the Test feature in xLights, I can output to those channels in the Universe and get them turned on.

This leads me to believe I'm doing something wrong in my model setup.
I've tried the setting for Universe Number, setting the IP address of the Falcon, and the Universe number along with the start channel, but no dice.
I also tried None (absolute), as I have absolute addressing set on the Falcon, but again, no luck with the differential receiver.

I'm sure somebody has hit this snag before?

Thanks in advance,
-Eric

Title: Re: Help setting up xLights for Falcon Diff Receiver..
Post by: ergolpe on December 01, 2019, 01:07:03 AM

OK.. I'm going to close this as I got it working, so I must have been misconfigured.
I ended up absolute addressing the F16v3, with the smart receiver enabled and set to channel A.
I moved the virtual ports to 17-20, with 32 universes in total set at 510cpu ("channels per universe").  [BTW, I hate that we call them channels, as addresses is more natural for me coming from the DMX world.)

I set up xlights the same (32U/510cpu) and for my models used absolute addressing.  I had to set individual string start addresses for my mega-tree.  After that then it all tested fine, and I was able to run some shows from FPP no problem.

I'm fairly new to xLights (I tried it about 8 or so years ago, although I ended up then using LightShowPro, which died a horrible death at the hands of Minleon IMHO.).  So far i love all the capabilities and features.  Keith and Jeff's videos (and others in the community) have been awesome.  I appreciate all of you - great community of folks!  Enjoy the holidays!