Messages

1

Falcon Hardware / Re: Will F16V3 support LPD6803S

« on: September 30, 2020, 08:52:30 PM »

So if your strip has four wires they are all needed, you're going to have ground, power, data and clock.
If you hook up everything correctly to the Falcon board you could try it to see if it works.
I don't think you would damage the strips by testing it out provided you have everything hooked up correctly and the right voltage.

Looks like it does work off of the F16v3.  But not off of the F48 with the receivers.  Good and bad.  My F48 Differential receivers are closer and more accessible to where the ribbons are mounted, so was hoping to use the receivers.  So a little disappointed at that.  But least I know I can control them.  Thanks,

2

Falcon Hardware / Will F16V3 support LPD6803S

« on: September 29, 2020, 09:05:08 PM »

I'm just trying to find out if the F16V3 (or F48) support LPD6803S light strips?  I did find a mention for the F16V2 that said it supports LPD6803 so wasn't sure if the 'S' means anything differently.  Also this light strip is a 4 wire with the Data.  Is that supported (or actually needed)?

I've got some older LOR Cosmic ribbons mounted on my eves under the gutters.  The Cosmic controllers for some reason are not responding to DMX input this year, so don't know what happened to them.  But if I can control the strips directly from the Falcon boards that would just allow me to keep using the strips until I ever really do need to take them down for replacement (which I would prefer not to have to do just right now).

3

Xlights Setup / Cleaning up my Network Setup

« on: March 28, 2020, 04:48:31 PM »

Hi all,
I'm wanting to clean up my Network and Layout settings to make it easier to go on in the future so could use some help for 'current' best practices.

I've attached an image of my current network settings (what xLights condensed everything down to when I upgraded to latest version).  Let me know if there are any improvements to the network settings I should be making to make things easier.  My first two universes are for my remaining LOR controllers.  I don't know if their is a better way to incorporate them into the F48 since they are using 2 separate serial ports on the card.

Then for my layouts, the second screen shot shows my initial LOR controller setup.  So I was wondering which way is better (or some other way than I'm doing it).  Should I be putting the DMX... with the port and channel on each one, or does just the first one need that DMX setting since all the rest are following the previous channel (or at least that's the way I was planning on setting them up.)

The last screen shot shows a section of the RGB setups (starting at the Universe 6.  Is there a better way to set them up other then setting the controller connection values on every one.

So any help or suggestions would be appreciated.  I might have more questions as I get into this.

4

Do You Need Help? Post it here / P10 Best Scrolling Text Help

« on: September 09, 2019, 08:32:53 PM »

I'm setting up some 2x1 P10 panels that I want to split into an upper and lower sections to have two scrolling messages on them.  I've worked that all out using the Buffers to get two sections.  But having problems trying to find the best font and settings (speed) that would make the text as readable as possible so was wondering if anyone could help me with what they have found to work best.

The top section I want to display the Tune To information so would like that to be as large and readable as possible.  The bottom section will display the song, website info so I wouldn't mind that one being a little smaller in height but still readable.

If needed here is an example of what I might like to display on the top and bottom sections (I'm using uppercase since so far that's the best readable font I can find, but I would like to use lowercase if that's possible and still readable):

TUNE TO 101.9FM - NO SHOWS IF RAINING
PLAYING - AULD LANG SYNE - KENNY G : GOTO WWW.CHRISTMASINBELLEVUE.ROCKS FOR HOURS AND PLAYLIST

Can anyone help me?  I appreciate any information I can get.

5

Falcon Pi Player / Re: Stopping and restarting show schedule on Raspberry Pi.

« on: December 12, 2017, 06:07:52 PM »

To get the playlist to automatically start when you are done with your testing do not start the playlist manually, but stop FPPD and then start FPPD.  As long as the main playlist is set to repeat and you are within the scheduled play time it will automagically restart and shut off all by itself.

Great, I'll give that a try, and also looking forward to version 2.0 (Thanks JonB256).

6

Falcon Pi Player / Stopping and restarting show schedule on Raspberry Pi.

« on: December 12, 2017, 08:00:40 AM »

Is there a way on the Raspberry Pi with FPP to pause/stop a normally running scheduled show to do something like testing a specific sequence or test lights, and then restart the show so it is still running in the same scheduled time spot?

It seems like if I have to stop the scheduled playlist to do any kind of testing. I then have to manually kick off the playlist, but then have to manually stop it at the designated time since it's no longer running off of the scheduler in the FPP.

7

Falcon Pi Player / Re: LOR will not run on the PI

« on: December 12, 2017, 07:54:30 AM »

If that is correct, DON'T DO IT.  Most or all LOR controllers put voltage on one of their RJ45 pins. That voltage may permanently damage an Ethernet device.

If I'm reading that wrong, then we have a terminology problem.

Probably late on joining this conversation, but I agree with that last comment.  I run my LOR network off of a Pixcon16 controller board (which I think some other boards have the same capability for DMX outputs).  That board connects directly to the network hub and using the DMX output (with LOR jumpers) I connect the first LOR controller to it and daisy chain from that LOR controller to others.  I haven't had any problems with this setup.

8

Nutcracker Effects / Re: Vertical Chase

« on: December 12, 2017, 07:44:51 AM »

Single strand. Bars and march make the best chases. At a push marquee.

OK, thanks, I'll give it a try.

9

Nutcracker Effects / Vertical Chase

« on: December 08, 2017, 07:35:38 PM »

I have 8 vertical poles (4 on each side of my driveway) that have pixels lights on both sides of the poles (30 on each side).  I created my props for these poles as a vertical matrix with 60 nodes and 2 strands.

What I'm trying to do is basically create a vertical chase going either up or down the poles (lighting both sides of the pole together).  I haven't been able to figure out how to do that.  Can anyone give me a hint of what to try?

10

Enhancement Requests / Re: A prop with fixed colors

« on: January 06, 2017, 07:53:07 AM »

Yea, I kind of thought that but I figured I would throw it out there just in case something did exist to do that like what you suggested.  I hadn't worked with the presets yet but I think there are videos out there to show me how that would work so I'll check them out.

11

Enhancement Requests / Re: A prop with fixed colors

« on: January 06, 2017, 07:16:24 AM »

Thanks, I'll look into that method to see how it would work for me.

12

Enhancement Requests / A prop with fixed colors

« on: January 05, 2017, 07:27:05 PM »

This is probably a dumb question and wouldn't know if it's even possible.  But I have a couple props, two  Angels and two Drummers.  I'll attach pictures showing what I'm talking about.

One of my Angels lost a full segment of the lights again this winter.  So I need to replace the lights on them but they are currently white and some 'yellow' led lights.  So having to deal with the different colors I was wondering if I should just replace them with RGB lights instead.  But then I have the issue of sequencing them with the correct colors where needed when I'm lighting the Angel (which I usually light them up in sequence with female singing voices or trumpets in a song so it's a rapid lighting sequencing).

So what I was wondering is there any way to set a prop so that every time I want the prop ON, could I make certain pixels different fixed colors?

The other props, my Drummers, use the plastic color caps over the led lights to produce different colors on the drummer in different areas.  These color caps keep breaking so I would really like to get rid of them.  So if there was a way to create a prop that had certain pixels always in certain colors, that sure would be great.

Otherwise I will just have to stay with my current AC leds to keep this props usable.

13

LOR / Re: Pixcon16 DMX Bridge help

« on: November 11, 2016, 08:36:35 PM »

Hey if anyone is still listening to this post, I came back to a new similar problem and not sure if it's exactly like the issue scringe was reporting.

I'm using my PixCon16 as a E1.31 bridge to LOR.
On the PixCon16 settings I have the J3/J4 DMX#1 UNchecked.
Port 1, 2, 3, 4 are all set as Universe 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively.

All my LOR controllers are working fine up through the first 510 (or so) channels.  But since I have 4 CCR ribbons in my network, that's pushing my last 3 LOR controllers (1 AC controller and 2 CCR's) beyond the 510 channels.  By my calculations the AC unit (which I would have the 2 CCR's following it) would have to set to Unit ID 24 which is beyond the tables given for the Unit ID's to DMX addresses.  So anyway when I set that unit to 24, it's sync light no longer syncs when connected to the PixCon16.  So I don't know if I have settings incorrect on the PixCon16 or not connected correctly.

I've go all the RJ45 jack jumpers set to LOR.  I've tried connecting the AC unit to the other RJ45 jacks but no sync on any of them.

So how do I setup and reach these other units that are beyond the Unit ID 20?

14

Xlights Test / Re: Non musical sequence help

« on: November 09, 2016, 06:42:30 AM »

Thanks both, I did go back and try it again last night and got a better result.  Possibly doing the steps you recommended.  But I'll definitely remember those steps for next time.  I didn't realize it was in seconds so maybe what I entered in was way too small the first time.

15

Xlights Test / Non musical sequence help

« on: November 08, 2016, 07:30:36 PM »

Hi,

I wanted to create a sequence that I can just use for testing my light controllers.  I wasn't going to put any media file on it since I just wanted a fixed time that I can sequence between each channel on the various controllers.

When I first started to create a new 'musical' sequence, when I got to the end of the setup, it wanted me to change to an animation sequence, so I did that and set the time to 3.0 minutes.

When the Sequencer screen displayed it didn't give me any Views (I just upgraded from build 40 to 51 if that matters) but all my props were displayed on the screen.  I tried to click on the timing area so I could put timing marks every so often to be able to  turn on the desired channels.  But in doing that, the timing area changed to a hashmark background and looks like it changed the timings displayed to -41.80 to -41.00 on the display (left to right).  The bottom scroll bar is full screen so I can't scroll the screen sideways.

So what am I doing wrong, or what is the best way to just create a sequence to use as a fixed length test sequence?