Messages

1

General hardware / Re: Z-wave?

« on: December 17, 2018, 10:47:15 AM »

What I want to control are the stage lights on the penguins, as well as the foyer. I’m using a string of pixels right now. Kinda wasteful.  I could change that to dumb pixels, but what would really work well is to control an AC led lamp from within a sequence running in xSchedule.

I guess what I’m looking for are plug-in one channel AC controllers.

2

General hardware / Z-wave?

« on: December 17, 2018, 09:01:03 AM »

Is there a way for xLights to talk to a Z-wave device?

It would be nice to have the front foyer lamp shut off during the show.

3

Do You Need Help? Post it here / Re: xSchedule frame interval question

« on: November 25, 2018, 02:15:43 PM »

Just curious as to what it means. What is a frame interval?

I'll look for .48.  Thanks, Keith.

4

Do You Need Help? Post it here / xSchedule frame interval question

« on: November 25, 2018, 01:05:42 PM »

I have warnings in my xSchedule log saying "frame interval greater than 200% of expected...." Is this because schedule is running when some of the controllers are powered off? Will it correct itself when everything powers up before the first scheduled event?

5

Bugs in xLights/Nutcracker / Re: custom model from video

« on: November 18, 2018, 01:15:20 PM »

I rewatched your video and managed to get a good video by moving into the dark basement.

Not sure why the line of text was split like that.

Oh, and another interesting note. Using my new iPhone Xs, I got lots of mirror images of the lights that the algorithm had difficulty with (crappy lens design). I got a decent model by cropping as close as possible on all sides and fiddling a lot (even one digit at a time) with sensitivity and minimum distance settings.

Pretty impressive software, guys.

6

Bugs in xLights/Nutcracker / custom model from video

« on: November 17, 2018, 06:59:25 AM »

Version 45.

Line is split and "Next" button is not accessible. Is this a bug or just my computer? (laptop Win10)

7

Falcon Hardware / Re: F16V4 string port empty

« on: November 16, 2018, 02:50:30 PM »

I think this is what you are saying. Ports 10 and 13 will have cables to the cherry tree. Ports 11,12,14,15 will be empty so who cares what they output. Just looks a little sloppy.

8

Falcon Hardware / Re: F16V4 string port empty

« on: November 16, 2018, 02:37:45 PM »

Won't that make a mess on the lawn?

9

Falcon Hardware / F16V4 string port empty

« on: November 16, 2018, 02:08:40 PM »

Newbie question: If I plan to leave a string port empty, what do I put in the port configuration page. If I try and blank out the universe number and start channel, I get errors. What does the Port Configuration page look like with unused ports?

From the image, you can see that Univ 203 and 204 are scattered over several ports. How do I put them on just two ports and empty the extras?

10

Enhancement Requests / Paste command

« on: November 07, 2018, 08:32:00 AM »

If I attempt to paste a 3 second effect into a 2 second gap,  it won't paste. There is no flag or text box or any clue why. Just hit CTRL-V and nothing happens.

Can we add code to handle this situation? Overwrite, or Truncate to fit perhaps? Or just tell me it won't fit.

We noobs like hand holding. 

11

Xlights Setup / Re: Complex animatronics

« on: November 01, 2018, 09:37:06 AM »

I think so few are using the ServoDog that if the F16V3 can't talk to it, no one would notice. After the holidays, I may try talking to one of my 16 channel LOR boards with the Falcon. My guess is it will work fine. I'm guessing the SD has a less robust DMX input circuit or the firmware gets confused more easily.

12

Xlights Setup / Re: Complex animatronics

« on: October 22, 2018, 12:45:00 PM »

Ok. I just got another DMX bridge from Jon Back on FB. This works fine. So two things got me all messed up. First, the Falcon F16V3 DMX output is not able to talk to a ServoDog board for some unknown reason. Second, the DMX bridge I had was defective and wouldn't talk to anything.

Once I got a working DMX bridge, I can indeed run a ServoDog using just AC intensity commands out of xLights. I use LOR utility to set the limits and rest positions, so you still need a USB dongle for that.

So back to work I go. And after the holidays, I'll put all this together so others can use the ServoDog for animatronics.

The Son of Chucky board would be nice, but I think 16 bit servos is overkill for animatronics. If you are flying model planes, a half a degree is the difference between level flight and diving. A half a degree on a skull jaw is not an issue. So if there was a way to switch the board to 8 bit servos and you could use say12 or 14 servos from one board, that would be awesome.

Of course, xLights would have to do a lot more work internally.  Thanks all for the hints and help here.

13

Xlights Setup / Re: Complex animatronics

« on: October 22, 2018, 10:44:23 AM »

On the other hand, the ServoDog has the same input wiring as every other LOR board. Strange that no one seems to have had meltdowns with any LOR boards before. As for the sensitivity, it could well be that the input circuitry is different on the ServoDog making it require a stronger signal than the newer Falcon puts out.

I'd love to get it working though, since it is a dirt simple board to program.  The LOR software doesn't know if you're sending commands to a servo or a string of incans. Everything is 0-100% intensity. It's the board that decodes that intensity ramp into servo pulses. I'll keep fiddling and let you know if I succeed.

14

Xlights Setup / Re: Complex animatronics

« on: October 19, 2018, 07:47:42 AM »

Well we have users that say they are using the ServoDog.   The amount of help you get is limited here on the forum because most help is on Facebook.  If you don't like using FB that's fine but the lack of help is the cost.

Users are talking to the ServoDog with anything but a F16V3. I think my DMX bridge is also kaput since it can't control anything at all. I have tested replacement on the way. So hopefully that will talk to the ServoDog.

I wasn't sure this was xLights related so was reluctant to clog FB with it. I think it's a hardware issue with the V3 and my particular bridge.

15

Xlights Setup / Re: Complex animatronics

« on: October 18, 2018, 10:20:51 AM »

I found an interesting note in the ServoDog manual that says the utility program does not send intensity commands but instead outputs direct commands like "Send 1500uS pulses" and therefore bypasses all the limits set on the board.  (I can control servos using the utility via the 458 dongle). This seems to imply that normal operating mode is to send LOR intensity (0-100%) commands to the ServoDog and the board will interpret them and send pulses to the servos.

Regardless, I have yet to get anything I own to output any data at all to the ServoDog from xLights. The ServoDog LED shows no data coming in.
 
At this point, I'll probably run last year's show on LOR. I'll revisit this after the holidays with more hardware and hopefully get xLights to speak penguin.