Messages

1

Do You Need Help? Post it here / Re: Lynx Aether II on xLights - colors not right

« on: December 13, 2020, 12:47:18 PM »

OK guys, figured it out.  Though it was far from obvious why...

The Aether II is supposed to be pre-programmed (via the PIC flash image) to be on start channel 1.  With a freshly programmed PIC, for some reason I got the behavior above.  I went in and manually changed the start channel in the hex image to "000002", and programmed that.  This caused the expected behavior, red was now channel 2 and so on.  I then restarted the Pickit, loaded the standard hex image unmodified (start channel 00001).  Flashed the image and now it is working correctly.

I have three more of these to build and program.  If I see different behavior for the others, I will post back.

Gary

2

Do You Need Help? Post it here / Lynx Aether II on xLights - colors not right

« on: December 13, 2020, 10:30:51 AM »

I had some unbuilt Aether IIs from a DLA coop back in 2013.  Finished the build of the first one.  Programmed the PIC and it is now responding to DMX.  Just using the default start channel of "1".  (in other words, I have not programmed it using the Lynx Address Utility since I have no USB dongle).

But -- can't get the colors right.  I understand that it has four channels (RGBW?).  Tried setting it up that way in xLights, as a DMX Floodlight.  Tried many different channel orderings.  So far I'm only able to get white, green and blue, but not in the correct mapping.  No red seen at all, except the blinking red on the 'program' setting on the Aether II's switches.  So in xLights, a red "on" event gives white, etc.

I saw that the "W" (white) channel needs to be set to zero.  Doing that, but the colors are still wrong.

There is a "String Properties" section of the config interface for DMX Floodlight, but it is disabled.  Haven't yet found the magic key that enables it.  As a side note, this interface was key for getting different kinds of RGB pixels to display the correct colors.

I also tried modeling it as a "single line" with just one node.  That enabled the "String Properties" settings, but every combination that made sense still has the same problem.  Mapping is wrong and no red seen at all.  It's like the channels are left-shifted and I can't get to the red channel.

I'll keep fiddling and report back if I get it to work.

Gary

3

Do You Need Help? Post it here / Re: DLA hardware config (Smart Strings/Pixelnet) in xLights

« on: November 16, 2020, 09:10:37 AM »

Hello everyone.  I got this working by just enabling the "Multicast" setting in the xLights controller config.

@Keith -- thanks for the advice.  As I understand it, my EtherDongle converts ethernet (IP) data to PixelNet.  This is now working.

Gary

4

Do You Need Help? Post it here / DLA hardware config (Smart Strings/Pixelnet) in xLights

« on: November 14, 2020, 07:32:08 AM »

Hello everyone,

"Rip Van Winkle" here :-)  I did a show back in 2013 with DLA hardware and LightShow Pro software/sequencer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04WNWGKyyJ0

Afterward I put everything in storage and did not do anything with it until this year.  Now I find that the whole world has changed!  The sources for both my hardware *and* software are gone.  I understand that the DLA hardware should still be usable, but so far I have not been able to get it working with xLights.  Hoping someone can help.

Since LSP is defunkt, I looked at both Vixen and xLights.  I prefer xLights, nice interface and more powerful I think.  Maybe slightly steeper learning curve, but I'm willing to invest the time.

I expect to upgrade hardware eventually, but hoping to get a show going with what I have for this year.

Here are the hardware details:

DIY Light Animation main hardware page: http://www.diylightanimation.com/wiki/index.php?title=Equipment#DMX_Devices

Etherdongle:  http://www.diylightanimation.com/wiki/index.php?title=EtherDongleUse

PixelNet 16 Port Active Hub:  http://www.diylightanimation.com/wiki/index.php?title=ActiveHub16Use

Smart String Controller v4 (many)

Right now I'm mainly struggling with how to do the controller configuration in xLights.  I currently have (what I thought to be) one DMX/pixelnet universe defined with 4096 channels.

Here's what one person suggested:

Active - Active
Vendor - blank
Supress Duplicate Frames - blank
Multicast - blank
IP Address - blank
Protocol - E131
Priority - 100
Managed - checked
Fpp Proxy - blank
Start Universe - 1
Universe Count - 32
Universes - 1-32
Individual Sizes - blank
Channels per universe - 512

Is this reasonable?  Have not gotten this to work yet, but still trying.

Thanks in advance!

Gary