Best way to setup universe and Channels for future expansion

[needbrew]

Hi All,

I have 4 falcon controllers that I am using to control my show.  each controller is used in a different area of the show and is not using all ports/channels available.  I was watching the video from keith about using the #universe:channel to define the channels in xlights.  My question is, is it OK to leave large gaps in the channels so that when I come back and add things to the controllers the start universe numbers wont change.  Or is it better to keep everything sequential so there are less gaps in channels?  An example would be my one controllers on the north side of my house is only using 614 pixels over 6 ports on the falcon f16-V2 and I will be coming back to add more things.  I thought I read that large gaps in the channels is a bad thing?

[arw01]

Thinking of this change myself.

The large gaps in channels being a bad thing is related to how you have your setup universes defined.  E.g. did you set up 64 universes of 512 in setup and therefore are transmitting 32000 channels 20 times a second or 40 times a second?  Perhaps it does not transmit if there is nothing there, but I understand the file size is bigger for the fsew because it is accounting for nothing in all those other channels e.g. sending zero.

I've been on absolute for years as I think dealing with universes is a big pia, oh did I go over 170 nodes, oh I have to skip a universe, over 340 nodes, skip another one or 3.

With the check sequence you can get notice of this before you have to head scratch it.

I tend to like props in an area or concept to be close together channel wise.  And over the years that has lead to a hodge podge of channels for this prop crammed between these two props etc.  I had a LOT of cascade moves last year. 

The chaining in Xlights did not work well last year, this year might be all fixed up judging from the lack of support posts on the subject relative year over year.

I may do a controller or two on universe this year, but it is just as easy for me to skip a few thousand channels currently.

If you are using the xlights to controller upload and the xlights to fpp upload, then your universes get defined for you if you skip say 50 or a 100 universes to "leave" room.

[jnealand]

I like using absolute addressing, but I do like using model chaining.  That lets me move things around by only having to change the start address for the first model in the chain.  All the other models get automatically adjusted.  That alone reduces the number of addresses one has to manage.

[Ebuechner]

I'm with Keith on this one use universe and start channels.
If you have 4 controllers start the first controller Universe at 1, the second controller universe start at 100, Third controller 200 and so on.
This leaves you tons of room for expansion cards and other things on the controllers.
Set the first model for each universe with the start Channel 1 and every model after that on the universe chained to the one before it.
When you go to make changes you only have to change the first model.
In your setup tab only set up universes that you have models connected to because it's easy to go back and add a universe later on when you're expanding.
And you can always use the fpp connect to upload uour universe setup .

[needbrew]

Thanks for all the input.  Will let you know how the changes go.