Front Fence Pixel data delivery dilemma :-(

[Tory Street Lights]

Gentlemen, can someone guide me on the best way to address a peculiar problem that I have in my display.

I have a gates across my driveway, at the front of the display, that are kept closed when the display is running.  The front of the display has AC LED lights that are broken into four blocks for sequencing, originally in Vixen,  with the piece across the driveway being broken into two pieces, with one section's data handled by a ESP8266 Pixelstick, as there is no data over the drive, 24V AC power only!

I wish to replace the 16 AC controlled strings (4 x R/G/G/W LEDS) with a string of Pixels, about 400 or so, but handle them as four models.  I will need to break one of the four models (the first) into two pieces, with the first piece getting it's data by E1.31 from a ESP8266 Pixelstick, while the rest of that model getting data from a Falcon F16V3 via a differential receiver.

The four models will be contiguous as far as channel numbers are concerned, just that the first 50 Pixels data will be handled by the Pixelstick!

I have attached a crude drawing of the projected layout, can I simply "tack the new models" onto the end of my current xLights setup, with the Pixelstick handling the first set of Pixels (approximately 50), and the Falcon picking up from there on.  The snag being that the first model will be in two bits for data supply (1/2 Pixelstick and 1/2 Falcon)

Any thoughts and/or guidance will be greatly appreciated, maybe I am over-thinking the whole thing  :-(

Terry   

[Ebuechner]

I guess I don't see the need to make it that complicated if all the channels are going to be continuous.
I myself would do it with two models either single line or polyline and then use submodels to break it up if needed.

[algerdes]

If you are absolutely certain that you will maintain these groupings, why not just connect them together and then set them as a group in the controller? I believe there is a "group size" inside the controller settings.

Once done, you tell the sequencer they are just 4 pixels. 

Once again, if you are certain you will not want to break them up or use them as individual pixels.

[Gilrock]

Yeah in the old days we just created continuous blocks of data in xLights and worry about splitting the data across controllers when setting up the show player.  You can still probably do that because no functionality was removed.  If you are trying to use all the auto controller setup features that's where there may be some limitations.

[Tory Street Lights]

Thanks for the observations and information, food for thouight.  I suspect that Gil has hit the nail on the head for me, as I do not want to use all the "fancy" features of the controller, it is just a dumb data handling device as far as I am concerned. Coming from many years of Vixen 2.1x, I  still prefer to do all the "smarts" so to speak, in the sequencer and then manually tell the controller what I want it to do!  In this case the controller has nothing to do with the initial section of the first model anyway as it's data arrives by ESP8266 Pixelstick WiFi, hence my question - am I over thinking the setup !

In answer to one comment, once this setup is configured and "organised" it will not change, as it is a physical fixture/element in the display.   

Effectively I require four groups of approximately 100 Pixels each, all in a contiguous set of channel numbers across the fence line. The snag being that the first 50 of the first group must be fed by the Pixelstick, while the rest, including the second section of the first group, will come via cable from the Falcon F16V3.

I need to have all of these Pixels broken up into four sections/models, due to historical sequencing permutations that I will need to transfer onto the Pixels in some instances, within old sequences, to keep the overall "Look" of the display coherent, while still allowing Pixel effects to be applied as, and when, appropriate.