LOR Pixie16/Pixie2 with xLights

[DaSarge]

Greetings all!

  Looking to try to start a conversion from LOR over to xLights.  I currently use the S6 software (Pro Level) from LOR and I have a 16 Ribbon Mega Tree with CCR's, a Pixie16 controller drives the ribboms.  Up on the top I have a Star from SuperStar Sequences, it uses a Pixie2 with 2 channels with 2 strings of 50 Pixels each.  (200 Total) 

I want to go to xLights but not sure how to get all this stuff to work.  Any help here is greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Happy Lighting!

Dave

[MikeKrebs]

Welcome to the (x)Light side!

What are you most concerned with?

Have you installed xLights? If not, just do it.

Second step. Once you get xLights setup, try to build some models that look like your Mega tree and Star. For now just get to know a bit about the software.

Step three. Now that you are frustrated, go to the xLights site and click the video link. Search 101 . Watch the Keith videos from 2020. Some things have changed but much remains. You can also search light o rama. Several videos have been done about converting that might be useful to you.

[DaSarge]

Ok, thank you for the reply.
  1.  I have installed the 2023 version of xLights_64 
  2.  just watch the videos from 2020 to figure out how to get these 2 controllers to talk to xLights?
  3.  With using xLights I can finally use my Raspberry Pi's that I have to do much more.
  4.  Frustration is already starting

Just think of the song, "The 12 Pains of Christmas"  that is going thru my head as I attempt this leap of faith

Thanks!

Dave

[MikeKrebs]

Gilrock replied to your question earlier this year when you  posted a similar question. He didn't seem very excited that the Pixie connections are going to be real successful. Gilrock developed parts of xLights and knows more about the details.

It makes me a little cautious telling you that you that could just convert directly to xLights. And I don't know off the top of my head if FPP talks LOR. xLights will talk some LOR.

You really have two different problems. To get to know xLights and to physically connect your controllers. So, first get into xLights, build a model, set up a controller and sequence something (30 second animation that displays colors or effects). Then finish the controller setup by telling xLights the port your dongle is connected to. Shut down LOR. Turn on the xLights output, start the animation playing and run outside and see what you got. It's a journey. You have to know enough about xLights to do stuff in order to connect up your hardware in the second place.

[DaSarge]

I think at this time I will run with LOR  and next year get the F16V4 controller.  I just don't want to spend money again on renewing the license with LOR.  And with xLights I have tons more flexibility.  I do appreciate all the help here on the forum.  LOR was just an easy go-to not knowing the issues I would run into later down the road. 

I will look at my previous post earlier this year and see what he said.

Thanks!

[Gilrock]

Yeah I did all the work to make Pixies work in xLights but I was reverse engineering the undocumented LOR protocol so it probably wasn't perfect.  It seemed to have trouble with higher channel counts.  Plus I did not like their protocol because its efficiency/performance varied based on the complexity of the effect being generated.  With a DMX/E1.31 protocol the byte count is fixed no matter what effect you are doing.  So in some cases like a solid color the LOR protocol could be more efficient but if every pixel on a model was a different color it was terribly inefficient.

In any case at the time I did that work Pixies could not run off of DMX.  I thought I read they had new options so whether you would be successful would depend on whether your running the Pixies with DMX or not.

I started as a LOR user myself back in 2011 to the end of 2014.  One of the biggest hurdles when moving to xLights was not wanting to give up or lose all my LOR work.  Eventually my show changed enough that I had to ditch all the old LOR stuff.