Can anyone please point me in the direction of a good tutorial on running LOR controllers in dmx wit

[Gilrock]

Could you point me in the direction of a good, reliable, place to start?

I gave you a link with a presentation on how to do that in my first response.   A lot of us use a Falcon Pi Player (FPP) to run our show.  That will output E1.31 data.  Then the easiest way is to use a controller card like a J1SYS P12 or the new Falcon controller that has DMX output ports.  So you have 1 ethernet cable going to the yard.  If you're running a lot of controllers like me you may need to have an ethernet switch out in the yard to branch to your controllers.  The controller running my pixel tree has 2 DMX outputs.  So I run one output into an LOR CCR controller and then it daisy chains to another CCR and then 2 LOR 16 channel controllers.  Then my other DMX output goes into an LOR 16 channel controller and then daisy chains to 3 LOR CCRs.  Every ethernet cable in the yard can be wired normally except for the first cable that goes between the DMX output and the LOR box.  LOR like everything else has to do it backwards so you have to make your own cable and flip a couple wires.  When you get into doing this stuff it's best if you learn how to make your own ethernet cables.  It will save you tons of money and you can make them the length you need.

But answer me this...are you really running a 25ms sequence in xLights?  Steve keeps mentioning 40 FPS but I've not seen you mention that rate or 25ms sequences anywhere.  Most people would run 50ms sequences because there is not much benefit in going any faster.

I used to run the LOR equipment with a normal RS-485 USB dongle and I had 48 A/C channels and 450 CCR channels and there wasn't any visible lag.  If LOR software can run it then so should xLights or we have a problem we need to fix.

[mberta2]

Sorry I did see that link. Ya, the more I think about it, I think I would like to keep it usb with the lor dongle. I like to use twinkle and shimmer alot. But ya, it's 96 channels, works good in lor and lags in xlights. I don't know what to do.

[Gilrock]

Well now you've got another wrinkle.  I'm pretty sure we don't do Twinkle and Shimmer the way LOR is doing it.  I believe they built in special features in their controllers.  Unless xLights is doing something I haven't learned about yet I don't think it produces any hardware specific output.  We produce sequences that can be played to any hardware which means we have to avoid using something that is LOR specific.  We do those type of effects in software which doesn't always come out the same and maybe not as nice as doing it in the hardware.

[mberta2]

I sequence my LOR channels in LOR S3 advanced. Then I start a new sequence in nutcracker, importing that lor sequence into nutcracker. When I dropped the channel count down to 32 everything worked fine, even the shimmer and twinkle effects.

[mberta2]

When I go back up to all 96 channels, it lags again.

[Gilrock]

When you created the sequence in xLights what timing did you pick 25ms, 50ms, or 100ms?

[Gilrock]

And along with the above question.  How are you playing the sequence in xLights?  There are several ways and that can make a difference.  Are you viewing the lights while you view the preview on the Sequencer tab?  Are you saving the sequence and then playing it back on the Preview tab?  Are you saving the sequence and running it from the scheduler?  etc.

[mberta2]

I haven't really done much sequencing yet. Trying to figure out all the hardware issues before I get too far. The one I have been using for testing I think I selected 25ms.

[mberta2]

I am viewing the lights while running the sequence in the sequence tab.

[mberta2]

Would it make a difference if I was viewing them in the preview tab or running it from the scheduler?

[Gilrock]

Ok lets switch it to 50ms...you don't need 25ms and that's causing double the traffic, file sizes, and data stored in xLights.  I'm not sure what you have in the 25ms sequence but you should create a new one and select 50ms.  If you have effects you want from the 25ms then get all your models setup in the new 50ms sequence then save and close it, open up the 25ms sequence and copy them to the clipboard, and then open up the 50ms sequence and click near the start and paste them.  Then Save the sequence and move over to the Preview tab and use the Play button down lower on that page to start it.  I'm not 100% sure the Sequencer tab is capable of keeping up with everything it needs to do at 25ms.  I'd have to check with Dan if he thinks there might be a difference.  But the Preview tab is designed to play the sequence as it's main purpose.  I move all my files to an FPP to play my sequences so I really don't have a good feel for how well xLights performs as a player.

[mberta2]

Wow I just tried viewing it in the preview tab. It's all messed up. The whole house preview on the screen is all messed up. The nutcracker effects that I put in are spot on. The lor elements in the preview are super fast, like double speed. Way off. And the physical LOR controllers are still way behind and super slow. This is not working. Something is really wrong here. I'm ready to pull my hair out.

[mberta2]

Ok I tried making a new sequence. I set it to 50ms and added the LOR sequence. I added in a couple of quick nutcracker effects to it and saved it. I then opened in the preview tab and pressed play. The nutcracker stuff was working fine again. The lor stuff was working fine in the preview, but not the actual lights. Still really, really lagging. It almost looks like random flashing it's so slow. Hmmmm.....

[Gilrock]

Make sure you've shutdown all the LOR stuff like the LOR Control Panel.  It will conflict if you left it running.

[mberta2]

Ya I made sure of that. I ran into that issue when I was first learning how to use Nutcracker