Migration from LOR to DMX light protocol - Channel Assignments

[bbrescia]

After a couple of years of putting on light shows, I guess I am following the well-traveled path of wanting to migrate from LOR to DMX. Because I have 8 LOR AC controllers and a couple of 24-channel DC LOR controllers, I don't want to lose my investment there - just want to run them in DMX mode. I will also add a few of Holiday Coro's DMX controllers for my smart RGB roofline strips.

Through trial and error, I've discovered that you should put your LOR AC-controlled stuff first in the LOR S3 sequence, assigning them starting with Universe 1, channel 1, etc. There are 16 channels to each LOR AC controller. My first question: if I don't use all 16 channels for a given LOR controller, do I start the next controller exactly where I left off on the preceding one (plus 1 channel)? Or do I start the next controller at Universe 1, Channel 17? In other words, if LOR controller unit ID 01 is only using 13 of the possible 16 channels, do I start the next one at 14 or 17?

Said yet otherwise, do unused DMX Universe channels matter? I'm wanting to group stuff in easy-to-remember groups, such as windows are Universe 10, doors are Universe 15, etc.

I intend to use the "Pixel Editor" in the latest LOR S3 suite as well, which is basically xLights - if that's important for this question...

Bob

[sean]

unused channels dont matter.
if you had 32 ac channels , you can add them in xlights as USB LOR, 32 or USB LOR 48 or 96 channels.

You just need to make your models match to the correct start channels.

The only downside of extra stuff in the SETUP tab is that the fseq file will be larger.

suppose you have 1000 channels of E1.31 or 2 universes.
You can enter them as 2 universes of 512 or 100 universes of 512. The extra 50,176 channels are not used by you but wont cause an issue.

When yyou save the 2 universe SETUP will create a 1024 channel fseq file, the 100 universe SETUP will create a 50,176 channel fseq.

so go ahead and leave extra channels for LOR  or DMX in SETUP tab, just make it close.

as an aside the FPP was originally set to drive 64K channels two years ago, that seemed like more than most would need. Last year that was increased to 128K channels per FPP. Now they are talking about raising the per FPP channel count to 500K to 1 million channels. This si because of two new factors
1) P10 panels
2) New virtual video matrix. This allows your projector to act like a horizontal matrix.

We now have one user who has 140K channels. All of this channel explosion occured in just this last year.

anything less than 50K channels now seems like a medium size show, less than 5K channels is small.

[Gilrock]

Hi Bob,

I run LOR boxes and unused channels might not matter to xlights but they do matter to LOR hardware.  If you run them in DMX mode then the 16 channel box is going to consume the first 16 channels of data in the DMX packet.  The unit ID you set in the LOR box is going to determine where it begins in the packet so if you set the unit ID to 2 then it starts at channel 17 and grabs 16 channels.  Therefore if you setup a model in xLights you need to map channel 17 to the string connected to the first outlet in the LOR box with ID #2.  Somewhere on the auschristmas site there is a nice document that has all the LOR unit ID to DMX channel mappings.  Where it gets confusing is usually when using the LOR CCR boxes.  They use up like 157 channels so I usually end up with a small channel gap when I define where my CCRs begin within the DMX packet.

[bbrescia]

Sean and Gilrock, thx for your fast replies. I will definitely have a small display, Sean, so I was thinking about leaving the LOR S3 suite behind, instead using your xLights software.

I'm sure I can learn to use those new tools but I have been using the LOR G3-MPC show player so far to run my shows. Is there a similar SD card-type device that I can use if I do all my sequences in xLights going forward? Apologize if this is fairly basic question but it's August already and this time a year generally raises the urgency factor for all of us...

Gilrock, I guess I could fake it and tell the S3 program that I've got those last 3 channels in Unit 01 and let it send a signal to them, then that AC cord won't be attached to any light prop so net result = nothing. But man, I'm tempted to just make the break from LOR S3, even the latest advanced version with Pixel Editor, if I can get comfortable enough with xLights in time. This year my display will predominantly be smart RGB whereas last year it was all dumb...

Thanks - Bob

[Gilrock]

I think it would be easiest to just map the empty channels in LOR.  I use all my channels so I never ran into that.

[sean]

Everyone I know is using the raspberry pi with FPP software to run their shows. It supports sub lor, Dax, open Dax, Reynard, pixel net, d-lights controllers and e1.31 controllers. Each pi can run 80k channels


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[JonB256]

Sean, you and your phone auto correct need to have a talk! !

[JonB256]

Everyone I know is using the raspberry pi with FPP software to run their shows. It supports sub lor, Dax, open Dax, Reynard, pixel net, d-lights controllers and e1.31 controllers. Each pi can run 80k channels


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It supports USB LOR, DMX, Open DMX,  Renard, Pixelnet, D-Light and E1.31 controllers.

RaspberryPi is <$45
Falcon Player software is free.
Falconchristmas.com

[bbrescia]

Thanks all - I will get one from Amazon. It sounds delicious...  Bob