LOR to xLights Sequence Channel Order

[JMHaro]

Hi, I've been searching for any information on this but just haven't found it yet.  If you can point me to the right location or just help me I would appreciate it.

I tried converting my first LOR sequence over to xLights (2016.21) last night.  Only a few channels appear to be working correctly but surprisingly to me my two of my CCRs which were numbered OE and OF on LOR actually came over correctly.

Anyway what I'm wanting to know which I think I heard a very quick mention of it in one video, is, do my LOR units and channels in the LOR sequences HAVE to be in correct sequential order to be able to import them into xLights?  I have a lot of my channels jumbled up since I arranged similar items together in the sequence editor to make it easier to view them so they may not be from the same device or skipped around channels to display them together. 

Not looking forward in doing that for each of my 18 sequences , but if that's the only way I can import them in, then I'll do it.  But before I do that I just wanted to make sure that was really needed or if there was some other way for out of sequential order importing.

[Gilrock]

If you want to know how xLights is mapping your channels then just convert one of your LMS files.  Goto the Tools menu and select Convert.  Check the "Show Verbose Channel Map" checkbox.  I always uncheck the other 2 boxes but some people need them for certain situations.  Select your LMS file and convert it to an FSEQ file.  Then look at the output and it will show how we mapped every channel.  That will tell you have it's being mapped anytime you do a Data Layer import which is the type of import you are doing if you do it during the New Sequence Wizard.

Also if you really need to change your LOR channel order it's not that hard.  Change it in one sequence. Export the channel configuration and then you just open up the other sequences and import the channel configuration.

[JMHaro]

Thanks, I 'just' found that convert functionality.  It took some research into what was going on but I think I found my problem.  There were a few controllers that I had unused channels in them and I must have removed them from my sequence.  So that was throwing the mapping off.  I should have asked that as a second question, You have to have all the channels present in your LOR sequence. (I guess you don't have to as long as you don't count for them in your conversion channels).

Anyway this should make it easy since I should just be able to add the missing channels to the bottom of the sequence and then export/import that into all my other sequences.  This convert function will also help me in understanding how the CCR's are converted over so I can try to get their conversion to work (strange that the first 2 of 4 seem to be working and they are all in sequential order with each other).  But this is a good start for me.  Thanks for the quick response and help.

[Gilrock]

I thought we automatically added 16 channels each time we find a new controller but its been awhile since I looked.  Some of those results can be change based on the Map channels with no network box and the other box so you can try them.

[JMHaro]

It appears to be working even when it gets to my CCR's which are ID' at OE, OF, 10, and 11 with standard AC units before and after the CCR's up to 14.

If it helps anyone else in conversion here is what I ended up doing to resolve my import issues.

• Following one of the tutorials, in xLights Setup I clicked on the Add USB and setup a LOR Network with settings of: Port-Not Connected, Baud Rate-250000, Last Channel-1000, Description-Test.
• I then ran a convert selecting the LOR lms file and checked on all the check boxes (Map Empty, Map LMS, Show Verbose) and started the conversion.
• I then highlighted and copied the results into an Excel spreadsheet.
• I sorted the results there so basically everything was in xLights converted channel order.
• I was then able to go through it and identify any missing channels or confirm what channels everything was converting over to so I could either make changes to the LOR sequence (adding missing channels) or correcting model assignment channels.
• Once I was finally able to get it to convert and everything looked correct, I then went through the steps to create a new sequence using the same lms file.
• After it created the new sequence I then went back and deleted the LOR network so my original E1.31 networks were there.
• Saved the sequence and played it.
• Now everything is playing correctly on my display.

I found out that I will have to move some things around to split up the universes but after I get all my sequences converted over, I'm hoping that should be easier to do afterwards.

[JMHaro]

I've got a new question if anyone can still help me on this.

I'm needing to split up some of my devices between different DMX universes.  So I'm having a hard time understanding what I might need to do in my LOR sequences to my unit ID's so that they will import into xLights properly to the correct DMX universe and channels.

What I'm looking at is 3 Universes.  1 Universe will be located at a neighbors house and that universe will have 1 AC device and 2 CCR devices.
Then I'll have 2 Universes around my house only due to being easier to split up on opposite sides of the driveway and due to 2 CCR devices, it would require 2 Universes anyway.  Each of these Universes will have 1 CCR device.  Currently this is my existing LOR unit ID's that would need to be relocated to the different Universes.  They are all AC devices unless otherwise noted:

Code: [Select]

Universe 1                          Universe 2                             Universe 3
     01                                 07                                     12
     02                                 09                                     10 (CCR 157chs)
     03                                 0A                                     11 (CCR 157chs)
     04                                 0B                                     -----------------------
     05                                 0C                                     330 Channels
     06                                 0F (CCR 157chs)
     08                                 -----------------------
     0D                                 237 Channels
     13
     0E (CCR 157chs)
     14 (CMB24 24chs)
     -----------------------
     325 Channels
I'm willing to renumber my devices and in LOR sequences if needed.

I know with the CCR's and CMB24 I have to adjust subsequent unit ID's to compensate for the channels in these devices but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do after I got past the Unit ID "20" or do I just keep adjusting the unit ID's higher above "20" as needed and they will still keep calculating their own DMX addresses. All the LOR documents only list the first 20 unit ID's based on a single DMX Universe so I wasn't exactly sure what would happen if I numbered a device to something like "30" would that be channel 753?

I appreciate anyone that can help me get a handle on how to work out the Unit ID's or what other configurations I need to make to get everything to import as needed into xLights.  Right now I think this is my last hurdle to get over.

[Gilrock]

The LOR boxes have no idea which Universe they reside on.  You run any universe to a chain of them so you only get 512 channels in each chain.  So the first LOR box in any chain needs to be unit ID 1 and then number them according as you go up.  The LOR ID basically tells it where to start picking off data in the 512 channel stream.  No you will never use an ID greater than "20" when running LOR boxes in DMX mode.  The "20" is hexadecimal so it's really 0x20 which equals 32 decimal.  So to figure out the actual channel it begins with the formula is Channel = ((ID -1) * 16) + 1.  So 32-1 = 31...multiply 31 * 16 = 496...and add 1 to get 497 and that's your start channel if you configure LOR box to ID "20".  Since there are only 512 channels in a universe you can never go higher than the "20" ID.

[JMHaro]

Thanks that worked.  What I also finally had to figure out is that in my LOR sequences I still had to define the Unit ID's for the units that would be in these other universes as continuous ID sequences.  So as far as the LOR sequences went, the units were defined from "01" up through "2F".

So it was a little hard to grasp that the sequence no longer has the actual units designated in it.  But that allowed my sequence to be imported in correctly into xLights.  I setup my DMX universes in xLights to the exact number of channels in each universe.  I came up with a spread sheet layout that helped me understand the layout which provided me what the sequence ID's were supposed to be and what the actual unit ID's were going to be set as.  At least that way I can keep my head straight as to what's what.

At least after all that I was able to test the 3 universes with just my CCR's connected to my DMX bridge outputs from my PixCon16 board and everything works. 

So thanks to you and everyone else that has helped me.

Now I'm just waiting until I can get the FPP setup on my Raspberry Pi V3 to start playing with that.  I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel now...

Thanks again.