How to set dimming curves

[pjones]

I've found when dimming my 120VAC LED light strings they don't start to illuminate until the dimming level reaches 12%, and after 90% they are no longer visually brighter. This causes a visual lag in my sequences even though they are timed correctly.

I see there is a dimming curve adjustment that can be used to control brightness and Gamma, Is there a way to set the responsive dimming values so that the sequencer only uses the values between what I've specified above? If this is not possible then can someone post their dimming curve values for their big box store lights that might get me close to what i'm looking to achieve? I haven't been able to find a way to do this yet in the dimming curve settings.

Thanks

[Gilrock]

That is the purpose of a dimming curve.  I rarely use them but there are many options.  Change the curve type and see what's available.  I know you can even use a lookup table if you wanted so you could make 0=0 and 1=12%.

[dkulp]

With 2017.37, the closest would likely be a setting of -10 for brightness (90% at full on) and a gamma of 0.7 or 0.6.    That still results in a curve and I think it won't hit 12% till about 3 or 4.

The other option is to create a text file with 256 rows in it (using a spreadsheet is probably easiest) which maps each value.   The first row would have a 0 in it, the second row a 12, the third row a 12 or 13, etc...   The dimming curve dialog will allow pointing at that file.

[pjones]

I'm feeling under the weather so I won't get to it tonight unfortunately. I hope to setup the test rig again and play with it some more tomorrow. Just playing around with it on the computer It looks like it still has a delay at the beginning even if I put Gamma to something extreme like 0.3. I know that setting up the test rig is the only way to really see what effect it has on the lights but through the virtualizer it looks like I can trim the top end by using Brightness but I can't trim the bottom end with Gamma. Gamma seems to only provide curve to the whole profile but always maintains its zero point at 0.

I've found a Linear profile works well with my lights so it looks like I may have to figure out this spread sheet option to get a Linear profile while manually creating top end and bottom end Trim adjustment. I'll have another look through the manual to see if there is an example of how this will look on a spreadsheet.

Thanks.

[pjones]

It doesn't explain in the manual what language to use when creating a .txt file.

For instance it's not clear if it should be written like this...

1=0
2=30.72
3=31.21
4=31.71
5=32.20
...etc...
100=230.40

or if it should read like this...

0
30.72
31.21
31.71
32.20
...etc...
230.40

Or are decimals rounded to only one place acceptable, or something completely different. it's a slow process to calculate this out and list it so insight would save some legwork if I'm headed in the wrong direction here

thanks

This is what I've tried this far (in a .txt file) but it still doesn't produce the profile that I'm looking for...

0.00
12.00
12.31
12.62
12.93
13.24
13.55
13.86
14.17
14.48
14.79
15.10
15.41
15.72
16.03
16.34
16.65
16.96
17.27
17.58
17.89
18.20
18.51
...
...
 (Removed section of numbers because this method was incorrect and it made the post excessively long. I left enough so that others can see how i went wrong so they can avoid the same mistake)
...
...
85.16
85.47
85.78
86.09
86.40
86.71
87.02
87.33
87.64
87.95
88.26
88.57
88.88
89.19
89.50
89.81
90.12
90.43
90.74

Its good because it brought the starting point up off of zero, but the problem i've found is that the top end is showing as around 30%

Upon testing this profile I've found that even though the profile shows at around 12% on the lower end, when tested, the string doesn't start to illuminate until around 24% now.

Any ideas as to how I can produce the profile I'm looking to achieve?

I've attached a screen shot of the profile that i see when i upload the .txt file

[dkulp]

No decimals, and the numbers range from 0 to 255.   I think with the decimal it will just parse the part before the decimal and truncate the rest (no rounding) so that's something you'd need to

Thus, for you, it should be something like:

0
31
31
32
32
....
229
230

[Gilrock]

It doesn't explain in the manual what language to use when creating a .txt file.

We read the numbers best in English.

[pjones]

Thanks for the help! I'll post my results as I figure them out. For now, I've found this to be a reliable dimming profile for multiple different brands of 120VAC LED lights (various hardware store brands that are not full wave rectified or "rated for dimming"). This will provide full off at 0% dim level and when 1% dimming is selected it will jump up to an actual 12% dimming level to provide the faintest of glow so there is no delay between the sequence and the true visual that is produced. This will also cap the dimming at 90% because I found no noticeable difference in brightness which also appeared as a delay when watching the live show. This will produce a linear profile.

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I've posted the numbers because I find after a few years files go missing from forum servers. This way people can copy and paste the numbers into their own .txt file as they wish. I'll also attach a copy of my .txt file because its easy to do and may help others out in the short term.

[pjones]

It doesn't explain in the manual what language to use when creating a .txt file.

We read the numbers best in English.

LOL, thats good because I can never remember what order to put them in when speaking a different language.

[pjones]

This is the Incandescent 120VAC 100Watt Flood light profile that I am working on. It still has a slight delay when being used as a slow ramp up but its a huge improvement from the default 0-100% profile.

This will provide a profile range to operate between 21.5-90% brightness with a linear profile shape.

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[pjones]

Those two dinning curves work pretty well for everything I have right now. I'm only using AC LED lights and high wattage incandescent bulbs. If others have different profiles feel free to post them it could be helpful for others to be able to pick from a selection to see what works best for them.

[pjones]

When I make my own dimming curves in xLights do I need to upload those to the FPP scheduler myself or does that upload automatically? I'm running a Raspberry Pi with FPP 1.8 installed

If I have to upload it myself, could someone point me as to where I load it to?

Thanks.

[keithsw1111]

xLights modifies the data in the FSEQ using the dimming curve ... so you dont need to upload them.