LOR Pixie controller in XLights not working right

[brichi]

yes, the alpha works great but I really didn't want to have to open $1000 in controllers to replace all my LOR pixies to use XLights

[keithsw1111]

The 96 channel soft limit comes from the inefficiencies of the lor protocol we use. Every channel carries a 5 byte overhead. When combined with slow serial that kills you.

So my question is how is LOR getting away with it?  They run the same protocol from a PC and it works.

My assumption is they send a fade as one instruction rather than an intensity every frame

[Ebuechner]

yes, the alpha works great but I really didn't want to have to open $1000 in controllers to replace all my LOR pixies to use XLights

I'm not suggesting at all that you open those controllers.
What I'm trying to say is that your Lor stuff can run from the alphapix in DMX eliminating the need for the dongle.
So the data path would be from your computer using E1.31 to the alphapix, then the alphapix will output a DMX signal that can be used by your Lor controllers.
The beauty of this setup is then you only need one cable coming out of the house to run everything.

[CaptainMurdoch]

Another thing that affects LOR usage is that you can run more channels as long as they aren't changing much.  The inefficiency comes in if more than 1/6 of your channels are changing at the same time.  If fewer channels are changing then you are saving bytes on the wire by only updating changed channels.

[Gilrock]

OK so I hooked up a LOR CCR to a standard LOR RS485 dongle and captured some USB packets.  I created a simple 3 second sequence that turned everything on red for 1 second, green 1 second, then blue 1 second.  I could see the heartbeat bytes going out every 500ms.  For the data when the sequence started there was an initial packet of 6 bytes immediately followed by 60 bytes.  One second later there was a packet of 60 bytes on the change to green.  One more second later there was a packet of 60 bytes when it changed to blue.  Then when the sequence ended there was a packet of 7 bytes with 41 bytes 10ms later.   If you look at xLights trying to perform the same sequence it appears to pump out boatloads of bytes and then the interface seems to quit transmitting.  I also had it blue screen my PC when I shut off output to lights.

[CaptainMurdoch]

Gil, can you post that LOR USB capture somewhere?  I thought I heard they had a newer protocol so maybe it can support multiple channels in one packet.  Also please note how many channels this was.

[Gilrock]

Yeah I'm trying to do a lot of different tests to decipher the protocol.  Made some good headway and capturing it in a Word document.

[Gilrock]

Here's what I've got so far.  I haven't completely figured it all out.  I've got one screenshot where I detailed what I believe some of the parts of the command packets mean.  I did some testing with a 16 channel AC controller and others with a CCR.  Where you see multiple lines of bytes they all came in as a big block and I just tried to place each section of the packet on its own line to align the commands.  Not sure why they have several spots where they will have one or two sets of 7 0x00 bytes.  The commands for the colors get even more confusing.  If you or anyone wants to decode it please share your observations.  Also I can run any scenario you want.

[Gilrock]

Oh and by the way for the original poster.....do you know if you are running in the new high speed protocol?  I hear that protocol is very different from this protocol I've been working out and that's its even more convoluted.

[brichi]

Oh and by the way for the original poster.....do you know if you are running in the new high speed protocol?  I hear that protocol is very different from this protocol I've been working out and that's its even more convoluted.

hey sorry for the late response, been a crazy few days

I am not sure what protocol I am running, I am using S5 as you know and have the high speed red LOR dongle. How can i check for the info you need?

[Gilrock]

Well what's I've found is that even with the old LOR protocol xLights does not work with a 150 channel color CCR.  I've pretty much figured out a fair bit of the protocol and I'm working on creating a new output type that will use the optimized format.  I just believe there is another completely different protocol for the high speed interfaces so I wouldn't be able to figure that out without the hardware.  To figure this one out I'm having to use USB packet capture software.

[brichi]

That sounds like a lot of work, lol

I won't be able to really use XLights unless there is eventually a way to get my S5 LOR sequences to XLights so don't go too crazy based on my account.... thank you!!

[Gilrock]

I guess you are stuck with LOR then.   Sometimes you just have to start over with your sequences.  That's what I did I now have zero data in my shows that came from my early LOR days.

[brichi]

exactly, i would love to start over and redo them but i would also want to change out the controllers then to Falcon, Alpha,,etc... so the money would be up there for 8-9 controllers

[Gilrock]

But I think you should be able to run the LOR controllers in DMX mode.  I know you had issues but they've supported DMX in controllers for a long time.