Author Topic: router capacity vs. XLights output  (Read 645 times)

Offline perigalacticon

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router capacity vs. XLights output
« on: January 09, 2020, 07:26:53 PM »
Is it possible to know if a router should have sufficient capacity / capability to handle XLights output for a given sequence and number of controllers?  Are there are measures of the XLights data output that can be used to evaluate this?

Thanks.
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Offline Gilrock

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Re: router capacity vs. XLights output
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2020, 08:52:59 PM »
How many channels do you have and we can tell you if its even worth thinking about?

Offline perigalacticon

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Re: router capacity vs. XLights output
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2020, 02:45:16 PM »
I have 18 channels, each one is on an individual ESPixelStick controller.

I think the router is bogged down, when I try to login to it the whole show glitches and becomes very sluggish.

EDIT:  FPP UI also becomes very, very sluggish.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2020, 02:52:51 PM by perigalacticon »
New to xLights!  as of 11/2019.
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Offline perigalacticon

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Re: router capacity vs. XLights output
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2020, 06:37:15 PM »
I'm sure you meant the number of led channels now...  Which are 11202, with 27 universes.

Today it was acting up horribly, pausing for 10s of seconds, continuously playing from FPP.  Nothing I did improved it for long.  Rebooting, restarting, power cycling everything, deactivating channels.  I don't understand what's wrong.  Because now it has run glitch free for several hours.  I'm beginning to suspect outside interference.  Is there any way people have determined that someone is messing with your show?

EDIT P.S.  The glitching went on for more than an hour glitching like that as I struggled to make it stop.  I'm not sure anything I did actually made it better, it just eventually stopped.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2020, 06:42:05 PM by perigalacticon »
New to xLights!  as of 11/2019.
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Offline perigalacticon

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Re: router capacity vs. XLights output
« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2020, 07:38:04 PM »
Attached is a representation of my network:
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Offline perigalacticon

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Re: router capacity vs. XLights output
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2020, 07:44:15 PM »
I'm going to make a quick stab at the data rate estimate.  11202 channels, 8 bits per channel, 25 times a second.  11202 x 8 x 25 = 2.2 Mbits / sec, = 280 MB / second.  That seems like quite a bit, I definitely don't get that from the home internet router.  Although I'm not sure what their size of byte is.

Is this accurate in any way?
New to xLights!  as of 11/2019.
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Offline Gilrock

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Re: router capacity vs. XLights output
« Reply #6 on: January 11, 2020, 11:49:32 AM »
I'm not that familiar with capacities for wireless.  I know wireless we had folks running a million channels.

Offline perigalacticon

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Re: router capacity vs. XLights output
« Reply #7 on: January 11, 2020, 03:38:48 PM »
I'm guessing it's my router then.  Because it happens playing from fpp or xlights.  I'd like to know what capacity router I should get, some are quite expensive and my budget is limited.
New to xLights!  as of 11/2019.
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Offline Gilrock

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Re: router capacity vs. XLights output
« Reply #8 on: January 11, 2020, 04:22:26 PM »
I think you've got too much stuff for trying to go all wireless.  I grabbed this from the net.  Basically the best wireless connection you can get maxes out at 300 Mbps.

The earliest wireless adapters were rated “b,” which was followed by “g,” which was followed by “n.” Wireless “b” allowed for speeds up to 11 Mbps; “g” maxed out at 54 Mbps; and “n” offers 300 Mbps.