Combating WiFi Lag - ESPixelstick and Nanostation settings?

MartinMueller2003 said:
There is no difference. Instead of sending ddp packets the show player sends sync packets. The sticks do what the sync packet tells them to do. xLights knows how to send the sync packets as well as an FPP player. If your board can trigger a show player to output sync pkts then you are good to go. FYI: FPP has this ability.
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Thanks. I think I'm missing a connection here. When you say "If your board can trigger a show player to output sync pkts then you are good to go" - I have 38 buttons set up in xlights using the jukebox function. This is essentially my show player. (I'm not using xFade currently, but might want to in the future.) How do I get the xlights Jukebox to send sync packets instead of data?
 
I couldn't see well in the videos. They were mostly washed out. But I didn't really see any very fancy sequencing going on. It looked like individual vests were sequenced as if you had dumb rgb lights. I saw a dimming ramp up but all the colors were the same. Maybe at the end you did something with individual colors. What I am getting at is that it didn't see like you are sequencing 210 pixels. It looks like the sequencing is 1 pixel with a group of 210. If that is true, you could easily send all the required data in one packet. Even if it was 10 pixels with a group of 21, you would way reduce the data required. You may need a modified version of espixelstick for this to work. I think wled could do it. It would require a different control mechanism but sending "do this effect" would be much easier on the data throughput than sending repeated data. This is the same idea as putting fseq on the sdcard but you wouldn't use sdcard.

Reviewing xlights jukebox mode tonight, I would be curious if xLights can output multisync. xSchedule can but can xLights? If you go the sdcard route, you might be forced into using something else as jukebox mode is perfect for what you are doing and not at all like other things work. Maybe linking effect sequences to big buttons in FPP?

This brings up another idea. Did you try going down in refresh rate? What is the refresh rate you are using? I would think somewhere between 100-1000 ms would be adequate for what I saw on the performers. Even the ramp up could be completed in 1-2 seconds at a lower refresh rate.

Unless two vests are doing exactly the same thing for the whole show, you cannot get any reduction in data needed. However, if a couple of vests are doing the same thing for the same show, you can set the espixelstick to listen for the same data and then you wouldn't need to sequence the "other vest".
 
MikeKrebs said:
I couldn't see well in the videos. They were mostly washed out. But I didn't really see any very fancy sequencing going on. It looked like individual vests were sequenced as if you had dumb rgb lights. I saw a dimming ramp up but all the colors were the same. Maybe at the end you did something with individual colors. What I am getting at is that it didn't see like you are sequencing 210 pixels. It looks like the sequencing is 1 pixel with a group of 210. If that is true, you could easily send all the required data in one packet. Even if it was 10 pixels with a group of 21, you would way reduce the data required. You may need a modified version of espixelstick for this to work. I think wled could do it. It would require a different control mechanism but sending "do this effect" would be much easier on the data throughput than sending repeated data. This is the same idea as putting fseq on the sdcard but you wouldn't use sdcard.
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Yes, the videos are washed out. I do more with the costumes in the last song. With only two shows left this year, I'm probably not up for rebuilding the show. But this is good to know for future years.
MikeKrebs said:
Reviewing xlights jukebox mode tonight, I would be curious if xLights can output multisync. xSchedule can but can xLights? If you go the sdcard route, you might be forced into using something else as jukebox mode is perfect for what you are doing and not at all like other things work. Maybe linking effect sequences to big buttons in FPP?
Click to expand...
I wasn't sure if xlights jukebox can output multisync either. I have a competition this weekend and I'm not sure I'll have time to tinker with it before then. As I'm running V3.2 firmware on the ESP's, I would have to unpack them from the costumes, flash them, add a card, then repackage them back up. I'm going the second AP route this weekend to get some improvements.
MikeKrebs said:
This brings up another idea. Did you try going down in refresh rate? What is the refresh rate you are using? I would think somewhere between 100-1000 ms would be adequate for what I saw on the performers. Even the ramp up could be completed in 1-2 seconds at a lower refresh rate.
Click to expand...
The sequence timing is set to 50ms - is this what you mean by refresh rate? I can change it to 100 and see what happens. It will change the background also - so I don't want to take a big reduction or it may look jumpy.

I did see a post about changing the multisync rate on the nanostation. The post mentioned that it reverts back to default when powered off, so I never pursued it.

MikeKrebs said:
Unless two vests are doing exactly the same thing for the whole show, you cannot get any reduction in data needed. However, if a couple of vests are doing the same thing for the same show, you can set the espixelstick to listen for the same data and then you wouldn't need to sequence the "other vest".
Click to expand...
The vests do switch groups for some of the blockings for songs. I may have a few that are identical for the whole show, but not many.
 
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