just converted from lor to vixen and dmx

[billyb27]

Hey everyone,
I just converted my display from Lor to vixen and dmx so if anyone is having trouble doing the same or has a question I might be able to help. So jsut a clarification this is a post for anyone who is tired of getting ripped off from light o rama :)

[Larry Hazeltine]

I'm not sure what you mean by getting "ripped off" from LOR. The controllers I purchased from them were well worth it. The software is easier to use for most of my sequencing, especially when it comes to rearranging channels.

That said, I am using Vixen these days because I have a mixed Renard and LOR system and need to use DMX. I built my own USB to DMX dongle before finding out LOR had the iDMX, but building my own was cheaper anyway. I don't have the same level of customer support building my own stuff as I would with LOR either.

So overall, my reasons for switching is not because of any dislike for LOR. My money goes further with my own stuff (as long as I'm careful - I fried a motherboard once because of a short and decided to go with LOR at that point, but my soldering skills have improved greatly since then.)

Anyway, I may be able to help you figure out your system since it seems similar to mine, but I can't help you bash LOR.

[michaelc]

What kind of Lor Setups do you both have. Currently I have 4 LOR Boards (2 16's and

[michaelc]

What kind of Lor Setups do you both have. Currently I have 4 LOR Boards (2 16's and 2 8's). I am in the process of adding a REN48LSD and I'm trying to figure out the best configuration. I was able to convert all my LOR sequences to VIXEN and at first glance they seem to be working with one exception. Vixen doesn not handle 8 channel boards very well.

I'm considering abandoning the RS485 for my ENTTEC DMX dongle. I'm curious to see how you converted everything.

[budude]

For DMX, Vixen is agnostic to the type of controller - that's the beauty of standards! It will simply send a DMX stream down the pipe and it's up to the controllers to figure it out. Do the 8-channel boards support DMX - are they the latest FW? Are you using the Enttec Open or the Enttec Pro dongle? For the Open you need to enable the DMX Add-in to stream the DMX data to the dongle - this is not needed by the Pro.

I would put the Ren48LSD last in the chain with a starting address past the LOR boxes (I guess '49' in this case) and make sure the terminator jumper is on.

[michaelc]

I am testing everything with one of my LOR boards. If I run it through the ENTTEC the lights seem to flicker. I added a a 'heartbeat' channel every other .1 of a second and it still flickers. When I run it using the LOR Output dll it seems to work fine.

Any thoughts on why it's flickering? I'd really like to go full on only DMX if possible.


Also, I see that Vixen has some sort of an RGB tool. I am driving 3 channels to a REN 48LSD for each of my spotlights. Is there a way to consolidate the 3 channels to a single RGB channel? Any idea how the RGB plugin works?

[jeffl]

Hey everyone,
I just converted my display from Lor to vixen and dmx so if anyone is having trouble doing the same or has a question I might be able to help. So jsut a clarification this is a post for anyone who is tired of getting ripped off from light o rama :)


I thought the same thing last year and added some DIY gear to my LOR setup. Now that I'm done I don't regret it, but if your doing it based on initial purchase price alone it could be the wrong reason.

[michaelc]

Here is my OLD LOR setup:

COMPUTER running LOR => LOR RS Cable => LOR Controller2 =>LOR Controller 1 =>Lor Controller 3 => LOR Controller 4

My new mixed setup (order I would prefer is)
Computer running VIXEN => DMX Dongle => Ren48LSD =>LORController2 => LOR Controller 1 => LOR Controller 3 => LOR Controller 4 => LOR Controller5 (Future)

Here are my questions:
1) Can the REN48LSD be first?
2) Does the order of the LOR units make any difference if their internal unit id's are set?
3) What starting address should I use for the REN48LSD. If I leave it default, does it assume channel 1 or the 1st open channel, in my example that would be channel 81? Or do I need to specify a start of 81?
4) Is there any way to run diagnostics on the REN48LSd?

[budude]

The LSD can be first but remember it consumes addresses - so - if you made it '1' (default), it would eat up DMX 1-48 and output DMX address '1' again even through from Vixen it would be addressed as '49' - - does this make sense? You would make the LOR device as address '1' as well and since the first 48 are eaten up by the LSD, it would be '1' again on the output. The Unit IDs would not care which order - but again, that string post LSD would start at '1' again.

Now - - if you start the LSD at say 81 (just to pick a number), it would consume 48 address spaces so 81 - 129 but the outgoing address would again be '81' - do you see the pattern? Essentially the LSD is "invisible" wrt to the LOR units coming after - BUT - from Vixen it's all sequential. Note that in this case you can't have the LOR set to a lower number like 17 since that will not show up post LSD.

So you're saying - - "uh what did you say?" - yes - but it's easy once you get the Renard/DMX method of address consumption in your head. The easier thing would probably be to put the LSD's after the LOR setting the first PIC on the first controller to the starting address you want (assuming not '1') but ALL of the rest of the PICs on that board and subsequent Renards you might have would all be set to '1'.

[michaelc]

So here is my dilemma. I want to mount the LSD on the house for year round use running all the LED floods and potential LED Spots. During holiday seasons I'm planning on breaking out my 5 LOR boxes. I was hoping to daisy chain them AFTER the LSD. Any future boards I build/buy would be REN(like) and come AFTER the LOR boxes. What I hear you saying is that even if I set the first LSD to start at 81 and go to 129, I cannot use channels 1-80 for LOR because the REN would 'skip' them regardless of the LOR UNIT setting.

If this is correct, then I only have 2 alternatives
1) Wire the LSD and future REN equipment LAST in line forcing me to change profiles and cabling for non-season, but more importantly forcing me to have a HUGE Cat5 run from the end of my LOR box run all the way back to the house where the LSD is mounted.
2) Use 2 dongles.

btw, I'm going to PM you (Budude) concerning my LSD Troubleshooting.

[budude]

What I hear you saying is that even if I set the first LSD to start at 81 and go to 129, I cannot use channels 1-80 for LOR because the REN would 'skip' them regardless of the LOR UNIT setting.

That is my understanding of how it works - P. Short could chime in here to confirm this to be sure.


If this is correct, then I only have 2 alternatives
1) Wire the LSD and future REN equipment LAST in line forcing me to change profiles and cabling for non-season, but more importantly forcing me to have a HUGE Cat5 run from the end of my LOR box run all the way back to the house where the LSD is mounted.
2) Use 2 dongles.

btw, I'm going to PM you (Budude) concerning my LSD Troubleshooting.

Well - assuming this is the way it works, you program Vixen to use those channels but the LOR units restart at '1'. So let's keep it simple and say LSD-LOR1-LOR2-LOR3-LOR4. LSD would be set to address '1', LOR1 would be set to address '1', LOR2 would be set to address '17', LOR3 would be set to address '33' and LOR4 would be set to address '49'. From Vixen, you would have a DMX plugin with 112 channels. Vixen channels 1-48 would go to the LSD and on the output of it would be the data stream for Vixen channels 49-112 but the DMX data for 1-64.

It might be possible to build out a 'thru' cable where you feed off the LORs from the same wire as the IN on the LSD but then you have to worry about stubs on the RS-485 line etc and I can't say if that will work or not.

edit - - actually - as I recall, you have the v3b which had a thru connector on it ("GAB") - I never tested this but it was there to provide a thru-port.

[michaelc]

actually I have the V3c. I'm thinking 2 dongles might be the way to solve my problems (once I get he LSD working right).

Anyone know where I can get one of the Enttec Pro compatible DIY dongles on short notice?

[dmcole]

If this is correct, then I only have 2 alternatives
1) Wire the LSD and future REN equipment LAST in line forcing me to change profiles and cabling for non-season, but more importantly forcing me to have a HUGE Cat5 run from the end of my LOR box run all the way back to the house where the LSD is mounted.
2) Use 2 dongles.


There is actually a third alternative -- a DMX splitter, which you could put just after the dongle and then have two legs, the standard DMX leg and the leg that goes to the Ren48LSD.

RPM currently has splitter boards in stock: http://shop.martinxmas.com/

HTH.

\dmc