Question on setup...E681/Renard 24

[Donny M. Carter]

Hello all! I'm looking for suggestions on how I should setup my controllers this year. I have 3, E681's and 5, Renard24 HC's. I was gonna run one cat5 from my LAN to a switch. From one port on the switch go to my E681's, that's all good! On the second port of the switch go to a EthConGateway which I will connect my Renard's programmed with DMX. My question is, does this make sense? I don't have the gateway yet. Should I just run a second cable and run the boards with Renard protocol? I'm running LSP software if that makes a difference! I have done a lot of reading and studying trying to learn as much as possible. Just want to get things running early! Thanks for any help and advice!
Donny

[mschell]

Donny,
Sounds like you've got it figured out fairly well.

The Ethernet connections to both the E681 and EtherConGateway are correct. You can't daisy chain the E681s, you'll need a port on your switch for each E681, unless you have another small switch in the same box as an E681.

Note that depending on the model of ECG, you can either output DMX or Renard protocol from each output. So if you want to use Renard firmware on those boards, or use Ren-DMX firmware, it's your choice.

The beauty of the ECG and E681 is that LSP doesn't have to know what is on the other side, the controller takes care of mapping it to the right place and the right protocol.

[Donny M. Carter]

Thanks Mark! I do have a switch in the enclosure with each E681 so I can kind of daisy chain them. Now to make sure I'm setting them up correctly in LSP! Thanks again!

Donny

[CaptKirk]

I keep seeing a switch mentioned in these discussions. Do we really need a switch, or would a dumb hub also work assuming the network is dedicated to E68X's??

[mschell]

A hub would work, and wouldn't be very different from how the switches are behaving in this application, mostly because it's just daisy chaining along.

Also, since we're using multicast (broadcasting to any and all listeners), a switch wouldn't really be isolating much traffic anyway.

[Donny M. Carter]

I keep seeing a switch mentioned in these discussions. Do we really need a switch, or would a dumb hub also work assuming the network is dedicated to E68X's??

I'm using Trendnet TE100-S5 switches. Trendnet was recommended to me by Jim St. John.

Donny

[akonkman]

I have a related question: I also plan on running a few E1.31 devices this year. Would you recommend creating an "isolated" network for the computer running the show and the E1.31 devices, separate from the rest of the house (which runs off a wireless router with Internet connection)? Or would it be totally fine to connect the switch to the router so that everything in the house can "see" everything else on the network? Just curious, since we're using multicast... I don't want to send a bunch of traffic out over the wireless network or to any other devices that are wired to the router (for example, a BluRay player or XBox 360) if I can prevent it. But then again, I like the convenience of being able to remote desktop into the show computer from another computer on the wireless network. Perhaps some configuration on the router can provide the isolation I'm looking for? Or perhaps two NICs in the show computer could serve the purpose?

[mschell]

This question has come up before, and probably will again.

I would recommend that you use a separate network to run your show. Having a second NIC in your show computer is the easiest way to do this. Have the second NIC feed your E1.31 network. That way, you can still connect to the show computer from your "home" network, but not have the show traffic bog down.

It's not that using the same network for both your house traffic and the E1.31 won't work - it's more that it keeps things separated so that something in one area won't interfere with the other.

Just be sure to specify the correct network card (NIC) when you setup the E1.31 plug-in/output. It should show up as "Local connection 2" or something similar. You'll have to set a static IP address for that second NIC, and for the E681 or whatever other devices you use.

[Zeph]

OK, a good way to isolate the traffic while remaining connected is to have two NICs in the show computer - one connecting to the home network and beyond, one just to the e1.31 based controllers.

NICs are cheap for desktop computers.

Any recommendation for a laptop computer as show computer? Cheap network switch with VPN (suggestions?)? USB 2.0 to Ethernet dongle?

[mschell]

You should be able to get a USB-Ethernet dongle starting around $25-30 that should do what you need. I did a quick Google search and found quite a few.