Packing universes: reducing channels per universe to minimize network traffic?

[derfnivrag]

I got a Pixlite controller for my display so I can move most of the pixels off the WiFi network. I will still need a few ESPs, for about 1000 total pixels. The pixels on WiFi will obviously be multicast. How do I keep the data for the Pixlite from going to the ESPs? Can I simply run that data as unicast? Or do I need some type of switching to make sure the ESPs only get what they need?

[jchuchla]

I got a Pixlite controller for my display so I can move most of the pixels off the WiFi network. I will still need a few ESPs, for about 1000 total pixels. The pixels on WiFi will obviously be multicast. How do I keep the data for the Pixlite from going to the ESPs? Can I simply run that data as unicast? Or do I need some type of switching to make sure the ESPs only get what they need?

If you're using a managed network you don't need to worry about it. The network takes care of it for you. And the PixLite is one of the few pixel controllers that does that properly. If you're like most people and using unmanaged network switches, then unicast is the easiest way to direct the traffic to the specific wired pixlite controller.

[derfnivrag]

I have a Netgear GS308E which is a "managed plus" switch. I still have a lot of stuff up in anticipation of a Star Wars show for May 4th, so I shall try it out tonight and see what happens. Thanks for the help!

[jchuchla]

On those netgear switches, you may need to use it's web interface to enable IGMP snooping and IGMP querier to properly sort out the multicast data.

[dirknerkle]

I noticed on one of the postings, there was a reference to a thread at the green site that read as follows:

https://www.diychristmas.org/vb1/sho...px3mmold9D3pgY

Since that post was made, diychristmas.org has converted to vBulletin 5 and the links to the old site that have the letters /vb1/ in it won't work. Substituting /vb5/ may make the link work again.... I think anyway... vBulletin 5 has an entirely different lookup structure and it may or may not solve the problem...

[davdue]

I have struggled with lag in my show now for a couple years. I have done a lot of work with WAP location (Ubiquiti LocoM2) and changing some settings per @jchuchla and some other people that I can't remember right now. My show is made up of several ESP wifi enabled SSR's from dirknerkle, Renard SS24's with ESP's, and 7 ESPixelpops. I have 2 remote FPP Raspberry Pi running a matrix tuneto sign and another running my 810 px Mega Tree. So all that said i have read somewhere on here that V4 is better with network traffic. Do I just need to update my ESP's to V4 or what? I have done some measuring in my neighborhood and the 2.4Ghz band is really full. Can I change over to 5Ghz with an new Ubiguiti? But my ESP's will have to change too right? I really need to fix the lag problem. Show looks awful when there is up to 3 second delays between the audio and the lights. Below is my FPP channel setup. TIA

FPP Channel Output
FPP Start Universe Universe Size

1 1 164
165 2 512
677 3 512
1189 4 176
1365 5 512
1877 6 512
2389 7 176
2565 8 512
3077 9 88
3165 10 512
3677 11 88
3765 12 512
4277 13 512
4789 14 512
5301 15 150
5451 16 512
5963 17 512
6475 18 326
6801 19 512
7313 20 208
7521 21 512
8033 22 512
8545 23 512
9057 24 512
9569 25 382

[jchuchla]

at 25 universes, you're really pushing the limits. Chances are there's not much you're going to be able to do to get the lag to go away without changing the paradigm significantly.

The ESPs don't support 5 ghz. That's not an option.

The newer ESPixelStick firmware won't load on the older ESP8266 modules due to the larger memory requirement of the newer versions. I don't recall where the version cutoff is, or specifically which modules can go forward, but do your research there before proceeding down that path.

Option 1, switch to DDP. This gets more channels into less packets.

Option 2. switch to local sequences on each controller with FPP multisync keeping it together.

[MartinMueller2003]

V4 software runs on V3 hardware which uses the ESP8266 D1 Mini as the CPU card. It will not run on the ESP01 versions of the PixelStick Hardware.

You are going to have lag as long as you are pushing data over the WiFi infrastructure. The more data you push, the worse the lag will be. Moving to a model where NO data is passed over the network and only a small periodic sync is sent from the show player to the controllers is the best thing for WiFi.

DDP is WAY more efficient than E1.31 so it can help, but will not solve your problem.

[P. Short]

Option 2. switch to local sequences on each controller with FPP multisync keeping it together.

How would that be done with the hardware that the OP has? I'm assuming that he one has versions of the hardware that don't incorporate an SD card reader.

Just as a side note, 4MB versions of the ESP8266-01 module are available, so I'm conjecturing that the amount of Flash memory on the ESP module is not the issue.

[jchuchla]

How would that be done with the hardware that the OP has? I'm assuming that he one has versions of the hardware that don't incorporate an SD card reader.

It's likely not possible if he's got older hardware with no SD card support

Just as a side note, 4MB versions of the ESP8266-01 module are available, so I'm conjecturing that the amount of Flash memory on the ESP module is not the issue.

I believe it's possible to compile for the 4MB ESP-01 variants. The 4mb versions weren't common though when the V1/V2 ESPixelSticks were shipping, so if you've got ESP-01s from back then, they are likely variants with smaller flash.