Populated Ports and Testing

[tomkinsong]

I have an F48v4 with 4 local ports and then 6x remote Smart Receivers that I'll use for placement of my lights. I'm building out all my props for the house outline for Windows and house corners (vertical runs) at the moment. In each window I have a spinner that I'll be mounting Christmas wreaths to and outlining the inner and out circles of the spinner only. To test the props as I'm making them, I'm connecting them to the F48 and playing my sequence that I'm working on - just to see if the lights respond as I would expect and to see if the wiring all checks out.

This will change in the future but at the moment, I'm only doing the house outline for this first year. I'm running no more than 150'ish pixels on each port at 40% brightness and on most ports, there's no more than 2 or 3 props. I might add more props per port for higher density and do power injection if it makes sense to do so considering the position of the props.

In xLights, the F48 is configured to use DDP. The 4x local ports are 45, 46, 47 and 48 and the F48 is running in "Remote" mode to my Falcon Player "Master" running on a BeagleBone Black.

Here are my questions:

If I have two props connected in xLights to port 48 but only have the first prop physically connected, should I expect the connected prop to display the sequence correctly with the second prop not connected?

Similar question;

If I have props connected in xLights to port 45, 46, 47 and 48 but only have the first prop physically connected to port 48, should I expect the connected prop to display the sequence correctly, again with the second prop not connected to port 48?

I feel the answer should be yes but I'd love confirmation!

Cheers, Gary

[algerdes]

In most cases the stream that is presented to a controller's output is a one-way communications. Quite literally the stream is pushed out without any regard of if anything is out there, or not. So, the first prop will work, then the remaining stream will go to the great bit-bucket-in-the-sky. We test a LOT of props here using an output rigged for several props but only having the one under test connected. Absolutely no problems.

[tomkinsong]

In most cases the stream that is presented to a controller's output is a one-way communications. Quite literally the stream is pushed out without any regard of if anything is out there, or not. So, the first prop will work, then the remaining stream will go to the great bit-bucket-in-the-sky. We test a LOT of props here using an output rigged for several props but only having the one under test connected. Absolutely no problems.

Thanks, that's what I expected. One of the problems I've experienced is with using the F48 wirelessly. If I do that then it seems that uploading the sequence files either don't complete or get corrupted. Over Ethernet that doesn't seem to happen.


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[algerdes]

"... using the xxx wirelessly..." is an area I don't get into. Except for some Ubiquiti bridges (Ethernet, point to multi-point) everything here is wired. We have a saying, "If it doesn't move - WIRE IT".

Be aware that I am NOT bashing wireless. Some of my best friends go wireless with a lot of their show. Thing is we don't have that many good mental-health practitioners in my area to handle the load.

[tomkinsong]

"... using the xxx wirelessly..." is an area I don't get into. Except for some Ubiquiti bridges (Ethernet, point to multi-point) everything here is wired. We have a saying, "If it doesn't move - WIRE IT".

Be aware that I am NOT bashing wireless. Some of my best friends go wireless with a lot of their show. Thing is we don't have that many good mental-health practitioners in my area to handle the load.

I totally get it and I'm very much still in the learning phase. I'll plan on exposing an Ethernet drop outside for insurance but I must say, aside from updating sequences from xlights over wifi, the playback does seem to work very well. And the PixelSticks have no other option..

But this is what makes this hobby so fascinating to me. You have to be a bit of a jack of all trades; electrical, networking, there's an architecture spin to it and that's just putting lights up! Then you also need to have the skill set to actually make it look good to music. It's quite the scope!

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