Raspberry Pi, Teensy, Vixen Lights - How to connect?

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siste95

New member
Hello everyone,

once again, greetings from the newbie from Germany!
I’d like to run my light show, which I created with Vixen Lights, using a Raspberry Pi. I’ve watched a few videos, but I still need a bit of help since I’m not familiar with this stuff yet—though I’m always eager to learn more.

Here’s my current setup:
I have Vixen running on my PC, and I’m using a Teensy as the controller. Everything works fine so far — the lights flash in sync with the music.
However, I’d like to avoid carrying my PC around, since I also need it for other things outside of the light show. So, my hope is to run the show from the Raspberry Pi instead.

From what I’ve learned, I can use the Falcon Player (FPP) for this. My understanding so far is that I need to load the Falcon Player onto an SD card, insert it into the Raspberry Pi, export the sequence from Vixen, and then upload it to Falcon Player. I hope that’s roughly correct so far.
Now, if I have the sequence and the music on the Raspberry Pi — what do I do next? I assume I need to connect my Teensy to the Raspberry Pi via USB, right?
How do I then start the sequence on the Raspberry Pi?
Do I need to install Vixen Lights on the Raspberry Pi as well?

I’d like to take this step by step toward my goal of running the show from the Raspberry Pi.
I’d really appreciate it if you could give me a bit of guidance.

Thank you all very much in advance!
 
The FPP app on the raspberry pi is a VERY sophisticated show player with a VERY powerful scheduler. It runs my entire season from Halloween through Thanksgiving to Christmas with special times and sequences on the holidays themselves. Once set up, I rarely have to touch it. When I do, it is usually to extend the play time a bit for people that showed up just before the show was going to stop for the evening.

I use vixen to export the fseq files. Drag and drop them into the FPP file management screens, set up the schedule and let it run.
 
Get a RPi and install FPP. Also grab a copy of the manual. Not much in there about connecting serial devices but the rest of the information about making and scheduling playlists is covered. To tell the truth, FPP is pretty easy to use by clicking around on the menu system and if you watch a video about FPP while you have FPP, it will make a lot more sense.
 
Thanks a lot for your replies! I’ve got the Falcon Player running on my Raspberry Pi now, and I’ve exported and uploaded the FSEQ file from Vixen. Unfortunately, the light string isn’t lighting up. Under Channel Outputs, my Teensy doesn’t show up either. Since this is all new to me, I’m guessing the Teensy still needs to be set up as a controller at the FPP — but I have no idea how to do that. Maybe you can help me out — that would be great.
 
How can I fast-forward or rewind my sequence with the Falcon Player?
I use the Falcon Player with a Raspberry Pi via my phone and start my sequence, which works without any problems. However, when I want to jump further ahead in the sequence for testing—for example from minute 1 to minute 5—I haven’t found any way to do that. The timeline cannot be moved forward or backward. Is this not possible, or what am I doing wrong?
 
Hello, it’s me again from Germany. I have the following problem: After exporting my sequence from Vixen Lights to the Falcon Player using the Export Wizard, the last three elements in my chain do not light up, or do not light up correctly. I’ll try to explain it precisely.

At the end, I have a ball with 100 pixels and two stars with 60 pixels each. On the ball, the pixels in the middle light up in the wrong color, and the color changes within the 50-pixel chain. On one of the stars, the last 5 pixels do not light up, and the last star does not light up at all.

I also created a test sequence in which all lights are supposed to flash red and green using the “Alternating” effect. This works fine up until the very last element. What could be the problem here? An error during export? I’ve exported the sequence several times already, and the result is always the same. What else can I do? I’m close to a nervous breakdown.
 
Here are two photos; I hope you can see what I mean. In one photo, the test sequence is running, where all pixels light up. In the other photo, you can see that the ball lights up red in the middle, even though it should actually be green. On the left star, the pixels in the lower left corner do not light up at all. These are the first pixels that are connected to the ball. In the picture, several don’t light up, but that’s because of the effect. However, these six never light up at the left star. And unfortunately, the star on the right side doesn’t light up at all — not even in the wrong colors.
 

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There are two places these types of issues often occur: Patching in vixen and patching on your controller.

On your controller, use a test mode to see if the lights come up consistently (not using a sequence). If that does not work you have a controller config issue or a wiring issue. If test on controller works, then use the FPP display tests to see if everything works. If not, then you have a mapping issue between the FPP and the output port on the controller. Just keep working back from the lights towards the sequencer.
 
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