I used the past few days to go one step further, and built an active HUB and 8 ssc v2 (currently I have 6 smart strings, so got a little ahead of myself...). I will be doing the mod for v3 on all the ssc tonight, eventhough I have not run into any trouble with the 2 I am currently using as test bed (I am expecting the 3 prongs connector from Ray in the next few weeks, and don't want to solder all of my strings directly on the ssc for the time being).
A couple of things I ran into:
-the PVC in the link on the equipment page is too small to accommodate a SSC v2. Not sure if it is because the walls on it (I bought the exact same model/manufacturer from the same store the link is pointing at) are too thick, but it looks like the pcb has a width of 1 1/8 inch and the PVC is 1 inch. Or it might be the link is not pointing to the correct model of PVC. Not really sure there.
-my biggest problem is I am using a MAC and all the software out there are PC only. I have been running bootcamp on my MAC, and I am able to run LSP and Vixen. LSP is a little bit more intuitive for me, but I am using the latest version available there (2.5) and stability is a huge problem. It locks quite often, is extremely slow and the result of my tests always look good in the preview but are really substandart when running on the lights themselves. I built a quick matrix with a 128 nodes SS, in 8 rows of 16 nodes. This is by far where the results are the worst in real tests. I'll investigate more Vixen, but the setting seems to be more finicky about the COM port used by my dongle. That works well with LSP but is more troubling with Vixen.
Has anyone used LSP 2.5 and found any similar issues?
I am aware that this is not the board where this message should go. But you guys have been so fantastic helping with my first steps, that I didn't want you to think that your hard work was not appreciated and making a difference.
I did a test last night and connected all the different elements I have built so far (all pixelnet flashed when applicable). I ended up with a USB dongle connected to an active HUB. The LE was daisychained to the HUB and all the 16 channels were hooked. The HUB also had 2 SSC v2 hooked to it, each controlling a 128 nodes SS. I know this is a small setup for everyone out there, but for me, this is huge as a week ago I had nothing
I was able to control each element of the system, and played around with it without any major issues. Now if I only could settle on the software side and get one that is reliable for my system that would be great. Trying to do a 30 seconds transition in LSP for one string took more than 20 minutes of computation, and I was watching the CPUs activities at the time, neither of them got above 20%...