I saw your posts on FalconChristmas.com while I was trying to hunt down the documentation on the F16-V1 and F16-B. Where is the documentation? (Found it) I'm a reader, I'd like to know what's going on here.
What channels are the lights on that are connected to the F16-V1? <--- Okay, I have to admit, I was intently watching the World Series when I asked that question. What I meant was: "The F16-V1 has lights connected to it, what are those channel numbers?" That's better. Hopefully. I may have managed to borrow a F16v1 and F16B so I can try to recreate your issues.
(The jumper on the DLA PIXELNET Dongle doesn't do anything, the code was never written to implement it.)
joe
I feel like one of those end users whose problems went away as soon an IT person appears at their desk... (I say this because I work in IT)
We have some friends visiting from out of town for the weekend, and the husband is a budding Christmas Light enthusiast. I shown him my problem, and after he left the room, I kept poking around the issue (perhaps with a fresh perspective and trying something different).
What I did was take one of my "bad" controllers which was set to universes 3 and 4, and set the universe jumpers and DIP switches to masquerade another of my light controllers in Universes 1 and 2. I was able to program it successfully and get blinky flashy! Pleased with the results, I thought I'd try changing the jumpers and DIP switches back to the way they're supposed to be, and it still worked?!? When testing some pixels with the controller, I noticed that the channel assignments to the outputs were wonky, though, but I wasn't too concerned about it at the time and went back to our out-of-town visitors.
Not sure what made it better this time, there are some theories along with some reasons to debunk those theories:
The first time I programmed my F16-V1 controllers and "bricked" them, my laptop and F16-B were running on Wi-Fi. Remembering the Bridge Mode data packet count in Falcon Player, some of the universes sometimes have packet drop. I was thinking that perhaps using an Ethernet cable would prevent that from happening. I already tried reprogramming that controller with everything hooked up via Ethernet cable, though...
I was able to get my F16-V1 programmed using my F16-B running Falcon Player 1.9. I'm not sure which F16-B I used to program/brick my F16-V1, whether it was the one with 1.9 or 3.3. In the past, but when I theorized that 3.3 was the issue, I did try reprogramming with 1.9 to no avail.
As for my using my USB dongle reprogrammed to use Pixelnet which seemingly doesn't do anything--even on a controller set to Universes 1 and 2 (if that makes a difference)--that's still up in the air, but I don't know if it really matters now since I have a Pixelnet signal coming from my F16-B to my formerly "bricked" F16-V1.
Perhaps now that I know how to "unbrick" a controller, I will try programming it Using Falcon Player 3.3 on WiFi to see if that's that originally "bricked" it...
...but first there is also the issue of the channel assignments on the F16-V1 controller's outputs which are a bit wonky: it's the controller for my mega and mini trees in universes 3 and 4 that are supposed to assigned to outputs 11-14 were on 1-4 for some reason. I tried reprogramming it again to no avail... the issue of wrong outputs wasn't being solved. So I thought I'd try it again today, but now, although I have a flashing Pixelnet light, I can't get the controller to program (i.e. get the hooked up pixel strings to flash white for a few moments). So, I switched the controller to universes 1 and 2 and the DIP switches to "masquerade" as my Zigzag tree controller on universes 1 and 2. It programs fine ad the channels are correct. Tried powering it off, flipped the DIP switches and jumpers back to what usually on my mega/minitree controller on universes 3 and 4, and no flashing pixels during programming. But get this: even though I kept the DIP switches set for my mini/megatree controller and jumpers on Universes 3 and 4, when I send a command to turn on my Zigzag tree, my mini/megatree controller turns on the pixels attached to the output.
Note that I had 2 "bricked/bad" controllers: one was my mini/megatree one and the other was a spare. I wasn't able to program my spare as a clone of my megatree controller (i.e. no flashing white pixels sending the programming commands to it) this morning, but i was able to program is as my zigzag controller on universe 1. And, like my usual mini/megatree controller, it's still responding to universe 1 zigzag tree commands even though the DIP switches are set for universes 3 and 4.
I thought that a Falcon Controller will always receive and pass through 4 Pixelnet Universes, the jumpers indicate what universes it will turn on pixels for, and the DIP switches are merely for programming, but that doesn't seem to be the case when the jumpers are on 3 and 4, but the controller is turning on pixels for a controller in universe 1 when I send the command to.
I will need to go back to the Falcon forum and post a few questions on how to properly program a controller in Universes 3 and 4, set the jumpers, etc. I thought it was straight-forward and I could stumble through it, but I guess that's not the case.
BTW, what documentation for the F16-V1 did you find? Were you able to access the link in this post? You are not allowed to view links.
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