Well that makes sense. First there is a lot here to understand and figured out then apply to your needs (show style, what you want your show to look like, etc). Its one of the reasons why we tell most new members to take the time to read the forums and the wiki. For most of us this is a hobby and in each and every hobby I have tried you find out there is more involved then you thought. To get a light show going, you need some music, some computer skills, some soldering skills, some electric skills, some creativity. Just like when I was doing trains, there is a ton of stuff to do and learn with that hobby just to get a train to run. Of course my one rule for any hobby is to have FUN and then to learn something new. So it takes time to learn and understand what is going on.
I'll use myself as an example. When I first joined DLA I didn't have a clue what DMX was and why it was a good thing to control my Christmas lights. Now as I previous posted I do have a electronic background so that does help along with using computers since 1982 while in high school.So what I did was join the dla chat room and kept asking RJ and others the hows and whys. Trust me RJ is an excellent teacher, we started calling him Professor RJ then he tells us he did teach at a college in FL. Once I got the dongle and built it and the lynx controller it didn't work right. RJ told me for a couple hours to try a different usb cable, finally I listen to him and tried a different one and it worked. Now after 3 show seasons I understand most of it but I am still learning.
Before you start to worry how to trouble shoot the controllers you first must build and use them. The assembly manuals are in the wiki and if you take your time (its not a race) and do it step by step it will most likely work the first time in fact most people build the first board perfectly and mess up the second one. Most of the time the problem comes down to soldering mistakes or not following the directions. RJ designs his boards to be easy to put together as possible and use without us needing to be a engineer.
The forums are laid out by function. The first section is new members, starting info, announcements the next is hardware (LE, Dongles, Wireless, etc) Then a software area (vixen, lsp, prancer, xlights) and a new stuff and troubleshoot open area, then the purchase section (current coop, closed, vendor, trade area)
Hope that helps some
Please continue to ask questions, we have no problems with it and in fact everyone learns from it. Its one of the things that keeps forums going
Cheers
Rick R.
