We are taking this a little farther and some the results are very cool ..
You don't want to start over with LYNX although there is some good points with it. That is the same as I feel .. I didn't want to cut loose LOR and doubt I ever will. I love the idea of calling Dan and saying hey I need another 32 channels and in a couple of days BINGO I can plug controllers in. Few things are better then immediate gratification.
BUT I also like building things. I spent 4 years in a IO lab for a Telco company. There is nothing more gratifying then starting with some unknown and getting it to do something that people like and or want.
I wanted to see what LYNX was all about ... but it had to pass some stringent tests that it could work seamlessly with LOR
The following is a follow up on those tests.
SO we have the DMX dongle, we have our crossover cables and some LOR controllers, some LYNX controllers, an SSR and some LOR sequences, LOR sequence editor and my Sequences from previous years that need to be converted.
I have almost 4 hours of sequenced music which would be hard to recover from in one year .. so to the rescue the LOR to Vixen converter
Since I have been using LOR for several years now I am very comfortable sequencing with it. I also like LORVISualizer. I didn't want to give that up.
Although Vixen is very cool to sequence with, I still prefer to start with my LOR software then convert the LOR to VIXEN format then finish it off. So yes you can convert your LOR sequences to Vixen. It is painless
So first lets get the physical layer down... cables, controllers, and lights.
Testing on the LOR LYNX was completed by Keith and Bill, and yes you can mix them as long as you keep in mind to crossover every time you change controller types ..
IE if you had a LOR controller in between 2 LYNX controllers you would crossover going in and coming out of the LOR Controller. I have a bunch of these crossovers cables now as I have a considerable investment in LOR controllers and will still get a few more .. there is no reason not to.
The parts costs is about 2.00 for each crossover .. 1 RJ45 female and (I used) RJ45 male connector, I made them so that will fit into a standard RJ 45 enclosure or what I refer to as a RJ45 BISCUIT. (a telco term for a Small connection enclosure) They are also short enough to leave dangle in the Controller box as well.
You will also have to remember that LOR is a coded DMX ADDRESS and has to have a START address of 16 .. so 01 17 33 49 65 81 97 113 129 etc. are the ONLY START addresses available to LOR.. or in LOR language 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B etc. Just set them and your done.
UNLIKE the 4 Channel SSRs you can't start a LOR controller with first channel start address 05 for instance .. JUST AS AN FYI
In these tests we are using VIXEN as the Show software.
First test results ... Lynx express and a LOR controller. Structure .... Dongle to the IN side of Lynx Express Via Cat 5 straight through. Then from the OUT side of the LE to LOR via a crossover. The LOR self terminates so it works fine. We have flashing lights
FLICKERING of the LOR channels was caused by miswired crossover cable ... Once that was fixed it tested fine.
BTW the same thing happened with the SSR on a bad crossover cable.
Next test was from the Dongle to the IN side of the LOR via a crossover cable then from the out side of the LOR to the Express via a second crossover cable, we also had to terminate the Express. Again tested fine and we had flashing lights.
Next test was from LOR to LYNX to LOR. Again making sure we had our crossovers in the right place we were fine. So the wiring is from the Dongle to Crossover to the IN side of LOR. Then from the OUt side of LOR to the crossover to the IN side of LYNX then from the OUT side of LYNX to crossover again to the Inside or LOR. And yes we had flashing lights again.
One more test should give us what we need to know .. you guessed same as above but back to a LYNX device. Agian with a crossover cable to the LYNX SSR and the terminate on ... and yes we have Flashing lights ...
I am now enjoying both LOR and LYNX ...