LOR S3, Pixelnet, X-Lights ??????

[John K]

I read posts from awhile back (May 2012) that there was a way to get smart strings to work with LOR using X-Lights (pre S3).  I have not seen that someone has it actually working.
Now that LOR S3 is out is anyone able to get this setup going?

Here is what I have and what I hope to do.
1st  year using LOR software and express boards. (unloaded all my AL boards)
18 Lynx Expresses.  I have reserved channels 1-512 for expresses (room to expand).
513 and up pixelnet.

Can someone help me with how to set this up if possible?
Thanks
John

[tbone321]

You would need an Etherdongle to make that happen.

[frankr]

What are your interfaces? Lynx dongle/pixel net dongle?

If you have an etherdongle then using e1.31 from LOR should work. If not then you can use xLights to output pixelnet. It can take some work but there are several people here, including myself, that use a similar model. I personally use LOR and LSP in my display but all output is done from xLights.

Frank

[rm357]

I'm not sure if he needs an etherdongle or not. Last year I used light show pro to output a lor s2 file, which I imported and converted to an xlights native file for scheduling. I used a USB dongle with the pixelnet firmware with no issues. When I changed over to the etherdongle, all I did was replace the USB dongle with the 8 e1.31 universes in xlights - I did not modify or do anything to the sequence file.

All that to say, I think the main thing is setting up your channels in lor. Xlights looks to me like it just sends the data out to the devices based on the absolute channel number in the sequence to the absolute channel number starting with the first device in the output list followed immediately by the next device in the list and so on...

For example, if the first device is set up as 22 channels, the next device will start at 23. If device 2 is set up as 16 channels, then device 3 starts at 22 + 16 + 1 = 39...

[John K]

Sorry I didn't give more info.

I am using a EtherDongle flashed with DMX.  Hub has jumpers Pixelnet on 1 and DMX on 2. My smartstring I have a start cannel on 513.

Set up is ED - combiner (pixelnet out) - On combiner #1 to 1st express - On combiner #2 to hub.

All 18 expresses work. Nothing from the smartstring.

John

[rrowan]

Sorry I didn't give more info.

I am using a EtherDongle flashed with DMX.  Hub has jumpers Pixelnet on 1 and DMX on 2. My smartstring I have a start cannel on 513.

Set up is ED - combiner (pixelnet out) - On combiner #1 to 1st express - On combiner #2 to hub.

All 18 expresses work. Nothing from the smartstring.

John

Well if the EtherDongle is flashed with DMX, no smart strings will work. You need the ETD to be pixelnet and then the active hub outputs dmx

Rick R.

[rm357]

The SSCs only talk pixelnet, they do not understand DMX.

Assuming you have an active hub, you need to reflash the etherdongle for pixelnet, set the DMX jumper on the active hub to 1, and use the hub's DMX output for all of the DMX stuff.

If you are using a passive hub, you are out of luck unless you have another dongle.

[Steve Gase]

There may be a solution that allows S3 to directly control pixelnet, but if I was attempting S3 I would take this approach:

1) define strings as CCR or CCPs in S3, create your effects... then export into an LMS file.
2) convert the LMS file into XLIGHTS sequence file, define your network to use E1.31 and map the original LOR (virtual) hardware to physical DLA hardware.

You may need to leverage frankr 's python scripts to aid in the transformations of network numbers and/or channel definitions as step 1.5

[taybrynn]

I did it, just set everything up a 16 ch LOR PC controller (for xlights) and had to create something like 256 of them for a single 4096 pixelnet universe.
Sequenced in S3, then used .lms in xlights no problem.  Ran much faster if you convert .lms into .xseq (using xlights) first, cause the file size usually shrinks a lot.
You just you xlights to run the show and don't use LOR to run the show.

I used the Lynx Dongle (aka USB DMX dongle), but was flashed with pixelnet firmware ... giving it 4096 channels, or one pixelnet universe.

I think xlights was maybe going to remove that limitation of having to define everything as 16ch LOR controller within LOR ... or maybe allow you to add it as CCR or other higher channel count items.  The main reason for they way I did it was that xlights just computed channel# using a simple formula that worked off 16ch controllers only.  Again, ths may ghave been enhanced this year, making it easier (less controllers to add) to define your pixelnet universe.

I will say LOR S3 got pretty sluggish around 4k channels ... at least on the saves.  You really need to run any LOR controllers in DMX mode or they lag.  All the pixelnet and DMX stuff worked great.

If you need more than 4096 pixelnet channels, then use the Etherdongle instead.