Networking with Smart String Hubs

[taybrynn]

Jim,

I also wanted to say 'thank you' ... for initiating this discussion.  I've been wondering the same thing about how things worked and some 'best practices' ... which is coming out of this thread, I think.

I'm also in agreement (with you) that you'd probably want to reserve am entire 512ch block for DMX, like your thinking.

I never thought a few years ago I would have been up to 256 LOR channels already.  I'm adding (7) LE's this year, so another 112 channels of DMX.  If I eventually convert my LOR controllers to LE, which is likely.,  then I'd be using 368 channels of DMX already in my 4th year.  So I think its certainly possible to need 512.  I"m also going to have a bunch of pixelnet channels as well, for the SS items. 

I've also wondered about DMX channels for regular (non LE) DMX controllers (like the $8 3CH DMX controllers dmoore uses) ... and how to assign those DMX channels (or rather, where to start numbering them).  So for me, I've got another 24 channels of that kind of DMX (non-LE dmx controlled DMX channels) .... and was wondering if I would start at 512 and maybe work backwords ... in terms of assigning them.  So like 488->512 would be for standalone DMX channels, and I'd use 1->368 for the LE DMX channels ... having the room to grow either way. 

I have two dongles, and was thinking of using one for DMX (512) and one for pixelnet.  If I use both, then I was wondering if I could use channels DMX-Dongle#1 DMX 1->512 for LE controlled DMX channels, and then use PixelNet Dongle#2 with 1->256 (or some number between 100 and 512) for regular DMX channels (reserve that range), and then pixelnet on the balance of the 4096 pixelnet channels. 

[rrowan]

I have two dongles, and was thinking of using one for DMX (512) and one for pixelnet.  If I use both, then I was wondering if I could use channels DMX-Dongle#1 DMX 1->512 for LE controlled DMX channels, and then use PixelNet Dongle#2 with 1->256 (or some number between 100 and 512) for regular DMX channels (reserve that range), and then pixelnet on the balance of the 4096 pixelnet channels. 

Yes you can do that but I am not sure what you are getting out of it?

Say DMX Dongle #1 is channels 1 - 512 and Dongle #2 is Pixelnet channel 1 - 4096
On Dongle #2 you connect the 16 port SS hub and set pixelnet universe to #1 and DMX to #1 and now you have two DMX networks using the same 512 channels. BUT...
if you Set the 16 port SS hub and set pixelnet universe to #1 and DMX to #2 now you have 1024 DMX channels to use if needed.

Lynx is all about flexibility for the users needs. There is some learning curve but it all just works well.

Hope that helps some

Rick R.

[JimWright]

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If I have got this right - I don't think that you would need two dongles, unless you need the bottom 512 channels to complete your SS channels. Why not just use one dongle? Then take the DMX network off of the SS Hub and the hub would still control all of the SS nodes. Does that make sense? Then, if you need more, you would use another SS Hub coming off of a different dongle (for this year). Did I get it right/
Jim W

[taybrynn]

Right, I know that I wouldn't actually need to use two dongles.  The original plan was just to have the 2nd be a backup unit.

Part of me thinks that it makes the most sense to use every dongle as a pixelnet dongle  ... and carve out some DMX (from the SS Hub) if you happen to need it.

The only reason I might use one as DMX-only and one as PIXELNET-only, is that I think you can't go wireless with pixelnet ... so the reason for the second DMX (only) dongle might be to stay pure-DMX and use wireless as needed.  

Then stay wired on pixelnet, it can't go wirelessm or can only go wireless from the DMX out, then to a tx/rx.

So coming full circle, you could make every dongle pixelnet, and then carve out 512 DMX channels as needed and feed to a tx/rx if you want to go wireless from there.

[tbone321]

Yes you can do that but I am not sure what you are getting out of it?

Say DMX Dongle #1 is channels 1 - 512 and Dongle #2 is Pixelnet channel 1 - 4096
On Dongle #2 you connect the 16 port SS hub and set pixelnet universe to #1 and DMX to #1 and now you have two DMX networks using the same 512 channels. BUT...
if you Set the 16 port SS hub and set pixelnet universe to #1 and DMX to #2 now you have 1024 DMX channels to use if needed.

Lynx is all about flexibility for the users needs. There is some learning curve but it all just works well.

Hope that helps some

Rick R.

I think that you may be in error here Rick.  Unless Vixen and / or LSP allows you to set multiple controllers to the same channels then the 512 of DMX on dongle 1 and the 4096 for pixelnet on dongle 2 are ALL different channels.  Due to that, even if you set one dongle to DMX and the other to pixelnet with DMX on the first Universe, they will still be two seperate DMX universes.  The only difference is that the DMX universe from the DMX dongle is a DMX only universe and the one from the pixelnet universe would be a seperate shared DMX / pixelnet universe.

[tbone321]

I have two dongles, and was thinking of using one for DMX (512) and one for pixelnet.  If I use both, then I was wondering if I could use channels DMX-Dongle#1 DMX 1->512 for LE controlled DMX channels, and then use PixelNet Dongle#2 with 1->256 (or some number between 100 and 512) for regular DMX channels (reserve that range), and then pixelnet on the balance of the 4096 pixelnet channels. 

I don't understand what you mean by LE controlled DMX and regular DMX.  In order for you to get the DMX dongle and the pixelnet dongle to put out the same universe in DMX you would need to be able to assign the two controllers to the same channel numbers in the software.  I'm not sure if you could do that or why you would want to.  If you want to distribute a single DMX universe then I would use either a transmitter or a splitter.  If you want two universes then this would work but you would have a hole in your DMX channels if you set the start of the second DMX reserve at something other than the first channel of the pixelnet universe.

[tbone321]

A side note. As I read over this thread, I noticed that I am now marked as a "senior member" of DLA. That was a surprise to me (I don't know how many posts it takes). But here is the thought that came to my befuddled mind - I guess that I should be called a "senior - senior member" since I will be of MEDICARE age in July. 
Jim

100 post or more makes you a senior member.

[rrowan]

Yes you can do that but I am not sure what you are getting out of it?

Say DMX Dongle #1 is channels 1 - 512 and Dongle #2 is Pixelnet channel 1 - 4096
On Dongle #2 you connect the 16 port SS hub and set pixelnet universe to #1 and DMX to #1 and now you have two DMX networks using the same 512 channels. BUT...
if you Set the 16 port SS hub and set pixelnet universe to #1 and DMX to #2 now you have 1024 DMX channels to use if needed.

Lynx is all about flexibility for the users needs. There is some learning curve but it all just works well.

Hope that helps some

Rick R.

I think that you may be in error here Rick.  Unless Vixen and / or LSP allows you to set multiple controllers to the same channels then the 512 of DMX on dongle 1 and the 4096 for pixelnet on dongle 2 are ALL different channels.  Due to that, even if you set one dongle to DMX and the other to pixelnet with DMX on the first Universe, they will still be two seperate DMX universes.  The only difference is that the DMX universe from the DMX dongle is a DMX only universe and the one from the pixelnet universe would be a seperate shared DMX / pixelnet universe.

I was just talking about Lynx system at the moment but I did start up Vixen and I can set two dongle with the same channels. I won't guarantee it will work but its possible. YMMV 

Rick R.

[taybrynn]

I don't understand what you mean by LE controlled DMX and regular DMX.

I just meant LE (Lynx Express DMX) vs. regular DMX (any other DMX controller) ... not that it matters, since DMX is DMX.
I don't care if its the same universe on both dongles or not ... I was assuming they would be different ones.

I haven't tried assigning the same channels (say 1-512) on two different dongles, but does seem like you might be able to do this in LSP, since both interfaces (dongles) are different devices and would either be speaking DMX or PIXELNET (one of each is what I was thinking, but doesn't matter ... probably could just  do pixelnet on both, since can still use DMX channels on the hub out if desired).  Again, not sure that what I meant to say in earlier posts ... but I guess it came off that way.

Again, love the flexibility ... but just wonder pros and cons to various approaches, if there are any.

It seems that with the combiner and ether dongle coming ... that moving towards a 16k pixelnet multiverse (4 pixelnet 4k universes) is the way to go.  If that means starting with 4k this year, or 8k (combined) ... shouldn't matter.  I'm thinking I'll just reserve the first 1-512 for what I'm calling regular DMX (LE or other DMX channels) ... and just start all the pixelnet items about that ... and all with unique channel numbers ... potentially all the way up to 16k (in my dreams).

[TheBanker]

 

[Rainlover]

I'm sure this will be clearer when we have our smart string hubs and controllers and we are able to hook everything up and test it.
That is my hope anyway.

John

[RJ]

Let me try to clear it up some.


First .... Forget the DMX for a moment.

The pixelnet universe has 4096 channels of data.

There can be up to four (a multiverse of pixelnet) of these universes on a single cat5 but they are carried on different wires inside the cat5.

The first channel of pixelnet on any hub is based on the pixel jumper that allows you to choose which universe you are using off the cat5 cable.

If it is #1 it would be channel #1

If it was #2 it would be channel 4097 because that is the first channel of universe #2

Make sure you understand this before going forward....

Now this is good understand one other important point, DMX on the hub has no effect on anything we just said. It does not matter what you do with the DMX jumper everything above is always true.

If you set the DMX jumper to #1 the first channel of pixelnet is still what we said above. If you set the DMX jumper to #8 the first pixelnet channel is still exactly what we said above.

Now make sure you have this...


The DMX channels are just copys of 512 of the pixelnet channels. It does not remove them. You can run SSC on the same channel as one of you DMX devices and do so at the same time.


So lets take the example given.

If I want the first 512 channels for DMX and then use the rest for pixelnet it would work like this.

Set the DMX jumper to #1

Set my first Express to start channel #1 (it is now channels 1-16 of pixelnet.)
Set my first SSC to start channel #513 (skip past the channels I am useing for DMX)

You are ready to go. you still have 4096 channels of pixelnet coming out of your hub you just are not using 512 of them because those channels are being used for other dmx items. It is a flat address scheme.

I hope this clear some of the confusion up for everyone. I am sorry it has not been clearer. It will as you said get clear once you have one in your hand and play with it.

RJ

[jnealand]

I must be getting too old.  My head is starting to hurt from all this RGB stuff.  And then there were all the quality issues on the strings themselves.  I think my "coming soon"  SS stuff is going to stay in the box until next year and I'll just concentrate on making good use of my new additional 80 LE/SSR4 channels.  Programming for me is hard enough without figuring out all the RGB nuances on top of it.  I love the concept and will get there, but slowly.  Keep on posting info and eventually it will sink in.  And RJ don't stop developing new stuff, even if I can't fathom building it or programming.  After all, 3 years ago I couldn't even solder.  LOL

[RJ]

The problem is everyone is trying to make it more complicated than it is. It is being way over thought.

You have 4096 channels on a hub to use period.  You have 4096 channels per dongle to send to a hub period.

If I set the DMX to #1 and hook an express to the DMX out.  If I do not want to over lap channels on devices I would start my first SSC at channel #17   

so 1-16 is my express running DMX
channel #17 - 4096 is my SSC's

If I want two expresses I put the first on channel #1 the second on channel #17 and my first SSC on ch # 33

so
ch 1-16 = express #1
ch 17 -32 = express #2
ch 33 - 4096 SSC

If I want to reserve the first 512 to use for dmx stuff I put the first SSC on ch #513
so
ch 1-512 = my DMX stuff
Ch 513 - 4096 = my pixelnet ssc's

What seems to get people is this, I set my first express to ch #1 and hook it to the dmx out.
I put my first ssc on ch #1
so

Ch 1-16 = express
ch 1 - ?? = SSC

the first 16 channels of the SSC do the exact same thing as the express channels do.
If you turn on channel #1 the express channel one comes on, But so does the red on pixel number one of the string attached to the SSC.

ch 1-16 is always ch 1-16 doesn't matter if it is coming out of the DMX or the SS outputs. They both have channel 1-16 coming out and the channels do the same thing.

If you need more channels than this

you add a dongle and a hub. You get the next 4096 channels This dongle plugin in the software gets setup with the channels 4097 - 8192 in the software.

Now it has 4096 channels they are numbered ch # 4097 - 8192 in the software.

It is really that simple. 

I hope this helps someone.

RJ

[jnealand]

I may not have a grasp on all this RGB stuff, but I think the main problem here is that folks are confusing a programming channel with a hardware channel.  If you separate your thinking about the two of them it becomes clearer to me.  From a programming standpoint you are programming channels that have color and other attributes.  From a hardware standpoint you are connecting things up as straight DMX or as Pixelnet with the hub translating designated channels back to DMX.  Remember that Pixelnet and DMX are protocols and not hardware connections.