DiyLightAnimation
Hardware => Lynx EtherDongle => Lynx Conductor => Topic started by: RJ on January 08, 2014,
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Ok I am aware of a few things but lets try to get them all in one place for me to work on, those that ran conductors this year what was your experience? issues that I need to look at?
RJ
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1. the ability to restart a timer after the start time as passed would be great!
2. have the conductor recognize the correct show according to time. example, I had a couple of show times and days and I would have to go in and set the conductor to run the correct show. if I forgot, I had to set up another schedule(hence first suggestion)
3. I still had some time sync issues that weren't present when I ran threw vixen. I had to edit the song or the sequence to match. all files were ogg at 192kbs
other than that, the conductor ran rock solid for me all season. I appreciate everything you have done for this hobby.
duane
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I had the random light output stopping, maybe related to the network connection being active while running. Ill be happy to provide the sequence files to test with and or Ill be happy to test it out since I saw this issue on my setup.
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I had the random light output stopping, maybe related to the network connection being active while running. Ill be happy to provide the sequence files to test with and or Ill be happy to test it out since I saw this issue on my setup.
We have found that it is related to being connected to the network on some network. Unplugging the conductor fromt the network resolved it for all who reported back to me. We will be looking for the cause to rectify this issue.
RJ
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1. the ability to restart a timer after the start time as passed would be great!
Thinking of giving the ablity to manual start a show instead of a single sequence as a why to handle this for everyone.
2. have the conductor recognize the correct show according to time. example, I had a couple of show times and days and I would have to go in and set the conductor to run the correct show. if I forgot, I had to set up another schedule(hence first suggestion)
Not sure I understand cause you can do this now?
3. I still had some time sync issues that weren't present when I ran threw vixen. I had to edit the song or the sequence to match. all files were ogg at 192kbs
Yeah this seems weird but you were not the only one. Unless I get told different here most were not having this, so something we will need to isolate down and fix.
other than that, the conductor ran rock solid for me all season. I appreciate everything you have done for this hobby.
duane
Glad it worked, and happy to be able to make things for people to use.
RJ
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Hi RJ,
So yes, the blackout of the lights when the conductor is hooked to the network (regardless of if the conductor panel is running or not, I reproduced it with and without the panel running).
The second issue I had to take care every day was the volume resetting itself at 214, no matter what. 214 was too low for my mp3 board, and I had to crank it up to 254. It would play one schedule at that volume and the next time around would be reset at 214.
Thanks for looking into those,
-FYB
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1. the ability to restart a timer after the start time as passed would be great!
Thinking of giving the ablity to manual start a show instead of a single sequence as a why to handle this for everyone.
2. have the conductor recognize the correct show according to time. example, I had a couple of show times and days and I would have to go in and set the conductor to run the correct show. if I forgot, I had to set up another schedule(hence first suggestion)
Not sure I understand cause you can do this now?
3. I still had some time sync issues that weren't present when I ran threw vixen. I had to edit the song or the sequence to match. all files were ogg at 192kbs
Yeah this seems weird but you were not the only one. Unless I get told different here most were not having this, so something we will need to isolate down and fix.
other than that, the conductor ran rock solid for me all season. I appreciate everything you have done for this hobby.
duane
Glad it worked, and happy to be able to make things for people to use.
RJ
thanks RJ. i had a few shows set up and if i didn't make sure the correct show was set in the control panel, it wouldn't recognize the correct show and would not start on time. but as long as the correct show was showing as next. it ran without a hiccup i also had the volume issue that fyb2000 had as well.
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I posted in the beta forum as well, but my only issue was the music not in sync with the lights for the first 20-30 seconds of each song/sequence after the first one in a show. Rock solid other than that.
Thanks,
-Keith
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Conductor ran without any issues or hiccups for the entire Xmas season. The only problem I had was with the scheduler. I have one show I run from 6PM to 10PM. The show just repeats over and over. My problem is when for whatever reason the conductor misses the start of the schedule, it does not run the show. Once that happens, I have to get the CF card out of the conductor, fire-up the computer and add a new schedule with a few minutes of lead time to allow me to run an put the CF card back into the conductor before the start of the schedule.
The solution would be for the conductor (at boot up) to not only check for the start time, but also the end time of a scheduled show. So if the show start time is less than current time (schedule start time has passed) and the show end time is greater than the current time (schedule end time has not passed yet) then it runs the show.
The other item I would like to see for the conductor is an updated app, so I can use my phone to run test show/sequences.
I greatly appreciate all your hard work and efforts to allow us DIYers to create amazing displays.
You can see my show here: https://vimeo.com/83311954
Thanks,
Charles
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Conductor ran 3792 channels LE's & SSC's from Nov. 29th through Dec. 31. Program was easy and worked great.
One issue was every once in a while it would skip the lighting portion of a sequence. The music played fine. When the next sequence started everything was fine. This happen once every 4th or 5th day. Also the volume defaults to a set setting, if I adjusted it then went back a day later, it would default back.
This system beats having to dedicate a computer for the Christmas lights for a month. I had it tied into a Cisco access point unit and could see it at any time.
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Is this the only ones to comment? I would hope to have some more input on the conductor so if you used it, weither you had no issues or had issues let me know what your experience was like with it so I can improve it.
RJ
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I had a seq not play audio and sometimes lockup the conductor this season. In my case it was always a seq after one seq (I don’t remember the names). So for example say I had seq1, seq2, seq3 and seq4 in a show. In this example the seq3 would play but seq4 would have no audio. If I reordered then 3,1,2,4 then seq1 would have no audio.
If I put each seq in their own show they would play fine. I tried a full reform of the card and also tried adding a 2nd copy of the files to the CF card and both copies had the problem.
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Was your conductor plugged into a network?
RJ
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Was your conductor plugged into a network?
RJ
I run it disconnected normally. But when I started seeing the problem I connected it directly to my laptop so that I could see where the problem song was.
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Personally, outside of the volume bug, I had no 'unworkable' problems. The issue with the random blackout of the lights when connected to the network, was easily worked around once I found the correlation. Of course, I had to reconnect it everyday to get the volume back up, but from there it was just a matter of disconnecting it every time after setting the volume back to its correct value. On that subject of blacking out while being connected to the network, I would like to know if it was only the few of us (I counted 5) that experienced it, and if all the others were running their show with the conductor unplugged from the network, or plugged but without seeing the issue.
A few things that might be important:
-my conductor was built using parts from mouser and spark fun(?) (i.e. not coming from a coop)
-my router is (and that might be the source of the problem) an integrated router/modem. It is a motorola sbg6580, giving me 110Mbps down and 20Mbps up (I won't be touching this for a while)
I think I know that, like several other people, I will be (way) above 16K channel in 2014. I know that there is a slave solution that would/should allow me to play a show with that many channels, but this is a limitation that will make people look around for other solutions. The sequencing part is a lot more time consuming than the building time of those boards, and if there are solutions that allows for an easy way to test any given sequence, while they are sequencing, they will definitely 'explore' those solutions. Especially if the rest of the network can remain the same.
Software wise, the current control panel is adequate. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that it could, might be a little confusing for people who are not spending 12 hours a day behind a computer, but once you get the hang of it, it does its job (except for the default sound volume) perfectly well. With spare cycles, of course it could be enhanced but to me, the main priority should be to break the 16K channels barrier. I might be in the minority, I have absolutely no idea, but reading around I know I am not the lone guy out there.
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my conductor was connected to the network the entire season. I never had an issue with songs going dark or any issues with the sequences playing. i was constantly changing stuff on my card so i left the cables connected at all times. i was hard wired into my computer which was wirelessly connected to a netgear wireless modem.
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Ok, So I have the network causing it to blank the lights out, The volume bug which we thought was already fixed as we had seen it on the beta but fixed it or so thought we had, and one member had it play out of sync at the start of the seqences when there is more than one seq in a show, We want to add the ability to run shows manually instead of seqences so we can restart any missed shows.
RJ
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A config to do it manually or the option to notice it's in the range of the show and to start as soon as it powers up and is ready. e.g. if we tell the wife who calls to tell us there are no lights, to unplug it count to 10 and plug it in. I would love not to have to talk her through getting out the laptop, going to the webpage, click here, click here, ok got lights..
better to just unplug it dear, ok got lights, great, have a nice night!
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A config to do it manually or the option to notice it's in the range of the show and to start as soon as it powers up and is ready. e.g. if we tell the wife who calls to tell us there are no lights, to unplug it count to 10 and plug it in. I would love not to have to talk her through getting out the laptop, going to the webpage, click here, click here, ok got lights..
better to just unplug it dear, ok got lights, great, have a nice night!
This has been discussed before and the issue is that not everyone has a single show run for the whole evening. I know I dont. We schedule say 4 shows to start at different times to run a night, if I did this it could run over on the next show and miss starting it as the system does not check for a show to start when one is running. How would this be over come? I am not sure I guess starting manually still creates the issue. what causes it to not run when it was scheduled ? I would rather fix that but no one has brought up an issue with it failing to run.
RJ
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What caused a past issue for me was a short power outage and the conductor didn't start back up when the power came on like my computer used to. Now I use a computer backup battery.
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk
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Yeah the issue I've had is powering the conductor up after the start time of a show and the only way around is to take the card out change the schedule and then put it back in. Yeah you can do a battery backup but doesn't solve it for cases of you having to power cycle everything because something is wrong connection wise . Plus battery backup is a little overkill I think but thats me.
You can have multiple shows in a night still its a check of some sort to see if anything is scheduled during the time when its powered back up. Or maybe I'm thinking of what your multiple shows a night example is.
Example
Show 1 runs from 5pm - 6pm
Show 2 runs 601pm to 8pm
Show 3 runs 801pm to 10pm
So if you power it on at 530pm show 1 would be picked up and it would play until its normal end of 6pm and normal for the others. Or you power on at 603pm show 2 starts and runs normal until 8pm
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Example
Show 1 runs from 5pm - 6pm
Show 2 runs 601pm to 8pm
Show 3 runs 801pm to 10pm
So if you power it on at 530pm show 1 would be picked up and it would play until its normal end of 6pm and normal for the others.
But see that is the problem if the show is from 5 to 6 it is 1 hour long. If you start it at 5:30 it will play to the end but this would be at 6:30 so the 6 show would not play. Am I making sense. The shows play to the end they do not stop part of the way through.
RJ
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Example
Show 1 runs from 5pm - 6pm
Show 2 runs 601pm to 8pm
Show 3 runs 801pm to 10pm
So if you power it on at 530pm show 1 would be picked up and it would play until its normal end of 6pm and normal for the others.
But see that is the problem if the show is from 5 to 6 it is 1 hour long. If you start it at 5:30 it will play to the end but this would be at 6:30 so the 6 show would not play. Am I making sense. The shows play to the end they do not stop part of the way through.
RJ
Makes sense so the firmware is just storing the start and length? Maybe logic to have the start and end times.
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Example
Show 1 runs from 5pm - 6pm
Show 2 runs 601pm to 8pm
Show 3 runs 801pm to 10pm
So if you power it on at 530pm show 1 would be picked up and it would play until its normal end of 6pm and normal for the others.
But see that is the problem if the show is from 5 to 6 it is 1 hour long. If you start it at 5:30 it will play to the end but this would be at 6:30 so the 6 show would not play. Am I making sense. The shows play to the end they do not stop part of the way through.
RJ
I now see your point RJ... But Not everyone creates their schedules according to the length of their shows. My 2011 shows were 50 minutes long and your suggestion/work around may have worked then.
In 2013 my show shrunk to 6 minutes. I run my show repeatedly from 6 to 9:30. If there were any problems starting the show, I was hosed (and it happened quite often at the beginning). I had to remove the CF card and go to a computer to create a schedule to start a few minutes in the future, so I could run back outside and plug the CF card back in. Hopefully I could get it all accomplished before the show is supposed to restart. Once I worked out all the issues and settled on my show and hardware, it all worked mostly flawlessly.
It is not easy to create 6 minute schedules using the current application, but if it were easier I would have. Maybe just an option (as in check box) to run a show continuously would partially solve the problem. If the scheduled show start time is missed, I could then just get on my computer and manually (and remotely) start and stop the show for that evening. I do not mind manually starting the show, but it would have to continue running until I stop it.
Hope this helps, even if it just a a small contribution.
Charles/Egenoup
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Charles you can do this in the current setup. you create a show and schedule it as one schedule to run from xx to xx and it does it for you. So I maybe able to have it do a check on startup for those cases and start it if it is a repeating show. It is the other one that I would not have anyway of causing this to work. So I will look at it for you.
RJ
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With apologies, I also think the current scheduler is confusing and limited.
Other scheduling solutions in the software world treat events with a prioritization (an ordered list).
When the song is finished, and
if the current time is "contained" in schedule #1, then perform schedule #1 actions... otherwise
if the current time is "contained" in schedule #2, then perform schedule #2 actions...
if the current time is "contained" in schedule #3, then perform schedule #3 actions...
if the current time is "contained" in schedule #4, then perform schedule #4 actions...
etc.
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See then I must be the stupid one,
I can not understand how confusing telling something "on Thursday at 8pm run this show" can be. Or "on thursday at 8pm run this show until 9pm".
I believe people are trying to read more in than it is.
That is all it does. the issue is people are saying they want it to be powered up at 8:25pm and to play a show that should have been played at 8pm. Current the system would assume it played the 8pm show and would look for the next show to play. It does not log what shows it has played. It assumes previous shows have played. If you had a show scheduled for 8:30pm in the above cases then you can not play it if you started the 8pm one.
This is all I am trying to explain. On the cases of you saying play abc show from 8pm to 9 pm we could do this.
RJ
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Charles you can do this in the current setup. you create a show and schedule it as one schedule to run from xx to xx and it does it for you. So I maybe able to have it do a check on startup for those cases and start it if it is a repeating show. It is the other one that I would not have anyway of causing this to work. So I will look at it for you.
RJ
I'm like Charles where my show is only ~15 mins long but I have it repeat for a couple hours.
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See in my case my show is 15 min but they run every 30 min cause we need time for people to empty the lot and time for the people to get parked for the next.
Think movie theather.
RJ
Sent from my Charge by Tapatalk
RJ
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I am not sure, but I do believe the issue talked about in those latest messages does already exist with the current software.
No matter how the software detects if it is done with a scheduled event (end time, versus start time+duration), it will check if it should stop the current schedule before starting the next song in the queue. It will not stop in the middle of the current playing song.
How does the conductor software acts if that final song ends up still playing while another sequence is to be started?
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I wonder if it would be possible to start the show from the point it would be in at the given point in time. It appears that the slave is able to do this when the conductor sends it the start and timing data. I know that it is not as easy as it sounds but is that a possibility? If the Cnductor also knows how long the show is, when starting up it could look at the previous show and determine if that show should be currently running. If not, then it waits for the next scheduled show and if so, it can scan thru the show file looking for the point in the show where it should be and start the show from that point. If you were to connect the Conductor to a UPS and a power failure were to occur, the Conductor would have no idea and would continue to run the show. When the power returned, the lightss would continue at the point in show time that the power returned so there would be no difference in looks.
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One reason I did not choose to run the Conductor for my show was the limits in the schedule system (Not a fault just a reality) With xLights I had a pre-show schedule from 5pm till 6pm and then the main show from 6pm till 9pm. My pre show would repeat from 5pm till about 6:05 pm as if it was before 6pm xLights would start another song. Same with the main show it would start when the pre-show ended (between 6pm and 6:07pm ) and would end with the closing announcment anywhere from 9pm to 9:07pm. While this allowed flexibility ( If I started my computer late IE after 5pm it would still run the show) it did come at a cost of running at precise times.
So the way I see it, you can either have precise start times but if you miss the start time there is no going back. (The train has left the station) OR you can have shows that may run slightly over end times/ end with gaps between next show.
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One reason I did not choose to run the Conductor for my show was the limits in the schedule system (Not a fault just a reality) With xLights I had a pre-show schedule from 5pm till 6pm and then the main show from 6pm till 9pm. My pre show would repeat from 5pm till about 6:05 pm as if it was before 6pm xLights would start another song. Same with the main show it would start when the pre-show ended (between 6pm and 6:07pm ) and would end with the closing announcment anywhere from 9pm to 9:07pm. While this allowed flexibility ( If I started my computer late IE after 5pm it would still run the show) it did come at a cost of running at precise times.
So the way I see it, you can either have precise start times but if you miss the start time there is no going back. (The train has left the station) OR you can have shows that may run slightly over end times/ end with gaps between next show.
I have the same setup. I have a preshow that is 59 minutes long. It starts at 6:00pm and ends at 6:59pm. First show starts at 6pm.
the point about precise timing is correct. I created with the intent to have the start times percisely when I scheduled them. Since running over is not ok on my setup as I would have people arrive with no where to park and blocking the show try to get a place to park. I will need to look at it but not sure it is possible to do make it fit every possible way someone could try to do scheduling.
But I would like to have it be useable for people. Did not know people were not using it for these reasons.
RJ
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If someone wants to try this updated conductor firmware. The only difference is the volume issue should be resolved. So someone that was having this issue please test it. i was not having it so me testing is not valid. it will default to a lower level so you will need to set it to want you want and then test to see if it losses it.
Once I know that fixed it then I can more on to other issues.
RJ
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This is a firmware with what I hope might be a fix to the lights stopping when plugged into a network issue. Can members that were having this please test this to see if it resolves that issue for us. I could never duplicate it on my system.
RJ
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Here is firmware with the other changes and the first of the schedule changes to test. If you schedule shows to repeat from a time to an end time then they will start at any time in between the points of the start and end if you power up the conductor.
I will not be able to do any more changes until i can get some feedback on these changes to see if we are making any headway.
RJ
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Did a quick test of the Conductor running V72. Here is what I did and tested:
created a short 10 minute schedule for the current day and time.
Waited for the scheduled show to start
unplugged the conductor
plugged conductor back in.
Show restarted and the lynx conductor control panel showed the correct show running. The timer started to count from the time it initiated the show.
repeated the power cycle several times and noted that the show restarted (as expected).
Then tried to stop the show to run a manual sequence. I hit the "stop shown" button and the show stopped, but after 6 seconds the show restarted. Tried stopping the show several more times with the same result.
The show stopped on its own at the end of the scheduled time.
Some may want to stop a scheduled show once it has began to run. I for one don't mind if this unintended functionality is fixed or not, as long as the show restarts after reboot if it is scheduled to run.
I will perform some more testing tomorrow night and throughout the week. I will let you know if I find anything else.
Thanks,
Charles/Egenoup
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You might need to make the restart show an ability that can be turned on and off. It could be set with a checkbox on the utility screen. Then the user has the ability to decide if they want the Conductor to try and restart the show or not. The code could also be altered to uncheck this function when the stop button it pressed. This will prevent the unit from trying to restart a scheduled show when the user is trying to run a show manually. The user can always recheck the box when they are done and want the Conductor to restart shows in the future.
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I think simply doing the start check only at firmware boot-up would be the simplest method. If you manually stop a show then want to restart it just unplug and reapply power.
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It may be the simplest but not the the most usefull. Giving the user the option of having this ability or not is the most usefull even though not always the easiest to implement. The Conductor may be remotely mounted and not in a location where it can be easily unplugged and re powered.
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I thought this modification was to make it to where shows would restart upon re-application of power. So making it not restart when the stop button is pressed is all that is needed. Are you proposing some other functionality.
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Yes, that would be needed but why make it all that is needed? I don't have the source code in front of me but it appears that the test is happening after bootup and I'm sure that there is a reason for doing it that way. Since that is the way it currently works, it seems more functional to simply make that test conditional rather than rewriting the entire routine. A simple switch on the trigger can enable - disable it and offer more function to the user as well.
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Has anyone had a chance to check on the network killing the light issue or the volume issue?
Please let me know what you found. I would like to get these issue resolved.
RJ
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I have not been able to test the latest modifications. My setup has been brought down a few weeks ago, and (at least with the network issue) it is improbable I will be able to run a full test for a little while.
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Ill test here in the next couple of days.
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Thanks that will be a big help.
RJ
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Network/Light Output stops
First run was good I wasn't able to recreate the problem of the light output stopping where before it was pretty consistent for me. I'm still doing more tests but wanted to give you some initial feedback
Ill also test the restart of show and volume also and report back.
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Network/Light Output stops
First run was good I wasn't able to recreate the problem of the light output stopping where before it was pretty consistent for me. I'm still doing more tests but wanted to give you some initial feedback
Ill also test the restart of show and volume also and report back.
Thanks let me know as I want to get it fixed and work on some other stuff.
RJ
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Volume looks to be fixed.
I changed the value,played a show/stopped a show, closed the control panel back up repeated playing/stopping and the value kept. Did a power cycle of the conductor and the value stayed.
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Network/Light Output stops
First run was good I wasn't able to recreate the problem of the light output stopping where before it was pretty consistent for me. I'm still doing more tests but wanted to give you some initial feedback
Ill also test the restart of show and volume also and report back.
Thanks let me know as I want to get it fixed and work on some other stuff.
RJ
I've got bad news doesn't look like its fixed, just did it for me again. First run on a manual run of a show (7 sequences) and it failed at sequence 4 for me ~2 mins in. Ill keep going and see if it goes to the random songs or not.
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Second manual run of the same show and it stopped output on the 2 sequence this time ~130 time and then sequence 4 ~1 min.
Going to try the test with just closing the control panel after I start it to see if it does the same.
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Manual run with control panel closed and it failed on the 7th sequence this time around the ~230 min mark
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Manual run with control panel closed and it failed on the 7th sequence this time around the ~230 min mark
Thanks at least this lets me know that was not the issue. I will work on it and post new firmware.
RJ
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Ok just let me know if you want the files to look at also.
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I don't think the files will help. It appears something to do with different traffic on different networks. Some people like me do not have this but others do. Otherwise if the files were the issue unplugging the network would not fix it.
RJ
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I actually just setup a vlan last night for my light stuff. Wonder if it will do it now since its just the conductor/computer by itself now. Ill have to test.
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I would also like to know as this would help me verify what I am thinking.
RJ
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Ok I'll get it tested for you today.
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It still failed even with just the conductor/pc on its on vlan (pc/conductor are the only thing on it)
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Good to know. Rick was just computer to conductor also and had the issue. I will find the issue.
RJ
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Able to track down anything/want me to test anything?
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I really hate to bring up an old topic - but I did want to say that my conductor last year was connected to a switch and connected to a dedicated computer with the control panel open 24/7 with no issues (not connected to an actual home network, just those two devices on that switch). I just took everything out of storage for a dry run before Halloween, and now I suddenly have the no light output issue every show I manually run in my garage.
I'll try scheduling a show tonight without the network jack plugged in, but I thought I'd chime in that something triggered this issue in my hardware where we didn't have that issue last year. Seemed very strange.... Windows update or something similar that would cause different types of traffic on the switch's network?
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Just wanted to share my experience. I updated to the v72 firmware. It did not fix my out of synch issue, but the volume settings seemed to stay where I moved them. That is all I really tried as i plug directly into the ED from the laptop, no network involved.
Thanks,
-Keith