DiyLightAnimation
Hardware => Lynx Smart String => Topic started by: deanathpc on January 21, 2012,
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O.K. I know I'm a little late in the game of RGB but it's down time right now and I can play around with it and experiment. Well I spent the last 2 hours doing just that and go no where. Once I finally found the information in regards to the power supply for the pixelnet hub I got that powered up. Although if I had seen the 12 v when ordering my parts I would have just used my 40 amp regulated power supply I use for HAM radio but I didn't see that until I was putting the parts on the board. go figure my luck....
So I spent the last 2 hours like I said... I changed both by lynx dongle and etherdongle over to pixel net and gave it a whirl. yup fast spiral downwards I went. Can't get DMX out of that thing to save my life. Re-flashed both numerous times just to make sure. Re-flashed the hub just to make sure. NOTHING..... Finally threw it all in a box and gave up.... I was so hoping this was going to work for me. Now I'm stuck with some samples from HolidayCoro (yes I know now that they are dumb modules and basically DMX only - NOW. Took me foever to find that thread to read and I think I found it on another forum).
Anyone else having these issues? It's suppose to send out DMX with PixelNet but mine isn't. If I had some smart strings I'd attempt my SSC's to see how those go but I just can't justify the cost of shipping. That is just unacceptable in my book. Esp. to China. Won't do it. Someone here in the U.S. must be doing these. Can't believe no one is. Just giving China a tighter grip on us than what's already there.
My suggestion.... a wiki update that has all the information in one spot so it's easier to find. That was more than half my time today searching through all of the threads and reading the wrong stuff before the right stuff presented itself. It took me forever to find how to setup the EtherDongle with DMX initially. That info. was also buried deep in threads. Just don't have the patience today to mess with this anymore. Frustrated doesn't help either. I'm not an idiot but this can't be that hard to do. I've already done two complete shows with DMX now... :(
Dean
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Dean,
Sorry to hear about the problem. It's probably best to step away for awhile and then pick it back up later.
First I have a few questions about what you know works and what is new and being tested for the first time and take things one step at a time. Probably elementary questions but we need to start somewhere.
1. Was the Lynx USB dongle used in your show and was it flashed with DMX; i.e. you know the dongle hardware is good with DMX?
2. Do you know if the Etherdongle works with DMX?
3. If the answer to both of the above is yes, then you know the hardware is OK.
4. I'm assuming that you are using cables, USB and cat5 that you know are good and you used previous then the cables are good also.
5. After you flashed the Lynx USB dongle with PixelNet and you get it connected back up to the computer does the red LED light up?
6. If you start up the software and transmit some data to the USB dongle, can you see the green LED flicker? The green LED might be very faint so look carefully. I could only see mine in near darkness.
7. If you can see both LED's then the data is probable being sent to the PixelNet active hub. Thus the data is getting to the PixelNet active hub.
8. Is this the first time you have done any testing of the PixelNet active hub?
9. I'm going to assume that the answer to question 8 is yes based on your comments.
10. You said you flashed the hub with the PixelNet firmware. Did the checksum match what's in the Wiki?
11. I believe one of the main purposes of the PIC on the active hub is to do the conversion of the PixelNet protocol to DMX so getting the PIC flashed is paramount to getting DMX out of the active hub.
12. Are all 3 jumpers on the active hub set to 1? Both PixelNet pins and the DMX pin.
13. Does the green LED on the active hub light when power is applied to the board?
13. Double check the direction of the 485 chips because one of them is used to transmit data to the DMX RJ45 plug.
14. If the PixelNet active hub is new and being tested the first time then pictures of both side of the board would be a next step.
Once we get these answers we can then move to the next step. Hang in there there are lots of people to help out.
Denny
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Dean,
Sorry to hear about the problem. It's probably best to step away for awhile and then pick it back up later.
First I have a few questions about what you know works and what is new and being tested for the first time and take things one step at a time. Probably elementary questions but we need to start somewhere.
1. Was the Lynx USB dongle used in your show and was it flashed with DMX; i.e. you know the dongle hardware is good with DMX?
Yes it was. both used and flashed with DMX. Was used for both my Halloween display and Christmas one. It is good.
2. Do you know if the Etherdongle works with DMX?
Yes it does. Was used with my Christmas display without a glitch.
3. If the answer to both of the above is yes, then you know the hardware is OK.
4. I'm assuming that you are using cables, USB and cat5 that you know are good and you used previous then the cables are good also.
Yes both USB and Cat5.
5. After you flashed the Lynx USB dongle with PixelNet and you get it connected back up to the computer does the red LED light up?
6. If you start up the software and transmit some data to the USB dongle, can you see the green LED flicker? The green LED might be very faint so look carefully. I could only see mine in near darkness.
Yes I do get the red light and also the green light which flickers as data is being passed.
7. If you can see both LED's then the data is probable being sent to the PixelNet active hub. Thus the data is getting to the PixelNet active hub.
8. Is this the first time you have done any testing of the PixelNet active hub?
Yes just built the PixelNet hub. First chance to really test it in about 2 weeks though. :(
9. I'm going to assume that the answer to question 8 is yes based on your comments.
10. You said you flashed the hub with the PixelNet firmware. Did the checksum match what's in the Wiki?
Yes checksum matched each and every time I flashed it.
11. I believe one of the main purposes of the PIC on the active hub is to do the conversion of the PixelNet protocol to DMX so getting the PIC flashed is paramount to getting DMX out of the active hub.
12. Are all 3 jumpers on the active hub set to 1? Both PixelNet pins and the DMX pin.
13. Does the green LED on the active hub light when power is applied to the board?
All three (3) jumpers are on 1. Green light on the hub does come on. I have over 11 volts on the 12v option side too. So power isn't a problem from what I can tell.
13. Double check the direction of the 485 chips because one of them is used to transmit data to the DMX RJ45 plug.
14. If the PixelNet active hub is new and being tested the first time then pictures of both side of the board would be a next step.
Once we get these answers we can then move to the next step. Hang in there there are lots of people to help out.
Denny
Chips have been verified. I've checked for solder bridges and cold solder joints too.
Dean
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what are you using as the power source of the active hub?
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what are you using as the power source of the active hub?
An older AT style computer power supply. I don't have the 12 volt option yet otherwise I'd be using my bench power supply of 35 or so amps. I'm not running any smart strings so the 250 watt should be enough. Or I'd think so anyway.
Dean
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how are you plugging in the connections, just using the 4pin hard drive connectors?
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Just curious since I didn't see it mention but did you change the software package to send out the pixelnet data ?
Example you can't use DMX Deck with a dongle programmed with pixelnet while it works fine when the dongle is program for dmx.
Rick R.
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Using the 20 pin connector plus the 4 pins like it stated in the wiki.
Yes I changed vixen and xlights both for pixelnet.
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ok, when you said AT power supply, it threw me off, they had a different connector than atx.
when was the last time the power suplly worked? something those things can have a good feed on one voltage rail, and then a bad feed on another voltage rail.
yellow 12v+
red 5v+
black -
i forget the color for the other voltage...
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You might want to try the test feature of xLights. It was a big help to me when I was struggling getting DMX out on my SS Hub
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I'll check the power at each wire tomorrow after I get some sleep.
I've done the test feature out of it. Funny thing is that when I go and plug the cat 5 cable into a pixelnet jack the lights respond. not fully but they act differently so there is something coming out of the board. Just not DMX.
So z327 I'm not the only one having issues. Makes me feel better...
I think this power supply is labeled for each color. I'll take a look at it closer tomorrow though. I'm not sure when the power supply was running last. I'll have to do some checking and see. If I had the 12 v kit I could just by pass all this and have one less thing to troubleshoot.
Dean
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I was in your shoes. Was beginning to think I was too "dumb" to use "smart" strings. ;D To me the frustration stemmed from needing to glean all over this place to find essential snippets of ss tips. One day later after a breather I had blinky. You'll get it give it time.
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I was in your shoes. Was beginning to think I was too "dumb" to use "smart" strings. ;D To me the frustration stemmed from needing to glean all over this place to find essential snippets of ss tips. One day later after a breather I had blinky. You'll get it give it time.
Well I think that is the problem. There is so much spread out everywhere on here that it's tough. All of this info. needs to be located in a central location that's for sure. Don't always have time nor do I always want to read 60 posts in a single thread. Just poor time management IMO. And it drives me nuts that I can't pull up the same info again when I need it. Have to sift through those posts again to find it. So frustrating.
Today I've been working on my sample packs I recv'd from Holiday Coro and discovered issues with them. So maybe I can get back to the hub now and see what I can see. :)
Dean
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the wiki is available for anyone to setup this stuff. just let Rick know. its too much for one person to update everyone. I'be helped out myself on things in there.
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chrisatpsu: good to know.. I'll have to see about that then.. Wasn't fully aware we could do the wiki. As I get answers I'll have to jot 'em down and get organized. Thanks!
O.K. UPDATE: reflashed checked voltages etc. Here is what I came up with. No DMX out. NONE!! Hooked up an LE and no data to the LE. Not until I plugged the LE into a pixel jack. Then the data light flashes like wildfire...
And to answer a question I'm currently us a Lynx Dongle (not ED) flashed to pixelnet. Gonna re-download the hub hex and relash again just for grins and giggles....
So now what? Oh yeah the voltage on the board is just over 11 volts. Not sure how critical this 12 volts is but I'm above 11 but less than 11.5 and I'd say average 11.2 VDC.
Dean
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Also my dongle green LED flashes accordingly.
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if you unplug the pic, you're likely to get the same results I think
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When I could not get DMX out from my hub I went back and reheated all the joints on the dmx out hub, the pic, and all other things except around the pixelnet out jacks. Something must have been a cold solder joint, because that fixed my problem.
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I'm starting to think the same thing. The solder joints look o.k. but I just might have to go over 'em again. Something just doesn't seem right. I'll try this tomorrow.
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12v only important for ss, not used for the DMX unless you have the 12v kit installed.
5v for 485 chips
3.3v for pic
Make sure the 5 and 3.3 volt lines are good.
You are hereby encouraged to post pictures of both sides of the circuit board.
Eagle eyes on the board can spot problems with solder joints, wrong jumper configurations, bent pins, and chip reversals that you may be to close to to see...
RM
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Hey RM. I'll be doing some solder touch ups tomorrow. If that doesn't solve the problem then I'll be posting pics as soon as I can. There are a couple of things I want to check first just for my own curiosity. There were a couple of solder joints that looked iffy when I last looked at them today.
Dean
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Well I've touched up every solder joint and even added some solder to a couple I thought were lacking. No changes. NO DMX output. Not even a hint of it. :( So Pics are being attached.
(http://www.brooksfamilylights.com/images/misc/IMAG0251.jpg)
(http://www.brooksfamilylights.com/images/misc/IMAG0252.jpg)
(http://www.brooksfamilylights.com/images/misc/IMAG0253.jpg)
(http://www.brooksfamilylights.com/images/misc/IMAG0254.jpg)
(http://www.brooksfamilylights.com/images/misc/IMAG0255.jpg)
(http://www.brooksfamilylights.com/images/misc/IMAG0256.jpg)
(http://www.brooksfamilylights.com/images/misc/IMAG0257.jpg)
(http://www.brooksfamilylights.com/images/misc/IMAG0258.jpg)
(http://www.brooksfamilylights.com/images/misc/IMAG0259.jpg)
Here are your pics. Probably not the best quality. I don't have my macro photography equip. set up right now so this was with my phone.
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If you still want a 12 volt kit shoot me a PM I am not using mine.
Wish I could help more... Soldering and assembly look good to me.
Only thing I can think of maybe is some vixen weirdness. Wrong com port on pixelnet, not disabling entec dmx plugin, or no channels setup in plugin mapping.
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No using Vixen. using XLights and that seems to be setup correctly. Com Ports are correct for that one also. So I'm just not sure.
I'm at a loss. Without a schematic I can't trouble shoot it myself. :(
Dean
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For the part you need, the wiring is pretty simple. Before we get to that, lets do the sanity check:
#1 Verify you have +5v and +3.3v on the board. I don't know the pinouts for the voltage regulators, but the three pads for each device are connected back to the AT power plug. Where the 7805 would be installed, you should have 12v, 5v, and gnd (0v) on the three pads - I don't know the order, but if you put the black lead of a multimeter into the backside of one of the black wires on the AT connector, that's what you should see. Where the other voltage regulator goes, you should see 5v, 3.3v, and gnd.
edit - I forgot about the GND input power connector - you can also use that for your black lead when making measurements.
#2 Did you program the PIC with the "SmartString_Hub.hex" file.
If yes and yes and still no joy, try swapping the two 485 chips close to the PIC with two of the others on the board.
If still no joy, it's time to start traciing wires and checking vias - vias are the holes that run through the board. They are supposed to be plated-through to connect one side of the board to the other. On very rare occasion, you have to solder a short piece of wire to make the connection...
RM
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Dean if you pm me to setup a time to get into teamspeak I can try and help.
RJ
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For the part you need, the wiring is pretty simple. Before we get to that, lets do the sanity check:
#1 Verify you have +5v and +3.3v on the board. I don't know the pinouts for the voltage regulators, but the three pads for each device are connected back to the AT power plug. Where the 7805 would be installed, you should have 12v, 5v, and gnd (0v) on the three pads - I don't know the order, but if you put the black lead of a multimeter into the backside of one of the black wires on the AT connector, that's what you should see. Where the other voltage regulator goes, you should see 5v, 3.3v, and gnd.
edit - I forgot about the GND input power connector - you can also use that for your black lead when making measurements.
#2 Did you program the PIC with the "SmartString_Hub.hex" file.
If yes and yes and still no joy, try swapping the two 485 chips close to the PIC with two of the others on the board.
If still no joy, it's time to start traciing wires and checking vias - vias are the holes that run through the board. They are supposed to be plated-through to connect one side of the board to the other. On very rare occasion, you have to solder a short piece of wire to make the connection...
RM
As for the chip swaps.. Done that already and nothing changed. As for the programming of the PIC yes that is the hex I used.
As for the voltages I'll have to check them out either tomorrow night or thurs. night. I'm out of time tonight as I'm up as 3:30 for work in the morning so this old man is off to bed... :)
I'll post my voltages find though when I have them.
Dean
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Dean if you pm me to setup a time to get into teamspeak I can try and help.
RJ
O.K. RJ. I'll see what I can accomplish with with the above first and then go from there. It's gotta be something simple. That is something I've learned over the years fixing radios. :)
Dean
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For the part you need, the wiring is pretty simple. Before we get to that, lets do the sanity check:
#1 Verify you have +5v and +3.3v on the board. I don't know the pinouts for the voltage regulators, but the three pads for each device are connected back to the AT power plug. Where the 7805 would be installed, you should have 12v, 5v, and gnd (0v) on the three pads - I don't know the order, but if you put the black lead of a multimeter into the backside of one of the black wires on the AT connector, that's what you should see. Where the other voltage regulator goes, you should see 5v, 3.3v, and gnd.
edit - I forgot about the GND input power connector - you can also use that for your black lead when making measurements.
#2 Did you program the PIC with the "SmartString_Hub.hex" file.
If yes and yes and still no joy, try swapping the two 485 chips close to the PIC with two of the others on the board.
If still no joy, it's time to start traciing wires and checking vias - vias are the holes that run through the board. They are supposed to be plated-through to connect one side of the board to the other. On very rare occasion, you have to solder a short piece of wire to make the connection...
RM
Just checked - voltages are 11, 5 and 3.3
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Here is a pic of XLights with my Lynx Dongle flashed with Pixelnet.
(http://www.brooksfamilylights.com/images/misc/ScreenShot026.jpg)
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Have you tried 4096 instead of 512 ?
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Yup just did just to make sure. No joy... :(
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just to give it a shot, i'd almost through vixen on, to see what happens. there's extremely little to configure. So it's a good way to verify hardware or software issue.
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Already tried vixen. numerous times in fact. no joy.
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Now I'm leaning toward either a bad pic or a bad trace on the board. Do you have another pic you can try?
RM
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I do not have another pic. :( I guess I should order one and see.
RJ I'm gonna have to touch base with you on this. Running out of options I guess. I'm gonna have to install that software so we can chat about this too.
Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk
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i havent checked my equipment, but doesn't the ssc, teh 16port hub, and the express all use the same pic?
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Yes!
And this is why I try to use the same parts over and over when I can. It helps people later when thay have an issue like this.
RJ
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It is the same pic? hmmmm Guess I'll have to take a look at this then... I for some reason thought they were different....
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Changed the PIC. Re-programmed it to the hub hex. No Joy. Good check sum though. Erased the PIC. Programmed it. No Joy. Did this a few times. I just have something messed up. After I get some sleep I'll check all the resisters and what not just to be sure.
I'm baffled.
Dean
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Just a basic question. Are you sure that the cable you are using is good and not a cross over?
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Just a basic question. Are you sure that the cable you are using is good and not a cross over?
I do not own any crossover cables. I have no need for them so I don't have them nor do I build 'em. So Yes I'm sure.
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I realize this thread is two (2) years old but I just got back to it and believe it or not it's working. DMX anyway. I don't have smart strings yet but that is next. :)