USB Dmx Dongle with Powerlan Adapter

[towtruck]

Just checking if anyone has tried it before I give it a try.

Last Christmas the computer and/or USB Dmx dongle didn't like being out in the cold garage so I was going to try and move them inside and use Powerlan adapters to save drilling holes in the walls to run cables.

Thanks!

[tbone321]

That is probably not going to work.  The USB Dongle is sending data on the RS485 protocol, not Ethernet so the adapter is not going to be compatible.  I doubt that the USB dongle was affected much by the cold as it was designed with components to work at cold temps.  There is a few things that you can do.  I would suggest looking into a Raspberry PI to replace your computer.  At around $45, it is at or below the price of your Powerlan adapters and seems to work well at cold temps.  Then load FPP onto it and load your sequences onto it and it will schedule and run your show.  If you put it on your home network by either wired or wireless, you can control it from any networked PC or cell phone in your house with its web interface.  If the outside temps are still affecting them, since the PI is about the same size as your USB dongle, you could put them both in a box with a 20W bulb for heat and would be good to go.

[towtruck]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I didn't know FPP would work with a USB DMX Dongle.  Will it work with my old Vixen sequences or is it time to upgrade?

Looks like I have some learning to do before Christmas

[tbone321]

It does and it should but you will need to convert them to the XLights format.  XLights has a conversion routine and should be able to convert your Vixen sequences over for you. 

[CaptainMurdoch]

I didn't know FPP would work with a USB DMX Dongle.  Will it work with my old Vixen sequences or is it time to upgrade?

I believe that FPP has one of the most extensive lists of supported Channel Output methods of any player out there, but I am a little biased.    FPP supports a lot of older channel output methods to allow users to bridge the gap or migrate from legacy hardware into the latest and greatest.

FPP uses the FSEQ file format as its native file format.  xLights switched its native format from XSEQ to FSEQ with the xLights v4 release.  As tbone mentioned, you can also use xLights to convert to FSEQ from numerous other sequencer formats including Vixen.  Vixen3 has native support for exporting the FSEQ format.  I believe that macebobo was also looking at adding FSEQ export to Vixen+ but I don't know if that even made it out of beta.