Possible wireless glitch

[Dennis Cherry]

I understand how RF works. Got my formal training in long range radar, worked in the M.A.R.S. program in the Air Force (Just like the amateur radio organization) and also worked in GMRS equipment.

I did not try the Ini2 or ini3 options due to being out of town, was hoping some else having the same trouble would have tried it and reported the results.

I know everyone is busy with their displays, so sorry if I am a little upset.

Will try again with the wireless tomorrow. Already way behind with my display.

[Made2Rock]

Dennis,

  I had a few issues to start but once I got it running it has been rock solid. Like others I was running short on time and did multiple things at once so I can not tell you what fixed my issue. I posted everything in my previous post so that you could see it all including items sure as our cell phones are AT&T and we do have a wireless router running in the house.

Let me add one new fact. We have been having trouble lately with the wireless router in the house but I didn't have time to look into it. Now that I out of town visiting family I find the computers have no trouble using wireless so mine at home has issues (and the thing is about a 1 1/2 yrs old).

Good luck, hope this helped.

RJ, I had issues but once fixed I did a good hour video and have seen it all and there was no a single hiccup during that hour. So my problems where most likely not the equipment (I did swap a Tx and a Rx).

Joe

[smartcontrols]

Not sure this is related to the issues above, But will throw in my experience too. I have a TX mounted 10 feet up, 1 LE v5 with ex/rx about 2 feet up, 1 LE v5 with another ex/rx, 1 LE v3 with another ex/rx. All units terminated and about the same distance from the TX, but in different directions. Both LE v5s were set to wireless the v3 had the rs485 chip pulled. Both LE v5s would have channels flash at the same time. I could not catch the v3 do it. I pulled the rs485 chips out of both v5s and have not been able to catch the v5s flashing now. At this time all looks good with the rs485 chip out of all of them.

Might be something to try.

-Jeff

[batdive]

Not sure this is related to the issues above, But will throw in my experience too. I have a TX mounted 10 feet up, 1 LE v5 with ex/rx about 2 feet up, 1 LE v5 with another ex/rx, 1 LE v3 with another ex/rx. All units terminated and about the same distance from the TX, but in different directions. Both LE v5s were set to wireless the v3 had the rs485 chip pulled. Both LE v5s would have channels flash at the same time. I could not catch the v3 do it. I pulled the rs485 chips out of both v5s and have not been able to catch the v5s flashing now. At this time all looks good with the rs485 chip out of all of them.

Might be something to try.

-Jeff

Well I will through my hat into this one as running a test sequence my neighbor and I had the same effect as Dennis, one channel lower would flash for a millisecond or so as the sequence would continue.  Funny is this did not show when we ran a true sequence with music and such.  Not sure what the difference was and we had this same set up for halloween.  That show ran nightly and we did not see any glitches.

Jeff thanks for the input I will give the RS485 chip a try.  Would that be the same if you had the input coming from a stand alone RX?  I swapped to that as I was doing some glitch testinglast night.


-JS

[smartcontrols]

With the stand alone RX connected to an LE you would need to leave the RS485 chip in and the "remove for wireless" jumper on. I did not test it with the stand alone RX. None of my stand alone RXs are connected to LE's. I did not notice any issues with them flashing, but I was not looking for it on them.  If I get time today I will try to reproduce it on them.

In yesterdays checking I did try putting the chip back in and the flashing returned, so I left the chip out permanently. I also have not tried the DMX OUT 2 on them, but I would expect it to work fine, as I am following the same instructions that we use to run wireless on the LE version 3 that does not have the "remove for wireless" jumper.

-Jeff

[Dennis Cherry]

Looks like a fix is found, would like to hear from RJ on removing the RS-485 chip fix.

Will try this tonight.

[RJ]

Try it I have no reference since I had not seen this and it will not hurt anything.


RJ

[Rainlover]

Not sure this is related to the issues above, But will throw in my experience too. I have a TX mounted 10 feet up, 1 LE v5 with ex/rx about 2 feet up, 1 LE v5 with another ex/rx, 1 LE v3 with another ex/rx. All units terminated and about the same distance from the TX, but in different directions. Both LE v5s were set to wireless the v3 had the rs485 chip pulled. Both LE v5s would have channels flash at the same time. I could not catch the v3 do it. I pulled the rs485 chips out of both v5s and have not been able to catch the v5s flashing now. At this time all looks good with the rs485 chip out of all of them.

Might be something to try.

-Jeff

I was just rereading this topic to try to find a solution to random flashing and saw Jeff's post saying all units terminated. Does this mean that all units have the terminate jumper on?

John

[Dennis Cherry]

Update:

Tonight I pulled the DMX chips off the 2 RX units, left the DMX2 chip alone.

Made sure the units with the RX units had the Terminate jumper on.

Fire up the system and turn on channels on both RX networks and the direct connect controllers.  I used the Blue LED channels, the channels below the Blue are the Green LED's

About 10 seconds I saw a flash wait and took some time before another flash was observed.

Took the TX unit and oriented the antenna parallel to the RX antennas.  It seemed to help but still got a few random flashes.

Tomorrow night will try the IN2  & IN3 settings, got to dark to crawl in the bushes to change the jumpers.

Look like I will try running the display wireless unless the flashes mess up the sequences to much.

[ThaiWay]

Last year I had the same problem with Random Flashes, using TX, RX, EX/RX's... on LE's (v2 & v3,) MR16, OL's from RX.  By the time I had everything running it was less than two weeks before pull down, so I gave up and chalked the problem up to - maybe - my Lynx Splitter.  My setup was:

Dongle > Splitter > TX > LE's with EX/RX, MR16 with EX/RX, and RX > OL & LE
Dongle > Splitter > wired OL's and LE's

The Random Flashes occurred system wide and regardless of distance from the Splitter or whether a controller was wired or wireless.  That's why I considered the Splitter to be the culprit.                       

This year, without using a Splitter, I have the same behavior, and with - so far - only one LE with EX/RX operational.    The TX is high in a window 9m up, with direct line of sight to the EX/RX 12m away.  The TX is a good 3m away from my pc with wired NIC, and 7m higher than the Wireless Router on the ground floor.  The TX and EX/RX planes are parallel.

The Random Flashes usually occur on the "previous" channel to the one that is active; i.e. if channel 189 is on, it's channel 188 that flashes... and also usually very close to the "on" time of the active channel.

I'll play around some more with this tonight , with the first step to run a cat5 from the Dongle to the LE.

[RJ]

Make sure you are all running the current firmware that I released to take care of some issues.  In both you TX and you RX units. Ver1 and ver2

RJ

[Dennis Cherry]

Make sure you are all running the current firmware that I released to take care of some issues.  In both you TX and you RX units. Ver1 and ver2

RJ

RJ that brings up the question of the V2 units.

Was there any firmware up date for the V2 units since the group buy?

I know about the V1/V2 compatible update.

Does the V1/V2 compatible update fix this issue?

I have not touched the firmware from the group buy.

[Jeffl]

Make sure you are all running the current firmware that I released to take care of some issues.  In both you TX and you RX units. Ver1 and ver2

RJ

Is there a link?

[ThaiWay]

In the Wiki:  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Look under each device for the link to the firmware.

[ThaiWay]

As expected, hardwiring my gear worked flawlessly:

Dongle > OL > OL > LEv2 > LEv2 > LEv3 > LEv3(terminated.)  All of this running a 60sec looped Vixen sequence stepping four colors on/off for 15 sec each.

Then I inserted the Splitter between the Dongle and first OL... no Random Flashes.

Plugged TXv1 into Splitter, RXv1 into last LE.  Some Random Flashes and Hiccups (a brief flicker) observed on the LE, however not as frequent as last night; all wired controllers normal.

Reflashed TX and RX with v2 compatible firmware from the Wik; a significant improvement was noted in the frequency of flashes/hiccups, but still noticeable.   

Tomorrow I'll pull a couple chips and reinsert newly flashed EX/Rx's(v1) and see what happens.