Some confusing information going around in this thread, don't take any of it as fact.
! Neither LOR S2 nor LOR S3 can directly talk to smart strings or output to pixelnet directly.
LOR S3 may be able to talk to Lynx DMX dongle (with possible exception of channel1 being skipped?) but not
a Lynx DMX Dongle flashed with pixelnet. LOR S3 can talk to an open DMX dongle (non lynx) without issue. (512 ch DMX) ...
in either case, your not talking pixelnet and your not able to control smart strings directly from LOR S3.
But if you use xlights instead of the LOR S2/S3 scheduler and show player (control panel) ... then xlights becomes the software
that will actually schedule (calender) and play your show. You can create playlists in xlights.
xlights reads the LOR .lms files and then emulates to one or more network types ... and using that
you can have xlights output to pixelnet. That means it can output to one or more dongles, based on
what your using.
You basically sequence in LOR S2 or S3 (S3 has better RGB support and multi-network support) ... and sequence everything as a bunch of LOR 16 channel controllers. I've been adding them as straight LOR 16 controller channels ... and then converting the ones I want as RGB into RGB channels within LOR S3. A LOR S3 RGB channel just groups 3 normal channels into one RGB channel, so its a 3-1 grouping mechanism. I find LOR S3 software well worth the upgrade cost.
xlights can also deal with the following network types:
- LOR
- D-LIght
- Renard
- DMX Pro/Lynx ... a Lynx 512 channel DMX dongle
- Open DMX
- Pixelnet Dongle ... a Lynx Dongle flashed with pixelnet firmware
- E1.31
Using LOR S3 seems far better than S2 because of the new groups capability (to organize while sequencing) and the greatly enhanced RGB capabilities. My favorites being: convert to RGB channels (specify start, end channels) ... and convert to group (specify start, end channels). You can also stack groups as needed. i.e. could convert a 360 channel flex strip into 120 rgb channels. Then could group each group of 12 rgb channels into say an arch segment (10 total). Then you could group all 10 arch segments into a arch#1 group. Then you could later put all arches into an arches group if you wanted. So then you can sequence at the 'all arches' level, the 'each arch' level, 'the arch segment' level or at the rgb node level. Again, this is all just LOR S3 sequencing stuff, not related to xlights per se at all.
Then if you decide you want to use a single Lynx Dongle flashed with pixelnet to control your show, you could set up xlights for a single network of LOR, and the LOR sequence would use the default "Regular" network type on all the 16ch controllers you set up. If you also had LOR controllers you wanted to control, you would need to map them to specific DMX channels and use the DMX OUT on the SS HUB and realize that pixelnet channels 1-512 (assuming first dmx universe jumper settings used on SS HUB) would translate into DMX channels 1-512 and then your put a DMX to LOR DMX conversion cable between the SS HUB and your first LOR controller (LOR controller must be flashed with recent firmware to support DMX operation) and then regular cat5 connected between LOR controllers.
If you instead decided you wanted to use two adaptors: say the LOR USB adaptor (for LOR controllers) and a Lynx DMX Dongle flashed with pixelnet (for all Pixelnet driven channels, which could include DMX from SS HUB DMX out) ... then you would sequence the LOR channels to the "Regular" network and the Pixelnet channels to the "Aux A" network in LOR. You would then use multi-network mode in xlights 2011b. You woulc still set everything up as a 16ch channel LOR controller ... but would just assign the LOR network controllers to Regular and the Pixelnet network controllers to "Aux A" network. The two network interface technically free(s) up a few more pixelnet/DMX channels because it puts them on a different network and your limited to ~ 4096 per LOR network.
I think LOR S3 allows up to 512 16 ch controllers per network, so this would support one pixelnet universe, or what a single pixelnet flashed lynx dongle could handle. I think multiple pixelnet universes would require multiple dongles and then sequencing in LOR to say a second Universe, "Aux B". I have not actually done this, but this is my understanding at this time.
