EtherDongle and older hardware compatibility

[CourtBard]

So this may be an ignorant question, but I am not making the connection. I understand that the new etherdongle is designed for pixelnet protocol, and that on the main hub, there is a DMX out. I know (think) that the SSR4 and Express use DMX, so my question is this. The etherdongle can handle ~16000 channels, but is designed mainly for RGB string type sequencing. If (in theory) you had ~16,000 strings of regular old LED lights and wanted each string to be controllable seperately, is this possible? I realize it is kind of a crazy idea, but just in theory, would it work? My understanding is that there is only a dingle DMX out from the hub, so that would only output a max 512 channels (1 DMX universe).

The reason I am asking this is because I do not have the money to invest in RGB strings, so I am going to be stuck starting off with the plain old LED strings. I don't want to buy/build an older lynx dongle because I would eventually like to be able to take advantage of the features of the etherdongle. If I use the etherDongle, am I limited to a single DMX universe?

I have been following along with light animation for a while, but have never been able to get the hardware to get into it, so please be kind to an excited newbie

[mokeefe]

No, a single EtherDongle cannot control 16,000 "standard" LED strings.  If you are not planning to run Smart Strings you can load a DMX-Only version of the firmware on the board which will give you 4 universes of DMX (2048 channels total).  You would not need the SS Hub, instead you would use the passive combiner (wired in reverse) to break out the feed from the EtherDongle to 4 cables (universes) of 512 channel DMX.

If you have not invested in the regular Lynx USB Dongle, I would highly recommend the EtherDongle.  The cost will be minimally higher, but you will have the capability of 4 USB Dongles in one unit and all the future developments planned for the EtherDongle. Of course, timing may be an issue.  I don't want to speak for RJ so only he can say when units would be available via an EtherDongle Coop.

-Mike

[CourtBard]

I figured that the full 16K would not be available. I am assuming that you would use a bunch of SSR4's or expresses? You would need a ton for that many channels, so I think the cost would be prohibative.

If I understand then, you would take an ether dongle, re flash it for strictly DMX, and 4 DMX universes would come out. That would go to the combiner/splitter and the 4DMX universes over pixelnet would be split into 4 individual DMX universes. What would you do from there, dasiy chain a bunch of ssr$'s etc together to fill up all of the channels within the seperate DMX universes?

Just out of curiousity, why are you limited to 4 DMX universes with the etherdongle? My understanding of the pixelnet protocol is that it uses 4096 channels which I believe is 8 DMX universes? So why not have access to at least the 8 DMX universes of one of the four pixelnet universes available on the etherdongle?

[RJ]

Because their is only four channels of data and DMX is limited to 512 channels per channel. 4 channels of pixelnet(4096) is 16,384 channels. This why I use pixelnet and not DMX for RGB pixels.

RJ

[CourtBard]

I see. So the etherdongle has 4 pixelnet universes worth of channels, but we are in effect changing those pixelnet universes to DMX universes, so since there were 4 pixelent universes, now we have 4 DMX universes instead. I was thinking that we were gaining access to the DMX universes within a single pixelent universe rather than converting the four pixelnet universes into DMX universes. Do I have that correct?

Another question if I may. What would people use at the other end of the etherdongle when you have 2048 DMX channels to play with. I noticed in one of your light show demo videos RJ, that you pointed out quite a few expresses in boxes on posts. Is that the "suggested" way to handle the channel counts? I know that I am  opening up a big can of worms as far as the "suggested" way, but I am just thinking that if I have 2048 channels to play with, that means I need 128 expresses or 512 SSR4's with DMX. That's a lot of boxes spread around the yard and at about $70 for the express for mouser parts (plus XX fo the PCB) or $26 (plus XX for the PCB), that means we are talking around $13,300 just for enough SSR4 parts (plus however much the PCBs run and cost for the boxes, cords, shipping, etc.) or $8960 for the express parts (plus PCB, boxes, cords, shipping, etc.) to run all those channels.

I know that coops bring the prices down a bit on that, so those numbers will definitely be high. Now, looking at SmartStrings with those figures in mind, we are looking at about $85 for the smart string controller parts (plus the cost of the PCB) and a 128 Node smart string. Again coops should bring the price down proportionally, so if my numbers are right, you could get about 105 smart strings for the same cost as the express parts for 2048 channels, or 156 smart strings for the same cost as the SSR4 parts. That equates to 13440 RGB nodes for 105 strings or 19968 RGB nodes for 156 strings. Of course one etherdongle has 16,348 channels, so you would not be able to run all those nodes on one etherdongle, but, as RJ pointed out, you could simply add another etherdongle...

I realize that with 2048 DMX channels you are able to get a lot of the regular old led strings per single channel, so your light count will be much higher than with the RGB nodes. On the other hand, if you were to take almost 20,000 RGB nodes, and spread them around, you could do some amazing things. If I understand correctly, you could space each RGB LED node out 4-6 feet from the previous one, so you could spread them around better in things like bushes or trees. Alternatively, you could take those 128 node strands and wire tie them up to look like icicles, and now you have fully controllable collor changing icicles. Just some thoughts and some figures that are probably way off because I do not have the figures for the boxes, PCB's etc. Not to mention all of the soldering that would need to be done for all of those boards 

[rrowan]

Hi CourtBard,

I have no idea what you are getting at??

where do you see $85 for a SSC? (more like $8.00 per SSC)

Rick R.

[jeffcoast]

I am not suggesting that I need this, but an idea I just got from reading this. Wouldn't it be possible to design a hub that would split up 1 pixelnet universe into 8 different universes of DMX? Like have 8 RJ45 outputs and you could plug into them. Or even to go further, have a splitter for the 4 universes of pixelnet into 32 DMX outputs on one board. The only issue I would see would be cost with not having that many people needing such an item to have the PCBs made to spread it out through.

[rrowan]

I am starting to think I was wrong about pushing for the etherdongle to have both a pixelnet and dmx firmware

It was simple with just the pixelnet firmware and force folks to use the ss hub(s) to get the dmx out. Seems trying to include folks without pixelnet hardware (i.e.: dmx only controllers) is causing more problems. Just because a device can output 2048 dmx channels does not mean you have to use all of those channels. That is like complaining to your vehicle manufacture that it has too much horse power and you can't red line the engine the whole time the engine is on. I thought it would be nice for folks not have to buy/build a SS hub and just use a combiner which is much cheaper

btw: this is just my personal opinion and it has nothing to do with being part of the DLA staff.

My apologies to RJ

Rick R.

[rrowan]

I am not suggesting that I need this, but an idea I just got from reading this. Wouldn't it be possible to design a hub that would split up 1 pixelnet universe into 8 different universes of DMX? Like have 8 RJ45 outputs and you could plug into them. Or even to go further, have a splitter for the 4 universes of pixelnet into 32 DMX outputs on one board. The only issue I would see would be cost with not having that many people needing such an item to have the PCBs made to spread it out through.

Jeff how do you figure 8 dmx universes out of one pixelnet universe?

The EtherDongle with DMX firmware does 2048 channels which equals 4 DMX universes
Why would RJ spend hundreds of dollars to design and produce another board when the combine already does it?

Rick R.

[RJ]

I'm sorry but I do not understand the question, When you say is that the recommended way to handle the channels?

The etherdongle simples creates either 16,384 channels of pixelnet or 2,048 channels of DMX. There is no recommended way to use them. You use how ever many of them you need to run your controllers. If a person has 4 expresses he only needs 64 channels. But many users are using in the thousands already so it gives them a away to handle the larger channel counts easier and less costly than a bunch of standard dongles. 

RJ

[rm357]

Two comments

Start slow

DLA rules - non-commercial use only

RM

[Steve Gase]

The etherdongle simples creates either 16,384 channels of pixelnet or 2,048 channels of DMX.

I didn't get that from the earlier descriptions... I thought you could hangle off a DMX network IN ADDITION to the pixelnet that was going on using the DMX-labelled jack on each Active Hub.  So... you'd yet 16384 pixelnet PLUS  2048 DMX if you had all 4 Active Hubs in place.

Did I misunderstand the original videos or your statements now?

Steve

[taybrynn]

Courtbard, I don't think the intent for pixelnet is to enable 1000's of AC controlled channels, like using Lynx Express or other AC controllers on a massive scale.

To me, there is a distinction to be made here regarding the past and future model of how and Christmas Light Show might be controlled.  Everything in between is also possible and actually likely.

The traditional model has been: using AC controllers for "string level" control in your show.  The typical controllers for this were AC controllers and you would use Lynx Express, SSR4, LOR, RENARD, D-LIGHT, etc. .... and plug in any type of light strings you want for that.  People started using LED vs. incand. lights ... but there are store bought lights and AC based.

The new/future model is for "pixel level" control in your show.  This is where Pixelnet comes in ... as you can imagine that with just a single 100 node smart string ... your talking about 3(rgb) x 100, or 300 channels needed to control just one string.  In the AC controller world, thats one channel --- but also limited to one color and is string level.  So if your talk about a megatree with 16 strings in it ... then you need 4800 channels to control that at a pixel level using rgb per node. (300*16)

Further, the ability to output 512 channels of DMX per SS Hub, via the SS HUB DMX OUT, is really just en emulation of 512 channels of pixelnet into a DMX512 universe.  So you don't get all the pixelnet channels PLUS another 512 DMX per SS hub, you just get 4096 channels of pixelnet per SS Hub ... and you can select (via jumper) which 512 channels of pixelnet will also be mirrored into the DMX OUT.  So if you selected the first 512 channels for the DMX OUT, you get pixelnet channels 1->512 on pixelnet AND you also get DMX channels 1-512 on the DMX OUT ... but they must do the exact same thing, so unless you just want to mirror all 512 channels, its not really getting you additional channels per se.

So to me, I was able to run two houses with tons of lights using 256 AC channels in 2010.  If I just want to add a fairly modest amount of RGB items to my display this year ... then I"ll also be adding at least 1 pixelnet universe to control those items ... but it will require over 3000 channels of pixelnet to control those items and upgraded software (LSP 2.0 vs. LOR S2 ... or xlights/vixen).

I think where the ether dongle really comes in and shines ... is its ability to allow a fairly full show (or at least one full house) of RGB capability in a single device ... at the pixel level.  And with the DMX out ... and using AC controllers.  It also eliminates the need for 4 DMX dongles and a combiner, etc.   And then the amazing bonus of the ether dongle is how RJ has designed it to be even more ... like eventually a show controller (director) and host daughter boards ... and have a wireless interface?

[mokeefe]

The etherdongle simples creates either 16,384 channels of pixelnet or 2,048 channels of DMX.

I didn't get that from the earlier descriptions... I thought you could hangle off a DMX network IN ADDITION to the pixelnet that was going on using the DMX-labelled jack on each Active Hub.  So... you'd yet 16384 pixelnet PLUS  2048 DMX if you had all 4 Active Hubs in place.

Did I misunderstand the original videos or your statements now?

Steve

Steve,

You are correct.  The EtherDongle, when using PixelNet firmware, will be able to drive 16384 PixelNet channels AND 2048 DMX channels, with the understanding that the DMX channels are mirrors of some of the Pixelnet channels as described by taybrynn above.

What RJ was likely referring to is the two versions of firmware available.  The DMX-Only firmware is available for those who do not want to run ANY pixelnet.  In that case you get 2048 regular channels of DMX using the passive combiner (splitter) with no need for an SS Active Hub and PC power supply. It ends up saving you as little money on hardware for those who don't need PixelNet support (yet).

-Mike

[mokeefe]

I am starting to think I was wrong about pushing for the etherdongle to have both a pixelnet and dmx firmware

It was simple with just the pixelnet firmware and force folks to use the ss hub(s) to get the dmx out. Seems trying to include folks without pixelnet hardware (i.e.: dmx only controllers) is causing more problems. Just because a device can output 2048 dmx channels does not mean you have to use all of those channels. That is like complaining to your vehicle manufacture that it has too much horse power and you can't red line the engine the whole time the engine is on. I thought it would be nice for folks not have to buy/build a SS hub and just use a combiner which is much cheaper

btw: this is just my personal opinion and it has nothing to do with being part of the DLA staff.

My apologies to RJ

Rick R.

I know what you're saying but I disagree Rick.  I think it was a great idea to create the two versions of firmware.  There are enough users in the DMX-Only world who will want to invest in the EtherDongle yet save money by not needing to purchase a SS Hub and PC power supply.  I think any confusion that is arising will be short lived once more info and the hardware if available to the masses.

-Mike