Will this work ???

[Christmas_Man]

I was wondering if the smart string gear will work on a Helix controller from Greg Bartlett ?? The reason I ask is there seems to be some confusion as to the rate the data is transferred.If you are using a regular dmx dongle as RJ's video suggests (which is nothing special just re-flashed) then the data rate should be the same..Is this true or have a missed something in what the ssc transmit at as far as rate of speed cause I do know regular dmx is a serial protocol so is this what has changed to get more then one universe out of the Helix and if so how can we change this as I have gotten the channel count to go high enough in Vixen but Greg's network supervisor limits it to 512 ( 1 universe) per bank of 3 that is available..So it should push 3 universes easily but I can't get this to happen either.So any help to understand this would be greatly appreciated in trying to get this all to work..
Thank-you in advance

[dmaccole]

I was wondering if the smart string gear will work on a Helix controller from Greg Bartlett ??

At this time the Helix does not support PixelNet, the data transport protocol between a computer (in the case of the Helix, the Helix itself) and the PixelNet hubs, which in turn drive the PixelNet Smart String Controllers.

You could petition Greg to support PixelNet, but I think you'd be the first to ask.

Much (if not all) of the Helix functionality will be provided by the Lynx Etherdongle (available now) and the Lynx Conductor (a daughter card to the Etherdongle which is still in testing and won't be available until later this year).

HTH.

\dmc

[rm357]

You've missed a lot. I would suggest reading in the wiki.

Smart strings do not talk DMX.

Using either a USB or Ethernet dongle flashed for pixelnet, you connect that to a hub which provides the power for the strings. Next you connect a SSC to the hub, which translates pixelnet to string data.

The active hub can output 1 DMX universe from the pixelnet data.

The Ethernet dongle receives E1.31 multicast packets (DMX over Ethernet) and will assemble them into the pixelnet data stream. For the current firmware, E1.31 universes 1-8 = pixelnet universe 1, 9-16 = P2, 17-24 = P3, and 25-32 = pixelnet universe 4. The ether(net) dongle puts out 4 universes.

The USB dongle puts out 1 universe.

You can flash either dongle to output DMX or pixelnet.

The official name for the Ethernet dongle is the etherdongle, which is often Abbreviated as EtD.

[holland lights]

Ill have to discuss it with Greg. He will need to look at the firmware/software to try to make a output for pixelnet equipment. Yea being his stuff communicates via dmx he would have to redesign his hardware probally.

[rm357]

The spec for pixel net is on the wiki. It is a simple serial protocol running at 1 mbps that uses a data value of 170 as the packet start marker. If there is a real dimming value of 170 in the data, the driver needs to change it to 171. You send a value of 170 and then follow it with up to 4096 data bytes. Then repeat...

I think it is no parity, 8 bits, and 1 stop bit. It uses the rs422 signaling (same as DMX except 4 times faster bit rate and no bizarre sync pulse timing to worry about - just have to make sure there are no data values of 170 in the data).

RM