Lynx and LED Dimming and Fading

[Opopanax]

I had my first year this last holiday and I'm going back and re-looking at my setup.

One thing I noticed was the fades/dims I put in (using vixen) were not very noticeable using LED strains. When I manually did a fade I could see a difference of what visually appeared as 3 or 4 different light levels. Unless going very slow I couldn't tell the difference in a fade compared to the nearby incandescent.

So when hooked into a sequence my light level looks like "Very High, High, Slightly less high, and dark" This isn't very nice for doing nice cross fades and so forth. I though I might need a sump because I'm using LEDs. I read the Express already takes care of it, but just in case I put a sumps on 4 channels (randomly) and replayed my fading sequence. I didn't notice a difference.

So is there a trick or something I"m missing to get LEDs to fade nicely?

[pk]

Did you select a dimming curve and load it into the express?  You need the Lynx Express configuration utility to load the dimming curves.  There are many curves listed for incans and LEDs.  I tried several and used the one that looked good to me.  I had incans on on express channel and LEDs on another so I could see hoe they looked together when dimmed.

[NavyGator]

Definitely try the dimming curves. You might also have LED's that just don't like to be dimmed like mine (I ended up buying 4 cases of LED's from CDI for next year).

On another note. If you have a string of lights that is not listed on the LE Utility you might try to send RJ a PM to see if he might have some time this year to make a curve for those lights.

Rich

[Opopanax]

Dimming Curve? heh I must have missed something in the directions.

Does it vary from LED string/brand?

Do I load it in like programming the PIC?

[Opopanax]

or i supposed I could've read ALL the stick posts in this forum... 

[NavyGator]

or i supposed I could've read ALL the stick posts in this forum... 

Hehe....its okay. Try the curves, if that does not work for refer back to my other post.

Rich

[lightguy]

The dimming curves do make a difference. I had many different makes of LED, some not listed in the dimming curves so I just experimented trying the curves tillI found one that works best.

To change the curves you use the Lynx configuration program. You hook the Lynx up to your PC with a CAT5 cable so much easier than reprogramming the PIC. The configuration program, and instructions are all in the WIKI. or go to this thread ;

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Hope that Helps.
Lightguy

[zwiller]

Is anyone willing to admit despite LED dimming curves, LEDs just don't dim as smooth as incans?  To take that one farther step off topic  , is there anyway to improve dimming of SS? 

[taybrynn]

I don't there is any doubt ... I found that some of my sequencing with nice fades .. Just looked broken on ss's.  I think it's also a non linear fading curve for ss, but not sure how to adjust them except via software

[Steve Gase]

Is anyone willing to admit despite LED dimming curves, LEDs just don't dim as smooth as incans?  To take that one farther step off topic  , is there anyway to improve dimming of SS?

I would suggest that SS dimming curves might be doable through software.  With the knowledge of the xseq file format, you could adjust the intensities for the channels and write back a new file. 

the xseq format can be obtained from Matt's xLights open source code.

you'd need to figure out the dimming for each CHANNEL since an RGB pixel will have 3 separate and unique curves to handle.  and with the curve into you'd need to map that to the appropriate channels in your xseq file.

is it possible without xLights? sure.

"its just code!"

[zwiller]

Me no code. Only caveman. Want mystic to fix hex file so I can dim SS pretty.   

[Steve Gase]

Me no code. Only caveman. Want mystic to fix hex file so I can dim SS pretty.   

I agree... a much better solution!  and for now, there are very few curves to create.

[taybrynn]

I was trying to remember if lsp already can do this ...

I think the xlights idea is good ...

[zwiller]

The dimming that I see is not too bad at higher intensities. It's the lower end say 30% or less that could be tweaked.  If there is a way to fix this it would awesome.  Wish I was capable of helping,  but I am not...

[Opopanax]

So i've been playing around with the dimming curves in the config utility. I didn't see the brand listed in the items so I've been trying each curve one at a time.

I haven't really noticed a difference.

Anyone have examples of what a good ramp on/ramp off should look like with LED so I can compare?

Other ways of setting the light curve if I don't see it listed in the config?