F16v3 ports not working past port 4

[marci]

Hi folks,
I have an F16v3 whose ports aren't working past port 4. The lights work fine on ports 1-4. Ports 5-16 aren't completely dead. The first pixel seems to work but nothing after the first pixel. I'm testing with the physical test button on the board to isolate against any software issues.

All of the yellow lights next to the fuses are lit.

I also have 2 expansion boards. All ports on both expansion boards exhibit the same problem except the last port on the 2nd expansion board, port 48. Ports 17-47 exhibit the same problem as ports 5-16 on the F16v3, only the first light works. To try to isolate the problem I unplugged the expansion boards and the F16v3 exhibits the same behavior.

Any clues?

TIA
Michael

[k6ccc]

Can you post screen captures of the pixel outputs page (maybe more later).

[marci]

Geez, Jim. Well don't I feel dumb. That's it! I'm new to this world. I was leaning on xLight to configure the controller for me. Now that I looked at the outputs I see that only 1-4 and 48 are activated.

What I'm less sure of is what the controller output needs to properly configure it. I'm configuring a mega tree with a base and an upper part of the tree as sub models to the "container" mega tree model. This is based on reelpilot's excellent mega tree design. There are 48 strings. 112 pixels per string (27 on the base, 85 on the upper). I also have a 270 pixel star at the end of the 48th string that I'll power inject at the star level.

This is what I'm doing: 

How do I configure the controller's output to accomplish this?

Here is a screenshot of the outputs as they are now. There's an error on port 4 for some reason. Did I max out the universe?


Thx
Michael

[k6ccc]

I don't use xLights at all, so no idea what you need to do with the xLights setup to make that work.  I do know that you either need to manually configure the E1.31 controllers OR have xLights do it for you.  Trying to mix that is a recipe for disaster.

Personally I do it all manually since I'm not using xLights - and have stated here before that even if I was using xLights, I likely would not use the controller config by xLights functionality.

[K-State Fan]

How many universes do you have configured?

[k6ccc]

If you going to manually configure it, please show the E1.31 page.

[marci]

Here's the E131 page:

[k6ccc]

Yep, you only have two universes configured, so when you have a start channel of Universe 2 channel 499 (leaving only 14 channels left, and then tried to specify a 336 channel string, there was no room to roll over into the next universe.

[marci]

So I've made some progress. I let xLights configure the controller and it gave me this config. 34 universes. The output now have all the right pixel counts. The problem is that the start channels are wrong. Port 3 doesn't progress the start channel but goes backward. So, of course, I lose most of the pixel activity on that port. But when I try to enter the right channel (last channel +(112x3) ) the system throws an error or some reason.  Any idea why? The universes seem to be configured to allow the additional channels.

Output:



Universes:

[k6ccc]

No, port 3 looks fine as shown here.  Tip:  look at the calculated end channel (displayed between "Group count" and "Direction") and the next line item should start on the next channel.  I did not verify all 48 lines, but spot checked and they are fine.
One issue you do have (and it was obviously corrected after you did the screen capture) is the E131 setup page still shows only 2 universes.  The size is set to 510 - which is fine.  A universe can be up to 512 channels, and I'm a little surprised that xLights configured it as 510...

[jnealand]

xlights defaukts to 510.  I'm surprised it does that.  I always switch it to 512.  Controller built in the last couple of years should not have any issues with using 512.

[marci]

I think I finally figured it out. The controller seems to be correctly configured now. I'll know after I get the pixels on the tree but all channels seem to be working fine. What I was doing wrong was I hadn't set the master model to the controller to allow xLights to set it. I now have the channels of the shadow models manually configured but I have the master (parent) model that contains the shadow models configured for the F16v3 and it outputs fine. Thank you guys!

[k6ccc]

xlights defaukts to 510.  I'm surprised it does that.  I always switch it to 512.  Controller built in the last couple of years should not have any issues with using 512.

510 is safe.  You're right that all or at least most newer E1.31 controllers can handle 512, but when I started with E1.31 in 2012, very few would.  I know that even today, the SanDevices controllers can't handle 512.

[algerdes]

Interesting.  My SanDevice controllers (mostly E682s) are all set to 512 and have been since purchased way back when.

[k6ccc]

Interesting.  My SanDevice controllers (mostly E682s) are all set to 512 and have been since purchased way back when.

Maybe I'm just remembering WAY back.  Started using them in 2012.