Bug in F16v5?

[szaske]

I have an older F16v2R and a new F16v5 that just replaced it.  With the v2 I was controlling a Renard SS24 via a serial port. I had it configured as Universe 83, start channel 1, baud rate 57600 and 1 stop bit.  The only device I had connected to it was connected to port #4 on the Renard and Xlights was properly controlling it as the device at 83:4.  With the V5 controller I had to alter the Universe to make it 87, and that is the only change I made.  The v5 controller only has 1 serial output. Like with the v2 it's protocol is set to Renard, start universe 87, start channel 1 and baud rate 57600.  The problem is that the v5 controller is not properly controlling the Renard device on channel 4.  When I did some testing, I noticed that the device would light up if I told channels 1, 2 and 3 on the Renard to power on.  BTW, I did not change the jumpers on the board, which were set to DMX mode. The v4 manual says this is the proper jumper settings for a Renard.

As far as I know when in Renard mode, each Renard device should only be listening to a single channel. My guess is that the v5 controller is sending DMX data instead of Renard, since the only way I could get my device on port 4 to light up was when channels 1-3 were told to power up.  Anyway I'm hoping the v5 firmware developer might see this and can confirm that the v5 properly supports Renard, or can let me know if I have it configured wrong somehow.

I'm assuming the pinouts haven't changed between the V2 controller and the v5 controller, because I'm using the same cable.

[MikeKrebs]

Show the config screen for the serial port.

A Renard devices listens to all the data that is sent to it. When it receives a special start byte, it then strips off the number of bytes of data. A SS24 has 3 PICS that each "steal" 8 bytes of data and then pass on the rest. If you have ss24, you should be sending 24 bytes of data (channels 1-24) in the universe you have configured.

Do you have the right end of your custom cable plugged into the F16V5?

[szaske]

The Serial Outputs screen shows:

Addressing Mode = Universe/Start Channel
Protocol = Renard
Start Univ = 87
Start Channel = 1
Channels = 142
Rate = 57600

As for the cable, it worked with the V2 board and all I did was swamp in v5 controller.  I wasn't aware that there was a specific end of the cable that needs to be plugged into the falcon controller.  Isn't the wires crossed such that they always end up in the correct orientation?

[MikeKrebs]

Usually it is not a standard ethernet cable. The renard side is typically pins 1,2,4 and 5 with 1 and 2 both ground. The controller side is usually 1,2, 7 and 8 with 7 and 8 being the grounds. Hence the special cable.

The controller side is usually "normal" and the renard side is where you swap the wires to the correct pins. If your Renard side only has 4 wires connected and they are pins 1,2,4 and 5, then likely you can rule out the cable.

If you only have one ss24, the channels are way overstated. Did you upload using xlights or did you configure the controller yourself?

[szaske]

I think we can rule out the cable because it worked fine with the v2 controller. It was working fine all last week, I just wanted to start using my new controller, so I swapped it into the same location. The cable to the Renard box was unplugged from the v2 board and plugged into the v5 controller. I never unplugged it from the Renard end. But I'll review the cable later tonight.  If the v2 controller needs a different pin out than the v5, then yeah I'd need to alter the cable.

As for configuring, although I love Xlights, I don't trust it to configure my controllers, so that I did myself. Anyway I've never figured out how Xlights treats the serial ports on the Falcon. It's not very intuitive.

I should mention that I also have a SRx2 smart receiver connected to the controller. It's connected to port1...and because of that and the fact that I couldn't figure out how to configure the Falcon controller in Xlights with more than one set of universes required that I move around what universes are used by what. I ended up with:
The v5 Controller = univ 80:1 thru 82:212
Smart Receiver = 82:213 thru 86:30
Serial Port = 87:1 - ? (142 channels)