Project with 300K

[grant.simpson]

I have a project coming up that is going to use roughly 300000 pixels.  Of course it is going to have multiple controllers.  I am typically using Falcon V5s these days.  Assuming I have 10 controllers, each with 30K pixels, how would I configure my show?  Would each controller have a different set of channels (I prefer DDP or ZCPP to e.131 but I can work with any of them).  I assume I can do it strictly with xLights by having the 10 controllers defined and let xLights spew the show over Ethernet to the controllers but I also know xLights sometimes freezes or locks up.  Is there a way to do with using just the Falcon controllers in Player/Remote mode?  It is my understanding that in Player/Remote mode the Player essentially just sends timing cues to the remotes.  If I create 10 different FSEQ files but give them the same name will the 10 different FSEQ files play in sync across the 10 controllers?  I have quite a lot of experience using Falcon and AP controllers but have never tried to have >60K pixels all running a synchronized show before.  Thanks.

[JonD]

You are going to need to use multi-sync for that many lights.  The Falcons can technically do that, but you would never be happy with performance.  You would either need to install a Raspberry Pi running FPP remote in each individual Falcon controller box, or take a look at Kulp Controllers that are FPP based.  https://kulplights.com/

[grant.simpson]

Does the Kulp family of controllers run "off the shelf" Falcon player?  I thought the Falcon controllers were running Falcon player.  Would I still generate a single "large" show and then copy that entire show to each controller and just have different channel numbers assigned to each controller?  I apologize if I am asking stupid questions, I am just trying to avoid going to a dead end rabbit hole.

[JonD]

Daniel Kulp is a developer for both Falcon Player FPP and xLights, and his controllers would use standard FPP images.  The Falcons would do it, but the remote file transfer process is really slow.  (I mean... really, really, slow.)  If you went the Falcon route you would want a Pi in front of it for performance reasons.

You would probably want to run a dedicated FPP Player to run the show.  (These are often Pi based, but don't have to be)  The FPP Player is the conductor that tells the remotes when and what to play.  Everything needed to run the sequence would be stored locally on the SD card of each FPP Remote controller.  300000 pixels would be too much data for a standard network connection.  FPP Multi-sync only sends out timing packets to all the remotes, so the network traffic is minimum.

Once the sequences are rendered in xLights, you would use the xLights "FPP Connect" feature to upload the sequences to the FPP Player and FPP Remotes.  The "FPP Connect" process renders everything and will transfer all the files needed.

[grant.simpson]

I have no qualms about using Raspberry Pis, we use them all the time to do unattended audio and video presentations and they are quite reliable.  We've been using Pi 5s lately and they seem to have good performance.  When you design the show in xLights does each controller "share" a common pool of channels (or universes if e.131) or does each controller have its own set of channels or universes?

[JonD]

The Kulp controllers you need to be looking at would use BeagleBone processors.  Raspberry Pi has limits and will not support as many ports.  Unless you plan on installing them in front of Falcon boxes, then no ports are needed since it is just passing data over to the Falcon to process instead.

I would let xLights configure all your controllers.  Give your controller a static IP and let xLights do the rest automatically.

[grant.simpson]

I think I'm confusing myself (which only happens on days ending in y), would the phalanx of PIs just sit in front of each controller, each controller in "standalone" mode, and another PI just act as the master for all the remote PIs?  Would the "master" PI be in front of a master controller in "player" mode?  Would each controller have it's own range of channels (0-25000 for example) or would controller 1 be 0-25000, controller 2 be 25001 to 50000 and so on?  Stepping back a little, what do the front end PIs actually do?  If they are just used for file transfer I wouldn't have a problem with being "patient".  I don't have a problem with writing the SD cards externally anyway, had to do it on older controllers and on some of the projects which use the hinks controllers anyway.

[grant.simpson]

By the way Jon, in case I forget to mention it later thanks for taking the time to respond.  I really appreciate it!

[JonD]

The Pi in the Falcon box, would be in remote mode.  (waiting for the conductor to tell it what to do)  When the main Falcon Player (conductor) tells the remotes what and when to play, the FPP remote in the Falcon box would send the data over to the Falcon Controller to be played.

You might want to wait for others to respond to this and get their take.  I don't use multi-sync personally because I own Falcon controllers and the time it takes to copy the files to the SD is miserable.  My display is small enough I don't need multi-sync, but you won't have that luxury with 300,000 pixels.  There are several people that throw a Pi in the Falcon box because they want a wireless solution, or need to transfer the files quicker.  If your display does not change much, you could copy the files manually to the SD card, or you could wait out the time it takes to transfer directly to the Falcon SD card, but at the scale you're looking at I would take a look at the Kulp Controllers.

[JonD]

The Main FPP Player is for scheduling your playlists, and it tells the remotes what and when to play.  It sends out timing information to keep all the remotes in sync with each other.

The FPP Remotes (several of them) have all the sequence data for each local controller and waits for the Player to tell it what to do.  The files are sitting locally on the FPP Remote SD card ready to go.  You only need to transfer the files again if you make controller changes (such as add a light string) or add a new sequence or change/update a sequence.

Let xLights assign the channels and configure the controllers automatically.  It is easy as 1-2-3.  "Bulk Controller Upload", "Batch Render" and "FPP Connect".  You will not want to manually assign those channels.  If you add a single light string on the first controller, every single port in the display will have to be re-configured.  Let xLights do it for you... way easier and less issues.

[jnealand]

Copying data to remotes is very simple and very fast.  When you are using Pis or Beagles the FPPCConnect tool is used to send the appropriate data to each remote and using v2/sparse it only sends the data that each particular controller needs.  FPP Player devices typically use v1 standard and that makes for slow uploading of the data.  On the other hand you only upload data when the sequence is first created or if you make revisions.  If I make a revision to one prop I only upload the data to the remote that controls that prop, but that would also depend on how you configure your show or let xlights manage it.  I have 15 remotes in my show this year.  Would have been more but I ran out of time.

[JonD]

Would each controller have it's own range of channels (0-25000 for example) or would controller 1 be 0-25000, controller 2 be 25001 to 50000 and so on?

Each controller would have its own range of channels as every pixel in the display will need a unique channel number.  Only time you would want to manage the controller manually, is if you were doing something like using both LOR and xLights, where the controllers needs to match in both systems.  There might be another case or two to manually manage the controllers, but most people should be allowing xLights to automatically do this for them.

If you only had a few sequences, that would make the Falcons file transfer perform better.  I have 60 sequences with over 6GB of data.  The FPP Connect process does a pretty good job about only copying what each controller needs, but the Falcons do not support full compression, and the file transfer time is not great.  You could play with your existing Falcons to gauge expectations, but don't forget to adjust the time to your new scale.   

Think Jeff Lacey has a video on how to set it up.

[grant.simpson]

Thanks, I was looking for videos and never found that one.