Running both LOR AND E.1.31 together

[Greg.Ca]

For years I ran 500+ LOR channels in LOR mode with minimal to no problems. I currently have 37 LOR 16 channel controllers which has a capability of 592 LOR channels. This year I added 3 J1 SYS P12S's controlling 36 'half' strips of 75 pixels each. (5VDC 2812b's)

Using nutcracker my Pixel megatree is working very well and I am quite satisfied and impressed.

Now comes the hard part, I have no intention of abandoning my 110,00 conventional full wave LED's and wish to run my show with LOR and E.1.31 running concurrently. Because I have over 512 LOR channels, I want to run my LOR controllers in LOR mode NOT DMX. I am about two weeks behind schedule in setting up and wonder what issues I may face running everything in Xlights.

What am I forgetting??Any issues with LOR and nutcracker running concurrently? When I tried to set up my LOR hardware in Xlights, I received a warning message about channel limitations and baud rate. Lor S3 ran 500 LOR channels last year with no problems what so ever in LOR mode. What concerned me is that Xlights did not really need my LOR channel configuration or unit numbers of my controllers. It just seemed odd. I added only one line for entering my LOR hardware and it asked for a last channel (592) and baud rate. Not sure if USB has a 'baud rate'

Anyways, Anything I need to know before running both LOR and nutcracker together? --Greg--

www.HighlandsRanchChristmas.com

[Roger DeBolt]

I have not run LOR in quite some time, but I do not think that you will be able to run a sequence as an LMS file with Xlights\Nutcracker xseq file. You can convert to all xseq and set up your xlights config for your LOR dongle.

[JonB256]

I have not run LOR protocol and DMX at the same time.
Others have, but this may not be the best spot to ask. Perhaps you've asked elsewhere?

I can add that DMX does not ask for a baud rate because it must run at 250k per spec, where LOR normally runs at 115k or slower.
Even the LOR USB Dongle will run at that higher speed if tasked with DMX output.

Since Matt Brown is the originator of xLights, he would be the ultimate config authority.

Are all your LOR controllers 16 channel? or CCR?  I ask because the 27 channel LOR controller are problematic in xLights because it assumes everything is 16 channel.

JonB

[taybrynn]

You can run LOR and E1.31 together and I did that last year without issues.

Even though you are saying you ran 500 LOR channels without problems, I've run 300-400 LOR channels
and later realized it was lagging very badly and I just didn't know it.  In fact some things sequenced were
not playing correctly ... but again, never knew it was happening till I went to DMX control of those same LOR
controllers and saw a whole bunch of new things show up (for the better) that I had never seen.

EVerything I have heard about the LOR protocol is that its really good for distance but its not an efficient protocol
for a lot of data.  I personally would move to all DMX and just give up the LOR shimmer ... other than that, its the same
or better.  You do lose the ability to field detect the units from the LOR hardware utility which is nice.

I think you should switch to DMX sooner rather than later, but thats just my opinion knowing how LOR lagged for me with
less channels than you are using.  It may be that as you sequence more and more data against those channels your problems
will start to appear, since its a bandwidth issue eventually that will lead to your data lag.

xlights is really a show player, or used to be ... so you can still have it play your .lms files and just map out your lor channels
to the protocol you want to use for them and the E1.31 channels the same way.  Mixed protocols and adaptors is a major
strength of xlights.  Yes, you can do it in LOR also ... in fact I think I used LOR last year after they added the E1.31 support.

I do believe converting .lms to .xseq makes the playback better ... since .lms is an inefficient (bloated) file format.

Hopefully this helps.

Scott

[Greg.Ca]

I'm told that because I have more than 512 LOR channels that my LOR controllers must stay in LOR mode as DMX cannot go more than 512 channels. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Also all of my lor controllers are 16 channels each. --Greg--

[Greg.Ca]

Also one more comment that I want to make, I will convert my LOR LMS files to Xlight format. There is a convert tab which allows you to convert LOR LMS files to Xseq files. --Greg--

[Jeffl]

Will xLights convert LOR sequences where you don't have any LOR controllers defined.  I'm running 2 universes of E1.31 but the conversion didn't seam to work......but then I'm still xLights challenged.

[JonB256]

I'm told that because I have more than 512 LOR channels that my LOR controllers must stay in LOR mode as DMX cannot go more than 512 channels. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

Also all of my lor controllers are 16 channels each. --Greg--

DMX does have a 512 limit per universe. But you can have many universes. Each universe would be on its own cable daisy chain. I have 3 universes of DMX controllers. I don't use all 512 in each universe but "zone" the yard and roof for efficient cabling.

LOR Advanced is needed to use DMX natively.

sent from my Galaxy Note

[Jeffl]

I was able to convert my .lms files to xLights and also to run on the Pi.  All my LOR channels however were previously converted to DMX. I have successfully tested running both in xLights and on the Pi.  The  tricky part of the conversion is the setup of your networks in xLight or on the Pi as they are similar but a little different.  You also have to have your networks setup properly in xLights before converting.

So far with the limited testing I have done so far everything looks good except for my MR16's run by LOR DC cards have jittery fades when the fades are long in nature.  i.e over 4-6 seconds.  I have noticed this in both xLights and on the Pi but not in LOR using DMX.  All this is using the Etherdongle as the E1.31 output device.

The Falcon Pi player has a bright future.