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FPP➡️E6804➡️DMX512➡️LOR?

Started by Santa, October 11, 2013, 07:42:43 AM

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Santa

I'm thinking about using a Raspberry Pi to run a portable show, but the show (singing faces primarily) is built on LOR controllers. I'm thinking I should be able to put e1.31 out from the FPP on Pi to my 6804, dedicate one of the ports on the 6804 to do DMX512, and run the LOR in DMX-mode. Will this work? I assume nobody has been able to output LOR-native protocol on the Pi's USB.

danj

Santa--I am going to shoot for similar setup.  I am using LOR CTB16PC to drive 16 AC channels and SanDevices E682 to drive 360 channels in six arches (60 pixels each).  I just got the Raspberry PI with the goal of "not" dedicating a PC to my display.

David Pitts

Quote from: danj on October 11, 2013, 04:08:02 PM
Santa--I am going to shoot for similar setup.  I am using LOR CTB16PC to drive 16 AC channels and SanDevices E682 to drive 360 channels in six arches (60 pixels each).  I just got the Raspberry PI with the goal of "not" dedicating a PC to my display.

i am not familiar 6804 but if it receives E131 and outputs DMX your good to go.
PixelController, LLC
PixelController.com

danj

David:
I just took a good look at the E682 operating manual and verified that it can be configured to output native DMX.  I will re-post when I learn a bit more, as I plan to input the native DMX "into" my LOR CTB16PC.  I "think" I will might have to roll some leads on some RF45 cables as Eddy showed in his DMX-LOR PPS document, but the E682 has bare wire connections at its output blocks, so I might just have to configure those cables as Eddy shows in that doc (which I downloaded).  More to come on this as I get into it and get all this stuff up & running!

Santa

I wanted to report back that I got the last three parts of the equation from the title working: e6804 is now driving LOR over DMX512. There is a trick, though. Apparently only port 1 of the 6804 has a powerful enough line driver to support DMX. Once I swapped my pixels off port 1 and put the DMX there it worked like a charm.

The FPP has proven a bigger challenge than I expected. I got the image loaded and can access the FPP when I connect the Pi's ethernet port to my home network, but obviously that doesn't accomplish much, since I cannot connect my 6804 since the ether port is in use. I have the Edimax usb wifi, but cannot figure out how to connect to my wifi network; I'm not a Linux guy. Ideally the FPP would talk to my sequencing computer over the wifi and talk e1.31 over an isolated, wired network. I have tried connecting the computer, fpp, and 6804 to a 100baseT switch with no luck either (it seems FPP needs a DHCP server?). I have a spare wifi router, too, that I could try, if a DHCP is needed.

I'm sorry, but I know NOTHING about Linux, so could someone provide verbatim steps? I have read everything I can find on the subject here, but frankly, all the solutions were related through a shorthand that only Linus folks would understand (I sudo'd into the blah-blah, and manually edited the what-what). A little elementary help might be of aide to a lot of folks. Thanks in advance.

bajadahl

Santa - Let me see if I can help you.  I posted a small network drawing a few days ago and I really think it's going to help most people with the dual network issue.  This is especially true for you since you already have a spare router. (When you say wifi router....Does it support wired connections also? I am assuming yes since if it were truly only wireless it would probably just be an access point and not a router)

The idea behind the spare router is to allow the Pi to be on the "Holiday Network" to push the e131 data while also being able to reach out for system updates and ntp "Time" updates.  All this while preventing multicast or e131 traffic from reaching the home network and causing issues or being affected by heavy activity on the home network.  And all this with just the one ethernet port without using wireless which has several issues right now.

The way it is configured is this.

1.  The outside interface (Blue port on a linksys) of your spare router is connected to your home network as a regular device.  If you have a home network switch connect it there, if you only have a "home router" then it would connect to on of the PC ports (There are typically 4 on a home router)
2.  Connect the Pi and the E6804 to the inside ports of the Christmas router (Again there are typically 4 ports on a router dedicated to the inside and only 1 port dedicated to the outside.
3.  It there is NO DHCP running on your spare router then the FPP will get the default IP address of 192.168.0.10, (For non-Linux simplicity sake) you will need to CHANGE the E6804 to match the default IP address on the FPP.  As an example you could be giving the E6804 the address 192.168.0.11  This will put them both on the same subnet "behind the second router"

4. To make sure the FPP could reach out to the rest of the world for updates and time you would also need to make some configuration changes on the router.  The outside interface (Blue one on a linksys)  is setup to be DHCP because typically it is getting an address from your internet provider.  However, IN This case it will be getting an address from your home network router because it is just another device on the network...... (are you with me so far)
You will need to change the inside network side of the "Christmas Network Side" to be the address of 192.168.0.1.     This will let the FPP reach the home network via the "Default Route" 

There is a BIG catch to everything I just said..... Your home network and your christmas network MUST be different subnets  What does that mean?  Quickly - There are two parts to an IP address:  The Network Side and the host Side.  In almost all home setups the network side is the first 3 octets (or numbers)    So 192.168.0.X is one subnet and 192.168.1.x is a different subnet.  The last number is the host so - x.x.x.1 - x.x.x.254 so there can be 254 hosts on regular home (Class C - network)    We already know that the FPP defaults to the 192.168.0 subnet and so my instructions above are setup to support the FPP as it is default configured.  If your Home network is already using the 192.168.0.x Subnet then the this plan will not work.   

I will update my drawing in a few minutes to give more clarity and post it here.

bajadahl

Here is an image of what I was trying to explain.  Your Spare router would become the bottom network item (Sky Blue in the drawing)

[attachment deleted by admin]

Santa

Thanks for the help. Your advice to change the address of the 6804 was key, after I did that I could now wirelessly connect to the spare wifi router and pull up the config pages for both the 6804 and the FPP. I have pulled the wifi nic from the pi (I'll figure that out after Halloween) and am just using the the spare wifi router and its ports as an isolated network. I have to switch wifi connections on my laptop in order to get internet (and access to my LAN), but that's ok. Can't seem to load converted sequences, but I'll keep fiddling. So progress is being made, thanks again!

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