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| fm transmitter | Rate Topic |
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| Posted: Monday February 20th, 2012 05:09 am |
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26th Post |
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Steven Member 
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Richard Hamilton wrote: I tried the USB route and was not able to get the transmitter to work. Mine works with an AirLink101 USB to serial adapter, which AirLink101 doesn't seem to make anymore, but you can still order from EPC. Right. EDM really needs an updated interface, yet from what I can see on various forums, they don't seem to have a USB version in the works. When EDM designed their RDS transmitter, the chip they used was the only (compact) one available, which was the MiniRDS Encoder. They only way to communicate with the MiniRDS is the IIC protocol, which is supposed to be used for chips to communicate among themselves on a single circuit board. It was not meant to be used over a cable, so they MacGyvered it by using some diodes and connecting it to the modem control pins of a serial port. One of the disadvantages of this is the timing requires that the MiniRDS program takes up all of the CPU while sending an update. This caused a problem in my show one year until I worked around it (another subject). Since then, the makers of the MiniRDS Encoder came up with an improved version, the MicroRDS Encoder. This chip allows the use of either IIC or RS232 for communication. It would be nice if the next version of the EDM transmitter used this new chip, plus a built-in USB serial chip. But as you said, we shouldn't expect anything in the near future.
____________________ LOR user since 2007 |
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| Posted: Monday February 20th, 2012 06:31 am |
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27th Post |
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Aaron Maue Member 
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Richard Hamilton wrote: By the way Aaron, if you are thinking about gonig the serial route and you don't have a serial card, then I will be glad to remove the one from my computer and send it to you for free. I wasn't using it for anything else. PM sent.
____________________ 2011...64 channels, 18,000 lights. 2012 plans...  
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| Posted: Monday February 20th, 2012 02:21 pm |
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28th Post |
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dgrant Member
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I do have another question in regards to the RDS on these. I could easily see how to manually specify which tune name is playing but how does someone make it read them automatically? I'm sure its something simple but its escaping me at this time and their instructions don't help.
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| Posted: Monday February 20th, 2012 02:36 pm |
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29th Post |
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Aaron Maue Member
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If you take a look at the 7th post in this thread, you'll see a link to another thread. There, you'll find instructions for setting this up. In the first post of that thread, there's a great .pdf tutorial. Pretty straightforward, but does require some command line and batch file use, which are explained in the tutorial.
____________________ 2011...64 channels, 18,000 lights. 2012 plans...
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| Posted: Monday February 20th, 2012 02:39 pm |
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30th Post |
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dgrant Member
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Thanks, will do that right now.
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| Posted: Monday February 20th, 2012 02:42 pm |
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31st Post |
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dgrant Member
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Thanks Aaron, That was precisely what I needed.
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| Posted: Monday February 20th, 2012 03:11 pm |
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32nd Post |
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Richard Hamilton Member 
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Steven wrote:Richard Hamilton wrote:I tried the USB route and was not able to get the transmitter to work. Really nice info Steven... Thanks
____________________ Richard - http://MagicLightShow.com Home light shows since 1996 (pre LOR) Design Commercial Displays |
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| Posted: Monday February 20th, 2012 04:21 pm |
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33rd Post |
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Aaron Maue Member
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Steven wrote:One of the disadvantages of this is the timing requires that the MiniRDS program takes up all of the CPU while sending an update. This caused a problem in my show one year until I worked around it (another subject). Steven, how might I detect this? I used TinyRDS last year and didn't see any problems. What might cause that to change? Higher channel count (only 64 channels last year), and thus, maybe higher processor demands? I'm going to be over 200 channels this year and would like to anticipate and solve the problem now, rather than later. Just wondering what might cause my current setup to break down.
____________________ 2011...64 channels, 18,000 lights. 2012 plans...
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| Posted: Monday February 20th, 2012 04:29 pm |
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34th Post |
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Richard Hamilton Member
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Aaron Maue wrote:Steven wrote: I am also interested in knowing how you saw this problem and what it did. I used MiniRDS and I never had an issue.
____________________ Richard - http://MagicLightShow.com Home light shows since 1996 (pre LOR) Design Commercial Displays |
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| Posted: Monday February 20th, 2012 05:03 pm |
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35th Post |
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Steven Member
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Aaron Maue wrote: Just wondering what might cause my current setup to break down. The problem happened when I was using the built-in serial port on my old Dell, with a Pentium 4. It doesn't happen when using the AirLink101 USB Serial cable, for some reason. (So now I'm using the built-in serial port to connect to my CM11B.) The symptom of the problem was that my "static" channels (like the stereo receiver with outdoor speakers, inflatables, "Tune Radio" sign) would shut down at the beginning of some sequences, but it wasn't consistent. I finally figured out that when the MiniRDS program was sending something big to the transmitter (including DPS and Radio Text), the LOR signal was suspended. If the signal was suspended long enough, controllers shut down. My first workaround was to turn off Dynamic Radio Text, which solved the problem, but since both of my cars show Radio Text as well as PS, I wanted it back on. By switching things around in various ways, I discovered that the problem didn't happen when MiniRDS was sending over the USB serial port. I don't know why this would make a difference, but it does.
____________________ LOR user since 2007 |
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| Posted: Monday February 20th, 2012 05:43 pm |
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36th Post |
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Aaron Maue Member
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Thanks for the info, Steven. I didn't turn on DPS last year, so maybe didn't see the problem. I may have to experiment a bit now to see if that happens for me. To avoid a situation where I accidentally enable it and then can't figure out why it's misbehaving. If I do it and something breaks, I'm much more likely to remember. Failure is a great teacher.
____________________ 2011...64 channels, 18,000 lights. 2012 plans...
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| Posted: Monday February 20th, 2012 07:50 pm |
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37th Post |
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asetti Member 
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I bought: http://wholehousefmtransmitter.com/index100.php new on ebay for $74. Did some testing and it seems to work very well and has a range to the street in front of my house. Any one else use one of these for their show?
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| Posted: Monday February 20th, 2012 10:05 pm |
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38th Post |
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Richard Hamilton Member
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There is a lot of information about the Whole House Transmitter on here. If it works for you, then that is all that is important :-) As for me, I tried it a few years ago. I call it the Whole Garage Transmitter. That is about as far as it transmitted!
____________________ Richard - http://MagicLightShow.com Home light shows since 1996 (pre LOR) Design Commercial Displays |
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