All Activity

A little more information. I changed the LOR network setting for my large display to only use universes 173-310. I did this for two reasons. First, universes 311-676 were getting errors and I didn't think these were the problem, but I wanted to remove any doubt. Second, I thought this freeze problem was related to the size of my display. The large display has 86,016 pixels and the small one has 12,288 for a total of 98,304. I'm reducing that to 35,840 (if my math is right). This puts it more in line with the size of other people. When I ran my test, of course only the top part of the large display showed anything (universes 172-310) and the small display showed everything (universes 101-172). However, the freezes are still there! And because I am not going beyond universe 310, no errors are showing up in FPP. The task manager is showing about 22 Mbps and I still see dips whenever the freeze occurs. I then reduced it even further to end at universe 175. So I only had one line of pixels on the big display, but the small display still showed everything. The freezes are still there but they seem to be less frequent and don't last as long. But they are still definately there.

Well, dips may be normal, but in my case I saw there was a direct correlation between the dips and the freeze. Never saw a freeze without a dip. I can't be positive if I saw a dip without a freeze or not. Also, for what it's worth, if you look at the Xlights Ethernet activity, you see a very steady line.

Interesting on the freezes. And yes, the Sequencer should be taking a lot more CPU as compared to the Show Player. That is to be expected. The LOR Show Player will switch universes that have no lights at that moment to just sending idle packets, so dips is fairly normal. You can see that in the FPP packet counter display. More likely to see that on the text display than the butterfly. I don't know exactly how long it take of idle before it switch to idle packet mode, but it appears to be fairly short. I see that regularly on my TuneTo sign where some rows will be black at times. It has been discussed here before and I also believe LOR is aware of it. In my case it is two wired interfaces - not WiFi. Most of the nitty gritty of this will likely be a @MattBrown issue...

JIm, are you using indoor or outdoor panels? If indoor, there are several youtube videos on building them. If outdoor, I only found one. I just finished mine (outdoor). I built both a 3x2 and a 6x7. I could probably go through my notes and come up with some information, if you want.

I'm having a small performance problem with my P5 panels and I was hoping I could get some ideas on where to look. Here is my set up. I have two p5 displays. The first is 3x2 (prop in preview is a matrix with 64 strings and 192 nodes per string). It is controlled by a raspberry pi 4 with FPP and a color light card with a static IP address of 192.168.0.101 and uses universes 101-172. The second is 6x7 (224 strings with 384 nodes). It has a pi 4 with FPP and two color light cards with a static IP address of 192.168.0.102 and uses universes 172-676. They have separate cat6 cables plugging into a 1G Ethernet switch. I have a 30 second test sequence that I am running that displays several pictures on the large display and scrolling text on the small display. When I run this the screens will freeze for a fraction of a second every 10-15 seconds. I ran in both the Sequencer and as a show and the same freezes were seen. The sequencer used considerably more CPU during the run than when I ran it as a show. Note, all of the discussion that follows was when I ran it as a show. I then exported this to a FSEQ file and uploaded it to FPP and it ran perfectly. I then used Xlights to run the FSEQ file and it also ran perfectly. I don't have a lot of tools to monitor what is happening, but I have included 4 screenshots that gives me a little insight. The first pair are the FPP status screens for the LOR run and the Xlights run. At first I was concerned about the errors I was seeing. Universes 173-310 never show any errors while universes 311-676 show an error every 10 seconds or so. However, the Xlights screen also shows errors on universes 311-676, although fewer, and it ran fine. I would like to further investigate these errors, but I don't think they are causing the freezes. I tried looking in the FPP logs for these, but I couldn't find them. I will further investigate. The second pair of screenshots are from the Task Manager showing the Ethernet activity. Here you see the Xlights run stays steady at 63 Mbps while the LOR run has many dips which correspond to when I saw the displays freeze. Also, there was wi-fi data of approximately 8 Mbps which had dips at the same times as the Ethernet dips. (I believe the wi-fi data shouldn't be happening and I believe LOR is already aware of this). I don't believe the wi-fi data is causing the freezes. The CPU was running at less than 10% during this run and there was no CPU spike during the freezes. So I'm hoping someone can give me suggestions on how I can further investigate why these freezes are happening. Clearly they are related to the dips in Ethernet traffic, but is that the cause or another symptom. In an unrelated point, I believe LOR is aware that after a sequence finishes, data is still being sent (in my case about 63 Mbps). It turns out that Xlights also continues to send 63 Mbps out after the sequence is finished. In Xlights, turning off the button to control lights stops this. In LOR, shutting down the control panel stops this. Here are the links to the screenshots: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/spit4681jxxs6njirufmy/LOR-FPP.jpg?rlkey=lm641zvcs6y4mtzwj4yzanfpe&st=y6t2dcmm&dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/a1jikt2fpk7fj3mgzgoeo/LOR-TaskManager.jpg?rlkey=54y67w30i99vi5adk7356cko4&st=n6639xrn&dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3wr2sl9fa9v6k8xtsyhdu/xlights-FPP.jpg?rlkey=elowdk3bf6xolzgemsv191tc4&st=ngu2ndfz&dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4b7accoraavs1doch9z12/xlights-TaskManager.jpg?rlkey=dl44ka15clwkq06p071fyycei&st=jfuztc73&dl=0

Thanks. I may go with the higher voltage rate, not to exceed that 13.2V.

Late to the party, but I set mine to 1/2 the tolerance or 5%. That allows for load regulation variations. Tho I believe 13.2 would be safe (12+10%)

I am happy to report that I got all of my mistakes corrected. And it is working great. Thanks for the help. Now, if I could just find a good idea on how to build the weather proof enclosure. Jim

Here you go https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lAND4m92BOlt1hyOM5dC5OwdCeiX5E1f?usp=sharing

That file location appears to be on your local computer. We can't get to that.

Here are the requested screenshots. Shared with LOR (file://JMW-SYS-10/Shared%20with%20LOR) Jim

@k6cccYes, I hit 0 twice, but apparently the 2nd 0 didn't take. Yes, it is a 600 Watt 50 Amp 12VDC output power supply. Bought it from Amazon. Kind of hoping with that rating I could possibly get away with using only one power supply for the Pixie16D instead of 2. Since it has 3 terminals for V+ and 3 for V-, other power supplies I viewed only had 1 V+ and V-. I'll hold that 13.2VDC[written down, future reference], if MR. P's suggested 12.8VDC doesn't work out. @Mr. P: No, it is 600 Watts, 2nd 0 didn't take when I typed original message and I didn't catch that mistake. Thanks for the info. I'll set it to 12.8VDC, that sounds reasonable to me. Sure don't want to pop any pixels and let the "magic smoke" out.🤣🤣🤣 Thank you folks, much appreciated!🙂

It is 108 universes, 500-607. I forgot to count properly. Max Channel is set to 512.

107 is still wrong. Should be 108. No, do not use separate universe for each string. And set max universe size to 512 channels (not 510).

Fantastic! that did it! I changed previews, saved the sequence, closed the sequence, reopened it and exported as FSEQ. uploaded to pi and it worked fine. Thanks Matt, you're the best.

Thanks for the first clue. I let S-6 number the universes, but I had "separate universe for each RGB string" marked. Now I am down to 107 universes. Let me try again and I will get back to you with the results.

Or if you meant a 360w power supply that would be a 30 amp. Personally I usually dial my power supplies in around 12.8v.

First of all, how on earth are you needing 192 universes? Nine P5 panels should be 108 universes. Can you post screen captures of the LOR Prop layout for the P5 matrix, and in FPP the LED layout, and the channel inputs screen. Note, you will need to upload the screen captures to a website and link them as the upload capacity on this forum is HIGHLY limited.

I assume you really meant a 600 watt power supply.... The voltage is entirely dependent on what the pixels need - not the Pixie. You are likely safe with 13.5, but I would not go much over that. I would target about 13.2 (10% over rated 12.0). See if the pixels show a voltage range (good luck with that...)

I have just built at P5 3x3 panel display (total 9 panels, three rows). I have configured my raspberry Pi 4b, running FPP, and Color light card. They both correctly work in test mode. I setup my matrix in S6 Pro as a Matrix-Horizontal-Rectangle with the actual number of strings as 96 and exact number of nodes per string as 192. No folds or Alternate nodes. I am setup for DMX Universes 500-691 in the Preview . In the Networks tab of S-6, I have set up the appropriate connections for DMX 500-691. The software reports that the controller is connected. Now, for my problem. My test sequence will not play the lights. And, the "Test Lights" section of the LOR control panel, with the appropriate prop selected, will not work either. Any suggestions on what could be wrong? Thanks Jim

After changing the preview, try closing the sequence, and then reopening it. Does that work?

Okay, I tried searching for this, but kept getting 0 results, yet **I KNOW** this has been discussed in these forums before. I read them, but can't seem to locate them using thecsearch option. I bought 60Watt 50Amp 12V power supplies for a Pixie16D board, and I know I read that most folks usually set the voltage higher than 12VDC due to voltage fluctuations. I'm just not sure how high above 12VDC output. Is it 13.5VDC, 14VDC, or 15VDC output? I don't want to set it too high or damage the Pixie16D, so any help here would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Very interesting. I will plan on testing this in the next day or so.

By the way, I took this one step further. I created a new sequence with the copied preview and exported that to Fseq. I uploaded it to the pi and it ran fine. So, to recap. I have two identical previews. When I create a new sequence with either of the previews I can export that sequence to FSEQ and it works fine. However, if I change the preview in the sequencer to the other preview it does not work. So, I will just avoid changing previews in my sequences.

Matt, I agree and understand what the help file says. But that is not my problem. My original Preivew has two props. The first is universes 1-504 and the second is universes 505-576. When I create a sequence with this preview and put the butterfly effect on the first prop and export it to FSEQ and upload it to the raspberry pi that is controlling my large display, everything works fine. I see the butterfly effect exactly like I should. But if I make a copy of the preview which has exactly the same universes and exactly the same props and the export that to FSEQ I would expect the exported file to be identical to the one I first created (and which worked). However, this FSEQ file, when uploaded to the pi, does not display anything. Although this problem is interesting, I can live with it. I just have to make sure I never change a preview once I create a sequence that is going to be exported to FSEQ.