8 CCP's received! (but not performing as I had hoped)

[blbeattie]

Well, last week I received the 8 sets of CCP's I ordered in the Spring sale. Very nice set of lights and controllers.

Unfortunately, I can not send fades or color transitions and get the desired or anticipated results. The only effects I can use (without employing what I feel are pretty limiting macros) are single color commands (no fading on or off, and no color transitions).

I have even tried just using 1 controller at a time, and having only that controller in the test sequence.

So far, pretty disappointing. I bought these thinking I could use some of Nutcrackers effects on a Mega tree, but it looks like the performance is well below the level I thought I would get from them.

I was hoping to buy a few more (for the back of the Mega Tree and around my windows), but I may go another direction.

[Don]

You can't send a fade to the CCP?

Try running this sequence: http://syncxmas.com/Jed1fy

Do the CCP's fade when you run the linked sequence?

[blbeattie]

Thanks, Don. They do look better with your little sequence.

One thing I did notice is that your las code is much more 'compact' than what is being generated in nutcracker. Your little 17 second sequence file size is ~250k. That is just 1 ccp controller. But one 10 second (3 CCP's) las file from nutcracker is ~3.2mb.

I think I will still have to be kind of 'conservative' with what I ask them to do.

All in all awesome colors and brightness, though...

Thanks again. This gives me hope that these are going to work. Still not convinced that I want to invest anymore in them until I see what they can really do (or rather, what I can do with them).

[k6ccc]

blbeattie wrote:

Well, last week I received the 8 sets of CCP's I ordered in the Spring sale. Very nice set of lights and controllers.

Unfortunately, I can not send fades or color transitions and get the desired or anticipated results. The only effects I can use (without employing what I feel are pretty limiting macros) are single color commands (no fading on or off, and no color transitions).

I have even tried just using 1 controller at a time, and having only that controller in the test sequence.

So far, pretty disappointing. I bought these thinking I could use some of Nutcrackers effects on a Mega tree, but it looks like the performance is well below the level I thought I would get from them.

I was hoping to buy a few more (for the back of the Mega Tree and around my windows), but I may go another direction.

I have to wonder what is different between your expectations and what you observe? I have only played with my 3 CCPs a little, but they performed as I expected. I easily wrote some simple sequences for fades, chases, combinations , etc.

[blbeattie]

If you're familiar with Nutcracker's premise, he basically takes the geometry of your tree (or matrix), and 'maps out' each pixel, and then given some of your parameters (# of strings, # of pixels per string, layout, start/end color's, length in seconds of effect, etc...) he builds the sequence to acheive that effect.

So for my initial test, I just used a 6 CCP strings folded over (3 controllers, made 12 25 pixel strings, basically) 'matrix' layout and tried creating an easy (at least what I thought would be) 'meteor' effect, all in one color (which faded out). And it was only a 10 second effect.

What I was seeing in reality was that the strings (or my computer?) seemed overwhelmed with the amount of data/commands which were being sent, and could not keep up. It seemed to be 'jerky' (both in the pixels themselves, and even S3 was 'jumpy'), and the pixels would not often even be red, but more random colors not even in the Red 'family'

So I modified the sequence to be just 2 strings (1 ccp controller), saved that in a different las, and re-ran. The results were really not much better.

But in comparing the xml file Don sent me to the Nutcracker generated xml, it looks like there may be a lot more commands or information generated in Nutcracker than what LOR produces natively. That's not meant to be a knock AT ALL against Nutcracker, just that LOR should probably be more efficient at generating it's own code.

I am still very impressed with what Nutcracker does, I just don't know whether my system will be able to produce the idealized (and hoped for) results. We'll see. I'll keep plugging away.

Here is what my effect looked like (in theory) in a generated GIF from Nutcracker (I'm not sure our Internet here at work will allow the gif to be uploaded...):




Attached files

[-klb-]

If you are running from the sequence editor, make sure you have as much of the editors display effects turned off as possible, and see if that makes any difference.

[blbeattie]

I thought about that (Sequence Editor using up resources), so I tried running that animation sequence as a 'Show On Demand' (with the Sequence Editor off), and it performed the same.

[heystew]

if you turn off Control Lights and just let it run in the Visualizer or S3. Is it still having issues?

[thebaronn]

I haven't used Nutcracker (although it was reccommended). But I plugged my CCPs into LSP and there were some issues (colors just coming "on" instead of fading and colors not shutting off) but I used the same sequence in S3 and it worked well. The fades aren't the same as incandescent lights, but I'm used to that since the majority of my display was already LED. But the kids LOVED them!!!!

Did you have all your CCP on one network? I read somewhere that they wanted 3 100ct CCP/network?? If so, I need a lot more USB ports! (I would like clarification on that if anyone knows)

[-klb-]

One more possibility. If nutcracker is putting out full frames into the sequence, even if the status is identical from one frame to the next, will the S3 player manage to thin this out, and not wind up sending every pixel, on every frame?

I wonder if the key thing is a post filter process on the nutcracker output to thin out unnecessary commands, and possibly convert series of intensities into fades where possible?

Of course, if this is even relevant depends on if nutcracker is putting out full frames into the sequence or not.

[Don]

thebaronn wrote:

Did you have all your CCP on one network? I read somewhere that they wanted 3 100ct CCP/network?? If so, I need a lot more USB ports! (I would like clarification on that if anyone knows)

A great post was just made about that today.

http://forums.lightorama.com/forum89/33106.html

In short, the more action you have going on (fast chases, fades, etc.) the fewer CCD (cosmic color devices) you will want on the network.

[blbeattie]

To rule out the number of CCP's per network, I have been testing with either just one or two CCP's.

But what KLB suggests is what I was kind alluding to in one of my earlier posts, where I thought that Don's sequence (the actual LAS file) looked much more 'compact' than the simple (I THOUGHT it was simple) sequence I created in Nutcracker.

I think you really may be onto something with the '... convert series of intensities into fades where possible'. In comparing the files, the Nutcracker sequence is much more granular, where ever centisecond for every pixel has a command being sent.

At least that's what it looks like to me.

[thebaronn]

Don wrote:

thebaronn wrote:

Did you have all your CCP on one network? I read somewhere that they wanted 3 100ct CCP/network?? If so, I need a lot more USB ports! (I would like clarification on that if anyone knows)

A great post was just made about that today.

http://forums.lightorama.com/forum89/33106.html

In short, the more action you have going on (fast chases, fades, etc.) the fewer CCD (cosmic color devices) you will want on the network.

OMG! I AM in trouble! 3/network...... I'm about to cry

[PaulXmas]

I ran into that problem with my CCRs last year.
I had 4 running on one network and it looked so bad that I disconnected the controllers.

I think it was ItsMeBobO that helped me by suggesting that I add at least another network.

And to take out all the fades because I was sending too many commands over the network.

So I did a quick edit of all my sequences and took out the fades and that did work but not as nice as I wanted.

So I ordered a "USB to RS485 Adapter" for each CCR (over kill but I wanted to make sure they worked) and when they arrived and I set them up.


Converted the sequences back to the all the fades and fast commands and they performed as expected!

I am adding a set of CCPs and one more CCR this year and plan adding them to one of the networks.

But if I have problem I will use my spare "USB to RS485 Adapter".

You can have 127 USB devices and even if you only use 3 CCDs per network thats 381 CCDs!!!

You will need a netork cable for each one so that is a LOT of cables comming from your computer!

[blbeattie]

Thanks, Paul.

I don't have 14 USB ports on my computer, so I hope I can use a (or a few) USB hub(s) and still get the appropriate thruput.

I hate to have to spend that much on these USB to RS485's, though...

But if I have to...

[PaulXmas]

I had to stop and thing of what a computer with 127 USB port on it would look like or even 14. That is a lot!!!!
You can use a HUB.
I use a 7 port powered USB hub for my 5 RS485s plus the 5 on the PC for hard drive and other devices. I might get away with a none powered one but its not worth taking a change to save a buck or two.

[Donny M. Carter]

And this thread is the main reason E1.31 is important!

[Guest guest]

I installed an internal PCI high-speed 5 port USB hub in my desktop, which already had 8, that's right 8 USB hubs, already taken up by other things, video recorders, mouse, card reader/writer, LOR USB485B, Keyboard, digital photo keychain and 2 Printers.

So now my desktop has 13 high powerd USB hubs on it. So I'm just one short of the 14.

But 127, I think I'll leave that for someone else to accomplish.:cool:

[PMC]

back in the LOR summer sale of 2009 I purchased 12 CCR's upon their arrival a few weeks later I spent a good part of my summer and fall getting to know what they can do and what their limitations were, I found out quickly 1 USB 485 was "ok" for 12 CCR's but don't scroll text, and when I added my regular LOR controllers I thought I could get away with 12 CCR's and 6 LOR controllers on 1 network.....NOPE

I quickly ordered 2 more from LOR and now that I'm adding 2 CCP's to the mix I will order 3 more USB adapters

1 - for my standard LOR controllers
3 - 12 CCR matrix
1 - 2 CCP's

and 1 spare

I have my show computer as a stand alone, I don't do anything else but LOR related programs on it. I bought it new from Tiger Direct for $175.00 as a bare bones kit and I already had a install disk with 3 licenses for win7 and I have 7 USB ports so I am good

[LightORamaJohn]

While we have a 4 port E1.31 device and S3 software support, this is not the best solution for most customers. USB adapters are cheaper and simpler. I would hold off buying large numbers of USB adapters/ports or going to E1.31 for a while.

We have been looking at the network bandwidth and the comm protocol.

I have seen a few posts where people removed fades when dealing with large numbers of RGB pixels to get better results. We know that how fades are handled by the low level of LOR can be significantly improved.

Testing of higher network speeds looks promising. Our 12 CCR tree driven by SuperStar sequences worked perfectly on one network. We need to be sure that the are no network gotcha's when upping the speed. Hopefully, nothing untoward will show up and we can release this. If we can fit the fade optimization into the schedule it would be even better.