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HolidayCoro DMX install Caveat to avoid comm issues


sonny1

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Just a quick tip, if you are running the LOR USB/RS485 to the standard controllers, and are planning to add DMX to your display:

Before you install the Holiday Coro DMX dongle, unplug the USB connection to the LOR RS485 network, otherwise the DMX stuff may not talk.

The reason for this is that the PC will install new FTDI drivers when the 'plug and pray' runs in Windows to load the FTDI drivers for the HolidayCoro dongle
The LOR USB/RS485 also uses these drivers, so the plugged in LOR dongle will start the drivers up when the pc starts, and the Coro will never be added to the FTDI configuration.

I beat my head on this one a couple of days: my wirings wrong, the DMX decoder is incompatible/not addressed correctly, etc. The weird thing was, XLLights worked, but LOR did not.

I unplugged the RS485, left the Coro plugged in, restarted the pc, and test LOR with the Coro RGB dongle, success! I plugged the LOR USB in, and the LOR USB drivers 'upgraded' as well. 

 

hope this helps!
Sonny

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for the tip on this.  Good to know to avoid the frustration.

Has anyone tried to implement a second local area network that LOR describes on pages 31 – 33 of its DMX / E1.31 intro document here?

I have a stand-alone Win7 PC have that will ONLY be used to operate my lights (much simpler and cheaper than the total cost of Raspberry Pi, required peripherals/devices, and futzing time).  The LOR intro to DMX and E1.31 describes an option for the second LAN that will meet my needs.

 

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I don't believe what Sonny said is true I never unplugged my usb485  dongle I'm running two DMX dongles and also a E1-31 lan line

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4 hours ago, Ed K said:

I have a stand-alone Win7 PC have that will ONLY be used to operate my lights (much simpler and cheaper than the total cost of Raspberry Pi, required peripherals/devices, and futzing time).  

Raspberry PI and everything to run it as a Falcon player for under $75

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Yeah, I probably should've said that my control pc is an old p4 XP system, off the house subnet. XP never did plug and pray well. I had the old Ftdi drivers installed in it to run the LOR controllers, which have been in there for about 5 yrs now. With the Lor dongle plugged in, the driver would not update, even the network program would not see the dmx dongle.

I've done some arduino stuff and really like the AT-Tiny 85's for making little toy flashie stuff with, and have an older rasp-pi system on the bench. Never thought about trying light control with it. Got a link for the Falcon stuff?

I don't know about the 131 dmx networking stuff, but I would imagine another network card and bridging the two networks would get the control signals over to the new subnet... just guessing here. I use this method with a WiFi sign I built to display song title and fm station. My setup is not elaborate (wife won't let me put in another service entrance), so I try to keep it all under 15amps. But it's still fun, and keeps me out of the bar....:)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 5 months later...
On 2/12/2016 at 2:54 PM, Ed K said:

Has anyone tried to implement a second local area network that LOR describes on pages 31 – 33 of its DMX / E1.31 intro document here?

Yes.  I have a dedicated show computer that has two LANs.  LAN #1 is my normal home LAN that has all my "normal" home network wired stuff (the WiFi is completely separate).  LAN #1 uses addresses in the 192.168.201.nnn range and is referred to as my .201 LAN, and uses blue Cat-5 cables.  LAN #2 is used for E1.31 traffic only, uses addresses in the 192.168.131.nnn range, is referred to as my .131 LAN. and uses green Cat-5 cables.  Other than the two year-round E1.31 controllers (four for Christmas), the only devices on the .131 LAN are the show computer and file server, and 4 LAN switches.  All show files are stored on the server, and although the show computer can communicate with the file server on either LAN, the routing table in the show computer sets the priority to use the .201 LAN, leaving the .131 LAN for only E1.31 traffic.  BTW, I also have three RS-485 adapters for three LOR networks (although Aux B is only used for Christmas).

 

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6 hours ago, k6ccc said:

Yes.  I have a dedicated show computer that has two LANs.  LAN #1 is my normal home LAN that has all my "normal" home network wired stuff (the WiFi is completely separate).  LAN #1 uses addresses in the 192.168.201.nnn range and is referred to as my .201 LAN, and uses blue Cat-5 cables.  LAN #2 is used for E1.31 traffic only, uses addresses in the 192.168.131.nnn range, is referred to as my .131 LAN. and uses green Cat-5 cables.  Other than the two year-round E1.31 controllers (four for Christmas), the only devices on the .131 LAN are the show computer and file server, and 4 LAN switches.  All show files are stored on the server, and although the show computer can communicate with the file server on either LAN, the routing table in the show computer sets the priority to use the .201 LAN, leaving the .131 LAN for only E1.31 traffic.  BTW, I also have three RS-485 adapters for three LOR networks (although Aux B is only used for Christmas).

 

This is a really old thread; did you mean to post here?

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Actually, Jim's post was perfect timing and meant to be. I'm gettin ready to add a seocnd port just like this and what Jim explain. And I just got off the phone with Jim. Thank you Jim for posting this and for the visit over the phone. :)

The thread isn't THAT "really old". Just six months ago.

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  • 1 year later...

I am new to this so bear with me please, I bought the plug n play Holiday Coro mega tree and it works great problem I have is running it in visualizer because the words and props in the sequences are upside down when you play it back through visualizer, suggestions on how to correct this would appreciated?  I used tree wizard to setup the tree in visualizer.

 

 

 

Edited by KR light show
thought I did something wrong when it showed hidded.
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