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Sanity check request on way to shut down show on a trigger


k6ccc

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Currently I run landscape lighting shows every night.  The evening show runs until either 2200 or 2300 every evening and then a static overnight show runs until dawn.  The evening show starts with a trigger from a light sensor that detects that it's getting dark.  The overnight show runs until the scheduled time expires.  The problem with that is that I have change the scheduled end time for the overnight show every week or two as the sunrise time changes.  Since LOR has not added the ability to stop a show based on a trigger, I came up with an idea and want to see if anyone sees any problem with my idea.

The short version is that I would add a relay controlled by a channel on the first controller on the LOR network that has all my lighting controllers.  When that channel is turned on, it would control a relay that would open the LOR network to all the other controllers downstream of the relay.  Since those controllers would lose RS-485 signal, they would time out and turn off.  So even though the show computer might still be sending commands, they would go no where.  The channel with the relay would be turned on by an interactive sequence that would be triggered by a light sensor that detects that the sun is up.

Anyone see any real issues?

 

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When I did the Light Fight I needed a way to shut off the display from my wireless remote, so I programmed a blank sequence.  It was one second long with no data.  Worked perfect for me.    Shut down whatever sequence was running. 

Edited by plasmadrive
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12 hours ago, Grinch said:

if the lights are ON will they stay ON until they get the command to turn OFF?  Are these RGB or LED lights?

 

I don't believe that's correct (and my tests agree).  As far as I can tell, if a controller has lights on, and if it looses RS-485 data, after a few seconds it will shut all lights off.  They will stay off as long as the controller is not receiving data.

 

3 hours ago, plasmadrive said:

When I did the Light Fight I needed a way to shut off the display from my wireless remote, so I programmed a blank sequence.  It was one second long with no data.  Worked perfect for me.    Shut down whatever sequence was running. 

 

How did you have it shut off any running sequence?  I assume you used the blank sequence as part of an interactive group.  I use Jukebox type interactive groups all the time in my landscape lighting shows, but have never used either of the other two types of interactive groups.  However reading the documentation, none of the interactive groups will shut down any running sequence EXCEPT other sequences in the same interactive group.  Sequences playing in the animation, musical, or background tabs will continue to play.  Even if the "blank" sequence has every channel in it (turned off), as soon as the blank sequence ended, the previously running sequence would continue to send out lighting commands.

 

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I don't have that laptop in front of me, but I believe I used "Soundboard".  All my sequences were only interactive when I wanted to use the remote.  I did not use the interactive for the regular running of the display, only for the Light Fight and for troubleshooting and when I wanted to take video.   I ran all my music sequences and my "all on" and "all off" (animations) in the same group and made that a "show".  That way any triggered input shut down the playing sequence and it would not restart after the interactive stopped. 

I think I remember that if I had a show running and did a triggered animated sequence, it only added to the show.. as in both ran at the same time.  I think you would have to run your sequences in interactive only and rely on the triggers to control them.  Perhaps loop them.  I do know that music sequences took precedence over animated because two musical can't run at the same time.

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50 minutes ago, plasmadrive said:

I don't have that laptop in front of me, but I believe I used "Soundboard".  All my sequences were only interactive when I wanted to use the remote.  I did not use the interactive for the regular running of the display, only for the Light Fight and for troubleshooting and when I wanted to take video.   I ran all my music sequences and my "all on" and "all off" (animations) in the same group and made that a "show".  That way any triggered input shut down the playing sequence and it would not restart after the interactive stopped. 

I think I remember that if I had a show running and did a triggered animated sequence, it only added to the show.. as in both ran at the same time.  I think you would have to run your sequences in interactive only and rely on the triggers to control them.  Perhaps loop them.  I do know that music sequences took precedence over animated because two musical can't run at the same time.

OK, now that makes sense.  For the special situation where you are running everything in an interactive group, there are several things that can be done.  However, that does not help for "normal" show operation.  Does give a few other ideas to investigate..

 

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9 hours ago, k6ccc said:

 

I don't believe that's correct (and my tests agree).  As far as I can tell, if a controller has lights on, and if it looses RS-485 data, after a few seconds it will shut all lights off.  They will stay off as long as the controller is not receiving data.

I was doing tests with my E682 San Device and made a config change and restarted the control when the lights were ON and they stayed on until I got the controller back up and turned them OFF.  On the LOR controllers the lights did go out  once they lost the signal.

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Jim, I may only be showing off my ignorance with triggers here for I do not use them but,,,,

Could you make the "dawn trigger" to play a blank sequence (like 1 hour) that encompasses you normal end time? That way your show would seem to shut off at dawn and while running that blank your show would expire during that time and shut down.

???again, I have no idea if this would work, seems like it would???

 

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4 hours ago, Grinch said:

I was doing tests with my E682 San Device and made a config change and restarted the control when the lights were ON and they stayed on until I got the controller back up and turned them OFF.  On the LOR controllers the lights did go out  once they lost the signal.

 

E1.31 devices are different.  I specifically need to be able to kill several LOR controllers. 

 

3 hours ago, saxon said:

Could you make the "dawn trigger" to play a blank sequence (like 1 hour) that encompasses you normal end time? That way your show would seem to shut off at dawn and while running that blank your show would expire during that time and shut down.

 

The problem would be having the blank sequence would be playing at the same time as the normal overnight sequence.  That results in conflicting commands, and somewhat un-predictable results.

 

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1 minute ago, k6ccc said:

The problem would be having the blank sequence would be playing at the same time as the normal overnight sequence.  That results in conflicting commands, and somewhat un-predictable results.

Oh, Ok. I thought there was an option (jukebox, or something) that stops your normal show and plays what is triggered and if your normal show were to expired during that time, it would work. - like I said, don't use triggers, only read up on them awhile back.

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Two of the interactive types will stop other sequences in that interactive group, but not sequences in the background, musical, or animation tabs.

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  • 1 month later...

Here is a followup to this thread.  As of today, this is what my LOR network looks like (does not include E1.31):

http://newburghlights.org/images/LOR_Network_2016-04-19.pdf

The blue network (AuxB) is used for Christmas only, and since this project in only for my year round landscape lighting, is not a factor.  My Normal network (drawn in red) only has the InputPup, and therefore also does not need to be interrupted.  I did some testing using the hardware utility.  I turned on all channels on controllers 13 & 14 (because I could see some of the lights from the garage where I was working).  I then turned on controller 15, channel 8 which turned on the relay.  Within 2 or three seconds, the lights went off.

In other words, the plan should work.  I should have the light sensor part of it hooked up next weekend.

 

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FYI... 

We just did some new work on Show Directors for a 'round robin' trigger play.  That won't help you at all, but it does mean that Dan is thinking about triggers right now and the iron is HOT.  I will drop a hint about a 'Trigger Disables Show' type trigger and see what he says :)

 

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Thanks Mike.  I recall I submitted it as a Wish List item a couple years ago, but maybe I'll drop it there again.

BTW, if you're dropping hints, pass on to the forum management people that under profile, we can't set software version any later than 4.3.4

 

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I'm going to run this message again.  I either didn't realize or forgot that the forum would not insert a pdf file into a message, but rather leave it as a link.  This time as a jpg instead, so it can be seen without having to follow the link...

Here is a followup to this thread.  As of today, this is what my LOR network looks like (does not include E1.31):

 

LOR_Network_2016-04-19.jpg

The blue network (AuxB) is used for Christmas only, and since this project in only for my year round landscape lighting, is not a factor.  My Normal network (drawn in red) only has the InputPup, and therefore also does not need to be interrupted.  I did some testing using the hardware utility.  I turned on all channels on controllers 13 & 14 (because I could see some of the lights from the garage where I was working).  I then turned on controller 15, channel 8 which turned on the relay.  Within 2 or three seconds, the lights went off.

In other words, the plan should work.  I should have the light sensor part of it hooked up next weekend.

And a wishlist request has been submitted...

 

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  • 2 months later...

I finally had time to put together the light sensor circuit and yesterday installed it.  It worked perfectly.  Last evening as it got dark, I adjusted the voltage trip point for the degree of darkness that I wanted.  This morning at 0530 I was up and went out to the DC column where the light sensor circuit is located.  Other than adjusting the trip voltage for the sensor a little so that it would trigger when it was a little darker, it worked perfectly.  The only real issue is that because the RS-485 data circuit for the InputPup remains intact when the relay operates, the show player continuously "sees" the trigger and logs it every 5 seconds and therefore fills the log in the status display.  I think I may modify the relay circuit so that it kills the regular network (shown in red on the drawing) which has the InputPup.

 

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Yesterday I modified the relay circuit so that I would not see the repeated triggers from the InputPup every 5 seconds.  Here is the revised drawing of the network.  Note that there is also E1.31 that is not shown in this drawing.  Since none of the E1.31 is used for the overnight show, there was no need to kill it with the trigger.  There is a security light that is on channel 1 of the CTB08 in the garage that stays on until the "real" end of the show.  It's LED based so I'm not overly worried about the power consumption of is running for an hour or so in the morning.  If I get really inspired, I could have a separate relay interrupt power to it, but the power cost would not justify the cost of a relay (yes, I did the math).  If anyone wants the circuit drawing for the "Sun is up" light sensor circuit, I can provide it.  It's a two stage OpAmp based voltage comparitor.  The first stage is a simple bridge that has a CDS cell as part of the bridge.  The second stage is driven by the first stage and has a large capacitor that takes about 2 minutes to charge and less than one second to discharge.  The purpose of that is to prevent the show being shut down by a car headlight or someone with a flashlight hitting the sensor for a short period of time.

LOR_Network_2016-07-19.jpg

 

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