16 DMX Universe performance question

[heystew]

Has anyone tried a very large setup with the new DMX capability? I am looking to add the full 16 universes to my existing setup and looking for any feedback before i make the financial commitment to it.

Setup would now include:
- 500 Channels of traditional LOR controllers on 2 networks
- 5 DMX Universes on 2 networks using iDMX's (~ 2500 channels)
- 16 DMX universes via DMX control (RS485 or Entec)(~8000 channels)


If so several questions:
1. Have you had good luck with very large USB hubs or several smaller ones cascaded?
2. Have you tried a CAT5 usb extender to minimize the number of home runs needed
3. I assume that the Entec Pro would be advantageous in this case once S3 supports the adding processing it can provide (although it would be great if i could just use 16 of the RS-485 adapters)

[-klb-]

One item, is that I believe the limit is 16 total networks. So 2 LOR networks would only leave 14 for native DMX

[Denny]

It might also be a good idea to contact LOR directly. They have done several very large commercial venues, so they may have the answers to your questions for something so large.

[heystew]

I took this line from section 5.3.4.2.2.7 Network Preferences of the help file. I read this to mean I could do more than 16 total. Maybe I was reading into it what i wanted to see.

"Light-O-Rama can control hardware on all of these ports (as well as on Digital IO cards and BSOFT Digital IO cards, which do not use serial ports) simultaneously."

So I guess the question becomes. Does the limit of 16 networks include all network types.. or is it a per network type limitation.

thanks,
Dave

[bob]

An Advanced license can use up to 16 DMX universes, regardless of what other networks it may or may not use.

Regarding the processing advantage of the ENTTEC Pro: Please note that the current LOR release (version 3.0.2) does not take advantage of this. However, we intend to start doing so as of the next release.

[JonB256]

bob wrote:

Regarding the processing advantage of the ENTTEC Pro: Please note that the current LOR release (version 3.0.2) does not take advantage of this. However, we intend to start doing so as of the next release.

If I read this correctly, there is NO advantage (in this release) to using the ENTTEC Pro?

[bob]

I don't know enough about it to say if that's true -- for example, it's got two DMX ports, one male and one female, rather than the Open's single female port -- but with regards to CPU usage, yes, there is no advantage to using a Pro in LOR version 3.0.0 or 3.0.2.

If you do use a Pro, though, and upgrade to 3.0.4 (or whatever the next version turns out to be), the improvement will take effect automatically without you needing to do anything.