mini director vs.DC MP3 director

[lewishj]

I have a mini director and tech support tells me it can't handle the show I'm force feeding it. The ccrs have dead spots at times and some colors are different on fast flashes. I'm running 4-16 channel boxes and 3 ccrs (ccrs are all using same ID number). I'm using the latest S2 on Vista. All my firmware is updated including harware utility. The show seems to operate fine off the pc. What I'm curious about is: Will a DC MP3 director be able to handle what the mini director can't? Or should I run the show from a PC as advised.

[JBullard]

If tech support advised using the PC, then ...

To my knowledge, both units use the same "basic guts".

I have run 30 16 channel boxes and 2 CCRs from my mini-director, but maybe my sequences were not as complicated as yours may be.

[Dennis Cherry]

JBullard wrote:

If tech support advised using the PC, then ...

To my knowledge, both units use the same "basic guts".

I have run 30 16 channel boxes and 2 CCRs from my mini-director, but maybe my sequences were not as complicated as yours may be.

Last year my display had a difficult time on one sequence, it had some very very complicated timings.

Now my display has 206 channels of DMX using the IDMX-1000.

4 CCR's with some very wild programming using SSL Instant Sequence.

Using a Mini-Director also.

Had a lot of lags at the end of this sequence so bad that it wold be 10 or more second behind the music.

MP3 is set to 128K

It is now fixed this year still using the same mini director.

Here is what what you need to check.

1. In S2/3 go into the EDIT>Preferences>Network Preferences and in the lower right hand corner of the dialog box make sure that "Use compatibility mode for old MCP controllers" is NOT checked.

2. I use the "Hardware Utility" to transfer the files to the memory card.
2a. Start the "Hardware Utility" does not make any difference if a 485 adapter is connected or not.
2b. Click on the "LOR MP3" tab.
2c. Right hand side click on "Add Seq" and locate your sequence to load and click OK. The HW utility will check if your sequence meets certain requirements.

For this test only we will now transfer the file to the memory card. If this was a show then you can add the rest of your files before going to the nest step.

2d. Click on "CREATE SHOW" then read the next dialog box then click OK.

Now the critical part that worked for me.

2e. Make sure the "Lock Step" is NOT checked.
2f. Comm Speed defaults to 57.6K but you will click on 115.4K instead.

Now click on "Place show on SD card" when finished remove the SD card and place into the mini director.

These settings worked for me after several weeks of trying different option combinations.

Tonight it fixed my favorite sequence that has bugged me since last year.

You might also check the your mini director has the latest firmware.

Let us know if this worked on your problem.

[lewishj]

Thanks for taking the time to help me out. I've tried all of your instructions except 2e and 2f. Last year I didn't use the lock step and had a lot of problems. Even the fm transmitter affected it until I moved it. This is my first year using ccrs, given the past problems, I automatically used the lock step this time. I will try it without the lock step. I noticed tonight after show 1, my second show with only animation froze with all the lights on except 3 small segments of the ccrs remained on( white and red) while the remaining 47 were off. Strange. I have a twenty minute musical show for the evenings and an animation show for later at night, so people's stereos will not keep the neighbors up. What I've done is, repeated my musical show to run for 3 and a half hours under show 1, and then repeated my animation show for an hour under show 2. I debated breaking these up into individual shows up to the limit. I don't know if that would make a difference. As far as the firmware, I have the mdm mp3 v1 file, but my hardware utility can't find and communicate with the mini director. The mini director just keeps blinking and the hardware utility just says grabbing unit, but never does. I'm starting to feel like my director is the problem. My set up is no where near as large as yours and I didn't think it was too elaborate. Most songs are set to a tenth of a second scale with one at a twentieth of a second. I do keep them jumping though, using a lot of transitions and effects. Most of the elements of my show are always doing something, especially the ccrs. I manually programmed those for full control, and the fact that macros make them do bizarre stuff. I'll try out your suggestions for a couple of days and let you know how it goes. If you have some more ideas, I'd love to hear those as well. Once again, I really appreciate you taking the time to help me out. It can be a pain, but it's all worth it when a school bus of little kids go by freaking out when they see me hanging the lights. Thanks again.

[lewishj]

Hey, thanks for the advice. Turning off the lock step and changing the comm speed did the trick. There was even a noticeable difference in the transitions of the rest of my led's. I tried one at a time, and didn't have much luck, but the two together almost completely solved my problems. I really appreciate the help, that little mini director has given me a headache for over two years. Now, maybe my blood pressure will go down a little bit. Ha! Thanks again.