Keeping Lights On At The End Of A Sequence

[k6ccc]

First of all, you need to know that I use my LOR for landscape lighting, rather than a "traditional" show. As such I am in a somewhat unusual situation that the primary lighting sequence starts and ends with the light full on. Under normal circumstances that one sequence plays over and over all night long. The problem I am having is that all the lights are switching off for a second or two at the end of every run through that 4 minute sequence.

Here is some detail of my configuration.

I have a show (called Year-round_Evening.lss) that currently is scheduled to come on every evening at 7:45 PM and run until 5:30 AM

In that show, I have the following sequences in the various tabs:

In Startup: a single sequence called: Landscaping startup 2012-06-29.las

In Annimation: a single sequence called: Landscaping 2012-06-21.las

In Shutdown: a single sequence called: Landscaping shutdown 2012-06-29

In all the sections, I DO NOT have the box checked to turn off all lights at the end of the sequence.

The Landscaping startup 2012-06-29 sequence simply ramps all the lights from 0 to 100% over 10 seconds.

The Landscaping 2012-06-21 sequence starts and ends with all the lights at 100% and over 4 minutes ramps them up and down in various cycles

The Landscaping shutdown 2012-06-29 sequence simply ramps all the lights from 100 to 0% over 10 seconds.

I obviously do not want the lights to ever all go off at any time during the show except at the end of the shutdown sequence. Any ideas what I'm missing?

The show computer is a rather old Windows XP laptop running LOR version 3.4.0

I use this Windows XP desktop for all configuration and sequencing currently running LOR version 3.3.0

Both computers are reading and saving all LOR files on my Windows 2000 Server across my network.

[k6ccc]

BTW, the normal 4 minute sequence worked just fine when I downloaded it to one of my controllers and ran it as a standalone from there (other than it ran 24 hours a day).

[k6ccc]

Here is a followup. Currently I have 16 LED strings powered by a DC controller, 3 incans by an AC controller, and one LED string by one of the PWM ports on a Servo Dog. At the end of the sequence, all the lights go off EXCEPT the one port on the Servo Dog.

[Steven]

Off the wall question: What level is your license?

[k6ccc]

Advanced

[k6ccc]

Problem resolved! Replaced the REALLY old and SLOW computer that was being used as the show computer. New computer made everything happy.

As a test, this morning I had a 1 minute show interrupt the normal overnight "show" with four 10 second animation sequences. Of course I knew exactly when to expect the normal show to shut down and was standing out in the front yard when the overnight show ended and the test show started. Even between shows I did not even see a blink of the lights. I assume there was one since the lights are supposed to shut down between shows, but I did not see it. Between the sequences, I never saw even the slightest wink. At the end of the one minute show, I show a very slight wink as one show ended and the normal overnight show started back up. With the old computer, a similar switch would have resulted in almost 15 seconds of dark. However as you can see from the log extract, it was MUCH faster with the new computer:

05:30:00: Current show is entering shutdown mode

05:30:00: Stopping Animation: L:\Sequences\Landscaping overnight 2012-11.01.las.lcs

05:30:00: Stopping Animation: L:\Sequences\Landscaping overnight 2012-11.01.las.lcs

05:30:00: Ending Animation: L:\Sequences\Landscaping overnight 2012-11.01.las.lcs

05:30:00: Finished show: L:\Sequences\Year-round_Overnight.lss

05:30:00: Starting show: L:\Sequences\Multi-sequence test.lss

05:30:00: Loading sequence: L:\Sequences\Multi-sequence test 1.las

05:30:00: Exporting compressed sequence for L:\Sequences\Multi-sequence test 1.las

05:30:00: Starting Animation: L:\Sequences\Multi-sequence test 1.las

It's all working the way it's supposed to!

So the moral of the story is that although we all know that you can use an old slow computer as a show computer, there are limits to how slow you can go...