maxall777 Posted August 29, 2012 Share Posted August 29, 2012 Hi I am new to the DMX world. I was wondering if I run my LOR controllers in DMX will I be sacrificing any of the functions like shimmer,twinkle ect.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edvas69 Posted August 29, 2012 Share Posted August 29, 2012 Yes you will be sacrificing those features which are special to the LOR communication code when going to DMX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Posted August 29, 2012 Share Posted August 29, 2012 By making the DMX a seperate network, will this still affect the LOR functions that are not in that network? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texascop Posted August 29, 2012 Share Posted August 29, 2012 (edited) No, if I understand your question. I have 6 LOR controllers and 5 DMX universes. Four of the DMX are E1.31 and the other is EntTec Pro. Doesn't affect the LOR side at all. One problem when testing the DMX I found, the sequencer won't run the lights unless you connect the LOR dongle. Every time I hit play, it turns off the "control lights" option. I check mark it back on, click play, no lights. Look at the "control lights" option, it is off again. Plugged in the LOR network dongle and no problem. Doesn't have to be attached to a controller, just connected to the USB port. I am running 3.5 advanced. It almost looks like LOR wants to make sure you have at least one LOR dongle and aren't running straight DMX. Edited August 29, 2012 by texascop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceharger Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 I am having the same problem with DMX and trying to test RGB lights. Has anyone verified this is true that an LOR dongle must be in place to test or run RGB lights? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponddude Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 (edited) Ok, a lot of information here, not all 100% correct. Let me see if I can clear some things up.First off, yes, you need an LOR adapter plugged in and running in order to control anything just DMX. The easiest thing to do is plug in an LOR adapter, add one channel with nothing on it and you are fine. Annoying, but LOR is VERY proprietary and doesn't want you using your LOR software for none LOR products. Dumb in my opinion, but it is what it is.Next, you absolute will get the LOR effects on a DMX network, no matter if you use a native DMX dongle or the iDMX. Here is why....With LOR adding support for DMX, they now rely on the computer for generating the effects. Previously, if you wanted LOR effects on a DMX network, the iDMX would allow you to use 256 of the 512 channels as intelligent channels. These would be used for things like fades and twinkles and shimmers. However, if you had 257 different effects happening at 1 time you would lose on the 257th effect. That was the limitations to the iDMX. That is simply because it is a hardware option DMX bridge. With the introduction of native DMX support in the software, that is no longer the case. The computer will generate those effects and send them to the DMX devices. However, I have found that they do not match up 100%. For example, a DMX twinkle does not look 100% like an LOR twinkle. Hopefully that clears up a few things.Greg Edited September 7, 2012 by Ponddude Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted September 7, 2012 Share Posted September 7, 2012 Ok, a lot of information here, not all 100% correct. Let me see if I can clear some things up.First off, yes, you need an LOR adapter plugged in and running in order to control anything just DMX. The easiest thing to do is plug in an LOR adapter, add one channel with nothing on it and you are fine. Annoying, but LOR is VERY proprietary and doesn't want you using your LOR software for none LOR products. Dumb in my opinion, but it is what it is.Can you point me in the direction of this information? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponddude Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Just go to the two sentences before Mike...lol. Not really wanting to cause a stir here but if you can't use a mode without an LOR device running, than it is proprietary, no matter how you slice it. There are a bunch of posts here of people talking about this so this certainly is not something I made up...its noted on these forums several times. In fact, it was mentioned above by texascop. Now, if the software allowed you to just run DMX devices with no LOR adapter connected, I would have never made that statement, but in its current state (whether by design or not) it does not.Boy I am certainly the hated one around LOR now a days...what a shame.... Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceharger Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Greg, glad you brought up the subject, I was looking for an explanation for the problem myself. This will not be an issue for me as soon as I get my order for the last sale. I did TFF, am waiting on results. Hope the wait is worth it.Keep up the good work!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wbottomley Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Go check out my instructions on how to run LOR in DMX mode without an adapter here. I'm doing that very thing on my sequencing pc right now. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-klb- Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Go check out my instructions on how to run LOR in DMX mode without an adapter here. I'm doing that very thing on my sequencing pc right now.I'll second that it works quite well. The key thing is that if you don't have a USB adapter plugged in, make sure your network configuration doesn't think you have a USB adapter configured. Most of the E1.31 testing I have done, including a small demo/presentation to city council was done with just the laptop, ethernet cable, and E681 driving one or more pixel strings. Much of it from the sequence editor. If you tell it that it has USB hardware, it tends to perform poorly when trying to initialize it and play the sequence.And while yes, the PC will generate the effects, and send them out via DMX, a few users have commented that the effects don't look the same, or look as good. Besides, why have your show PC doing all the math, when your controllers could be doing it instead?Even though I'm adding 16 Universes of E1.31 to the city show this year, I'll still be using an iDMX to control 15 LED wall washers. It has worked well the last 4 years, so why change it, and need to add the extra wiring, etc? Similarly the 3 networks totally roughly 60 16 channel controllers will stay exactly as they have the last 5 years. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffl Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Having to have a LOR dongle plugged in is a small price to pay for all the benefits that E1.31 and standard DMX are offering. Just think of it as a "USB Key". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-klb- Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Having to have a LOR dongle plugged in is a small price to pay for all the benefits that E1.31 and standard DMX are offering. Just think of it as a "USB Key". Unless it has been fixed in one of the last two releases, you do have to install the USB drivers, but as per two posts above, you don't have to have the USB adapter plugged in, as long as you don't have it configured in the network configuration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffl Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Besides, why have your show PC doing all the math, when your controllers could be doing it instead?I know the twinkle and shimmer does not look as good but having channels sticking in my mind is worse. I'm going to be running my LOR controllers in DMX mode and hope the flow is smooth, although maybe not as nice to the trained eye, of which none of my guests probably have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-klb- Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 I know the twinkle and shimmer does not look as good but having channels sticking in my mind is worse. I'm going to be running my LOR controllers in DMX mode and hope the flow is smooth, although maybe not as nice to the trained eye, of which none of my guests probably have.There are two things I would think of for stuck channels. The first is having too many channels on a network, so that some commands may get dropped before they are sent. The other would be an issue on the cable. Either noise being picked up, or bad connections, or something that is allowing the data to get garbled, and not understood by the controller. Hopefully this does not get worse when running the network at 4x the speed that LOR normally does. On the plus side, when DMX updates any channel, it sends the full frame. And depending on how they have it coded, it may be sending frames all the time, not just when there are changes. So any missed commands will get resent much faster. I'd just wonder if you have communications issues to start with, how much more unintended effects you will get with the communication running the whole time, not just on change. Do keep us posted on how it works out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Go check out my instructions on how to run LOR in DMX mode without an adapter here. I'm doing that very thing on my sequencing pc right now.Just go to the two sentences before Mike...lol. Not really wanting to cause a stir here but if you can't use a mode without an LOR device running, than it is proprietary, no matter how you slice it. There are a bunch of posts here of people talking about this so this certainly is not something I made up...its noted on these forums several times. In fact, it was mentioned above by texascop.Now, if the software allowed you to just run DMX devices with no LOR adapter connected, I would have never made that statement, but in its current state (whether by design or not) it does not.Boy I am certainly the hated one around LOR now a days...what a shame.... GregSo after being shown how to correctly run the software without an adapter, would you like to retract your statement? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponddude Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 (edited) I have moved my post with Mike to a private conversation. Edited September 8, 2012 by Ponddude Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zman Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 (edited) Ok, a lot of information here, not all 100% correct. Let me see if I can clear some things up.First off, yes, you need an LOR adapter plugged in and running in order to control anything just DMX. The easiest thing to do is plug in an LOR adapter, add one channel with nothing on it and you are fine. Annoying, but LOR is VERY proprietary and doesn't want you using your LOR software for none LOR products. Dumb in my opinion, but it is what it is.Next, you absolute will get the LOR effects on a DMX network, no matter if you use a native DMX dongle or the iDMX. Here is why....With LOR adding support for DMX, they now rely on the computer for generating the effects. Previously, if you wanted LOR effects on a DMX network, the iDMX would allow you to use 256 of the 512 channels as intelligent channels. These would be used for things like fades and twinkles and shimmers. However, if you had 257 different effects happening at 1 time you would lose on the 257th effect. That was the limitations to the iDMX. That is simply because it is a hardware option DMX bridge. With the introduction of native DMX support in the software, that is no longer the case. The computer will generate those effects and send them to the DMX devices. However, I have found that they do not match up 100%. For example, a DMX twinkle does not look 100% like an LOR twinkle. Hopefully that clears up a few things.GregGreg, did I miss something? When did LOR go to 256 iCHANS? I thought it was 128 up from 64 when they went from the LOR DMX of 256 channels to DMX512. So 128 was the last limit I knew of.I learn something new every day. Did not know the work around of the LOR Adaptor with 1 channel. Thanks. Edited September 8, 2012 by zman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wbottomley Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Or Mark... go to my post above and you don't have to make one channel. It's worked flawless so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponddude Posted September 8, 2012 Share Posted September 8, 2012 Mark...wasn't it at 128 channels and doubled when they updated the firmware? If not than that really is wrong and makes using the LOR adapter even more useable...unless you aren't using a computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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