Question About Channels

[sharpsvillelights]

I have seen some comments about channels and maxing out.  I don't quite understand this.

I have 22 LOR controllers for 352 channels.  I will be adding 4 CCP's this year.  As I understand I can wire them with Cat 5 the same was as the LOR controllers And I can even go from or to an LOR controller.

So in this configuration do I have to worry about channels?

[BrianBruderer]

On the SuperStar forum the questions about maxing out on channels usually refer to using Instant Sequence in SuperStar to sequence all your lights, and they want to make sure they have the proper license level to be able to export all their lights. In your case, 4 CCP controllers supports 8 CCP strings, and each CCP string uses 150 channels. So the 8 CCP strings use 1200 channels. If you only want to use SuperStar to sequence your 8 CCP strings then you can use the 8 CCR license level of SuperStar. If you want to use SuperStar to sequence you 8 CCP strings plus you other LOR controllers, you will need to use the next higher license level of SuperStar which is the 24 CCR license level.

 

The other questions about channels concerns how many channels to put on one network before you start using 2 networks. The reason to use 2 networks is so the sequences will not lag. The rule of thumb is to put no more than 6 Cosmic Color strings per network. In your case you have 8 CCP strings so I would recommend using 2 networks. You can put all of your 22 LOR controllers plus 2 CCP strings on one network and put 6 CCP strings on the second network.

 

If you don't mind buying 3 USB485 adapters, you might want to use 3 networks. Then you can put your 22 LOR controllers on one network, 4 CCPs on the second network, and 4 CCPs on the third network. The advantage of this is you can then set your desired network speed for your 22 LOR controllers, and you can set your desired network speed for the CCPs. This is because you can set a different speed for each network.

 

Hope this answers your questions. If it does not feel free to post again.

[steve synek]

You should plan on adding a second network as the recommendation is a max of 4 CCP per network. You most likely will see lags on the lighting commands depending on your sequencing if you try and run it all on one network.   You can daisy chain CCP's just like regular controllers or mix and match.

 

Brian beat me and answered much better..................

 

 

Steve

Edited March 28, 2013 by steve synek

[sharpsvillelights]

Brian,

 

I will be sequencing the 22 LOR controllers in LOR sequence editor.  The 4 CCP's I will be sequencing using Superstar.

 

So in this configuration,  I will need 3 networks. 

- 1 for the LOR controllers

- 1 for 2 CCP's

- 1 for the other 2 CCPS's

Is this correct?

Also is the definition of a network centered around the USB485B device where each one of these devices constitutes a network?

 

The USB485B has two Ethernet jacks.  I currently run 11 controllers off of one jack and the other 11 off the second jack. 

Is this still considered one network since all the controllers are connected to one USB485B? 

[BrianBruderer]

I was not aware there are USB485 adapters with two ethernet jacks. I expect that they both are on the same network. The way to know is to launch the hardware utility, click on the Refresh button and see if it sees all of your controllers plugged into both jacks of the adapter. When you click on the Refresh button in the Hardware utility it will look for all the controllers on the network that is using the comm port you have selected. If you select a different comm port and click on Refresh, you are checking a different network. Each network has its own comm port.

 

Then you shut down the Hardware Utility, launch the Sequence Editor, click on the Edit menu and select Preferences then Network Preferences. And in the Network preferences dialog box you set the comm port for the Standard network (also known as the Regular, or Normal network). If you click on the little circle it will expand and allow you to set the comm port you are using for the Aux networks.

 

So if you had 3 networks, they would be:

  Regular

  Aux A

  Aux B

[CLD Kevin]

I was not aware there are USB485 adapters with two ethernet jacks. I expect that they both are on the same network.

You are correct. The USB485B aka Booster has 2 Ethernet ports but is the same network. You need the Booster adapter if your going to use an ELL, but also works great if your going to split your network having dual ports.

Edited March 29, 2013 by CLD Kevin

[Ron Boyd]

I ran 4 sets of CCPs, 8 total strings, on a single network last year. No lag whatsoever. With the faster network speed release recently you will probably only need 2 networks

[sharpsvillelights]

I have not worked with network speeds before.

So what speed should  I run the network which the CCP's are on?

What speed should the network run which has the LOR controllers?

[sharpsvillelights]

Brian,

 

Would you concur with Ron on using 1 network for the 4 CCP's?

[BrianBruderer]

You should be able to use 1 network on the 4 CCPs using the new 500K speed. There have been a few customers that have reported problems running at the 500K speed. I suspect that those who have reported problems have adapters or cat5 cables or connections that are not as good as they could be.

 

So the thing to do is try the 500K speed, and if you experience any glitches then go down to the 115K speed. At 500K you should be able to run up to 12 CCP controllers. At the 115K speed you can run up to 3 CCP controllers.

 

The 500K speed is only supported by CCRs, CCPs, CCBs, and gen3 16 channel controllers. So that is the reason it is good to have your 16 channel controllers on their own network, because if you have any 16 channel controllers that are not gen3 then they will not work at 500K. By having your 16 channel controllers on their own network, they can be set at a different speed than your CCPs.

[overeazy]

Here is the information Brian provided to me for my CCR's a few post down to let you know exactly what you need to do.  Am sure its about the same as doing CCR's_

 

 

The firmware is in the latest S3 download. ( I think it is 3.9.  The firmware upgrades are in that download so make sure you have upgraded to 3.9 )

To download the firmware do the following:

1) have all of your CCRs connected to your computer (In your case CCB's)

2) launch the hardware utility

3) click the Refresh button

4) click on the Firmware button in the bottom right

5) In the Step 1 box, click on "Selected unit listed above"

6) In the Step 2 box, click on "Open"

7) Select "CCR150D-v1_10.lhx", click on OK ( you will select the firmware for the CCB's not this one.)

8) In the Step 3 box, click on "Download"

It will take about a minute to download the firmware into the contoller. After it is complete, select another controller and click on the Download button again. Keep doing this until all the CCR controllers have the new firmware.

 

The speed of each network is set in the Sequence Editor

1) launch the Sequence Editor

2) click on the Edit menu, Preferences, Network Preferences

3) Set the speed of Standard (also called the Regular network) network at the top of the dialog box.

4) Click on the round button towards the right to expand the dialog box, and then you will see where to set the speed on all the Aux networks. Note that this is also where you set the com number of each network. This part is covered in the video tutorial "SuperStar configuring multiple networks."

 

Hope this helps, it worked well for my CCR's.

[sharpsvillelights]

Thanks so much to everyone who assisted me.

 

Let the work begin!

[scottam67]

Can someone tell me if, when running multiple networks, you can duplicate unit IDs?  Is this preferred or is there a better method?

 

For Example, if I have a Regular Network, with Units 1 through 9.  If I then have an Auxiliary A network, should I start with Unit 1, or a Unit # above 9?  Make sense?  

 

I presume that since they are different networks, LOR won't detect multiple Unit numbers but want to make sure.

 

Thanks

[BrianBruderer]

Yes, you can do that. You can think of "Unit ID" as being the combination of the network ID and the Unit ID. So if you want, you can start each network on Unit ID 01. Myself, I like to keep the unit ID of each controller unique. Because then I can change the network the controller is on and never have a conflict. If you start each network with Unit ID 01, then if you change the network that a controller is on, then you may have to change it's unit ID as well.

[scottam67]

Makes sense, thanks for the quick reply Brian