David Spangler Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 I'm still learning dmx and I want to add more props. I'm using LOR for part of my lighting and Holiday Coro Actidongle for the dmx part of my show. I got everything working fine with the actidongle, 5 coro stars, with the dumb lights, controllers, and the dc power injector. My question is to add another prop which will be a star on the roof do I just add to my cat 5 cable from the last coro star then add another dc power injector at the star? Is the dmx signal strong enough to reach the star about 40' away? Or should I add a y connector at the actidongle? Am I correct in saying you just keep adding channels up to 512 on the same cat5 cable and just add dc as needed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveMaris Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 You should be fine, Just add a power source. 512 channels no issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan C Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 You should have a read of this thread: http://forums.lightorama.com/index.php?/topic/26609-is-it-possible-to-setup-multiple-enttec-pro-dongles-in-s3-390/ It seems that the "Actidongle" does not have a unique ID. What this means, is that if you try to add a second Actidongle to add another DMX universe, the software cannot tell the difference between the two units. Regards, Alan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Spangler Posted April 4, 2013 Author Share Posted April 4, 2013 Alan C.I'm not doubting you, because I don't know, but on the Holiday Coro site is the statement under the dongle information, "One full universe per dongle (512 channels). More than one dongle can be used on a PC for additional universes/channels." How it's done I don't have a clue. Maybe someone else knows how. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan C Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 If you look at the FAQ section of the Actidongles, it does say that only one ActiDongle may be used with LOR at a time. With other adaptors that use unique IDs, then the use of multiple DMX adaptors can be achieved with LOR. Regards, Alan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Spangler Posted April 4, 2013 Author Share Posted April 4, 2013 Thank you Alan I didn't see that comment in the FAQ. I was looking at the specs where it said you could. If you are using the actidongle would it be possible to add a different make like the Enntec and use two different dongles? Or does LOR still need a unique ID on both dongles? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan C Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 My understanding is that as long as all the dongles have different IDs, such as one actidongle and another make, that will be ok. To be honest, the actidongles are the only units I know of that all have the same ID. Regards, Alan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 Thank you Alan I didn't see that comment in the FAQ. I was looking at the specs where it said you could. If you are using the actidongle would it be possible to add a different make like the Enntec and use two different dongles? Or does LOR still need a unique ID on both dongles? LOR needs a unique ID on all dongles that it uses, but Actidongles are the only ones that I know of that don't have unique IDs. So, yes, you could add a different make like the ENTTEC to use a second dongle. You could also add another ENTTEC, and another, and another, and so on. You couldn't add more Actidongles, but you could add a bunch of ENTTECs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis Laff Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 Hello everyone I need a little help .I installed yhe holidaycoro actidongle with their 27 channel dumb rgb controller everything is connected right . ran small test sequence also have lor 16 channel dc board connected to test the lor board resonds perfect the holiday coro equipment responds random sometimes it turns lights on at the right and when I run sequence again the lights donot always turn on or off at the right times .anyone have any sugestions Thanks Dennis Laff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizywk Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 This is excellent information guys. Thank-you. I'm starting to feel like a poster child for why a guy should use LOR's off-the-shelf solution for addressable pixels. I'm of limited means and wanted the thrill of DIY, but I think I made a wrong turn in my design. Just like child at the dinner table who's eyes are bigger than their stomach, I think we let our enthusiasm and ease of this execution run away with us. We started out engineering for a straight forward LOR display this year, then saw the benefits of parallel DIY and decided to add dumb strips, and now with all the research/blogs, decided to jump into addressable DIY pixels as well. We have our second LOR order inbound so that's a no brainer. The DIY RGB will be run from an LOR DC controller with plenty of controller and current to spare, still easy peasy. We decided to add in the DIY addressable strips and it isn't looking good after reading this thread started by David Spangler. We were going the ENTTEC route feeding a DMX-SPI controller of some type, but found the actidongle to be attractive lower cost alternative as it was an ENTTEC clone and enabled us to start testing with the dumb products. We are still choosing the DMX-SPI controller we want for the addressable portion of the display. With the addressable house eave strips and small props, we jump to 2.6 universes and are interested in expanding to a mega tree in future years. Our plan was to just add actidongles as needed. It sounds like that's where we hit the off ramp to success. I've been asking a lot of questions since monitoring this thread, and confirmed that the multi-actidongle solution is a bust. I see our original solution proposed above, and we've received external guidance toward E1.31 using an ECG-DR4 rather than going back to the multiple ENTTEC solution. Its a bit overwhelming at this point. My objective is to stay with LOR S3 as the display software, the CMB-16D-QC to drive the dumb RGB, and drive the 3 universes in parallel in the best manner possible. If you were in our position, which direction would you go - multiple ENTTECs or jump to E1.31? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan C Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 I am going the other way at the moment and will be experimenting with E1.31 and using the E682 from SanDevices as the Pixel Driver. Just for added entertainment, I have ordered the E682 in kit form, rather than ready assembled. On the Enttec front, you may still be able to use Enttec compatible dongles, but you can only use a single Actidongle. Regards, Alan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmoore Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 You should have a read of this thread: http://forums.lightorama.com/index.php?/topic/26609-is-it-possible-to-setup-multiple-enttec-pro-dongles-in-s3-390/ It seems that the "Actidongle" does not have a unique ID. What this means, is that if you try to add a second Actidongle to add another DMX universe, the software cannot tell the difference between the two units. Regards, Alan. This issue has been resolved and a solution can be found in that same thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zanclus Posted June 3, 2013 Share Posted June 3, 2013 I purchased 2 HolidayCoro Actidongles followed Dave's instructions on changing unit IDs and am running both with no problems.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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