setting controller id's (LOR160xW)

[lkinsey]

I have 9 controllers and wish to have my neighbor's lights blinking with mine using the 'Easy Light Linker'.

Can I set their controller id's the same as mine or must I create (copy and paste) extra 16 channels in the sequencer for each additional controller?

The booklet says that each controller must have a unique address assigned but the Linker booklet shows one linker corresponding with multiple controllers.

In other words, are multiple entries required in the sequencer to accomplish a 'neighborhood set up'?

I'm grasping here to avoid more programming.

[Tim Fischer]

I think it will basically work, but isn't recommended. It also prevents you from doing things like pushing firmware over the LOR network to boards out in the field, since that has to be done one board at a time...

What I'd do is uses separate unit ID's, duplicate everything in your sequences. This gives you the power to make subtle variations of you like...

-Tim

[lkinsey]

Thanks for the test Jeff, That gives me the confidence to try it. I don't know how much 'hand shaking' goes on between the application and the controllers so I'm in the dark without actually testing it as you have done.

While copy and pasting is not a big deal. it makes updating the show more difficult as all the copies would then have to be updated or synchronized as well.

Also in my complicated show (to me at least) I would like to give my neighbors the choice of choosing which of my controllers they want to copy/display in their yard simply by changing the id in their controller. I suspect I would need to re-initialize the controllers in that case but that's easy.

Tim Fischer makes a point about the difficulty of updating the firmware in this scenario but I see that only happening at the beginning or ending of a season so that's no concern.

Thanks to you both.

[Tim Fischer]

You may also have issues after LOR II is released (I'm not a beta so I'm not sure).

As I understand it now in LOR I, the show controller and sequence editor are only "broadcasters". They send info out to the controllers, which listen to their ID and ignore all others. The units themselves don't handshake or transmit anything during the normal running of the show. That's why things *should* work with 2 units on the same ID.

On the other hand, the Hardware Utility uses 2-way communication. From what I understand, for example, when you click "refresh", the HWU basically goes through every ID, and says "Are you there", to which the unit says "Yes, I'm a CTB-16D, firmware 4.01" or whatever. This is obviously 2-way communication, and the HWU expects things to be on different ID's. I've accidentally had 2 units on the same ID during testing, and what will happen is that you'll get fewer units reported back than you really have. Not a showstopper... As I already noted, firmware updating seems to require 2-way communication as well.

If LOR II changes things to require 2-way communication in the show/sequence editor, this would no longer work. But since the firmware is reportedly not changing for the initial release, I'd suspect that things will be ok, at least until the new LOR II firmware comes out. Since "Input Triggers" is one of those features, the units are obviously going to have to start transmitting data during shows to support that...

-Tim

[lkinsey]

Thanks Tim for the detailed letter. I suspected that there were times that interactive communication was taking place such as initializing but wasn't sure that included show time. Also, the booklet says that the signals are propagated to all controllers until the correct one is reached. I was thinking that at that point the signal would no longer be propagated stopping the signal from going to a duplicate controller. According to Jeff's little test however, this proves not to be the case.

The bottom line here is that I'm going to try it for myself with the thought that I may need to reprogram the sequencer if it fails which wouldn't be the end of the world, just a nuisance factor.

If LOR 2 comes out soon, it would be too late for me to take advantage of this year anyway.

If this 'neighborhood link' really catches on and I suspect that it will, there's going to be a need to have duplicate id capabilities so extra neighbor's/controllers can be quickly and easily added without having to reprogram the sequencer.

[Steven]

lkinsey wrote:

Also, the booklet says that the signals are propagated to all controllers until the correct one is reached. I was thinking that at that point the signal would no longer be propagated stopping the signal from going to a duplicate controller. According to Jeff's little test however, this proves not to be the case.

You can see that this is not the case by looking at the wiring. The two RJ-45 sockets on a controller are simply connected in parallel. The signal is not repeated or processed in any way by the controller before passing to the next one. That's why when a controller in the middle loses power, the signal will continue to be received by other controllers further down.

[lkinsey]

Good point, Thanks.