ctb16d firmware question

[CHRISTmas IS COMING AGAIN]

Hey everyone, I am adding new boards this year. I read the user guide but am lost. Do I need to download the firmware into each of the new controllers? And how do I do it? Thanks I know it is a newbee question.

[cmoore60]

They should have come to you with the most recent version of firmware.

Unless you have some wierd problems there is no need to worry about the firmware.

Chuck

[CHRISTmas IS COMING AGAIN]

Will I still have to plug each board into the computer by itself and let the hardware utility reconize each board or can I connect my new boards to the existing boards and do it that way?

[cmoore60]

What board are you adding?

[CHRISTmas IS COMING AGAIN]

I'm adding 2 more ctb16d boards. I have 6 of the same boards already in use from last year.

[cmoore60]

16D boards have the ID switches. For best results set the 2 new units to an id not used by your other boards.

[CHRISTmas IS COMING AGAIN]

I guess my question is , after i set the ID to #7 and the other to #8 do I need to plug #7 into the computer by itself and let hardware utility reconize it as #7 or can I just manually add it in the hardware utility?

[cmoore60]

after you set the unit ID on each of the new board you can connect them to the LOR network and power them on. then you can do a refresh on the hardware utility and it should find ALL your controllers at their addresses. Make sure that the upper right, max units is set higher than your largest address otherwise it will not discover all of the active addresses.

Chuck

[CHRISTmas IS COMING AGAIN]

Sweet, Thank you so much for your help. It has been very helpful!!!

[cmoore60]

Let me know if all works!

Chuck

[scottsgrfx]

This is along the lines of this topic, so I'm posting here. I have all my controllers hooked up, and haven't updated the firmware from last year. How can I update it with everything hooked up? Can I do each unit individually in the hardware utility?

[Tim Fischer]

scottsgrfx wrote:

This is along the lines of this topic, so I'm posting here. I have all my controllers hooked up, and haven't updated the firmware from last year. How can I update it with everything hooked up? Can I do each unit individually in the hardware utility?

As long as all your units have unique ID's, that should work.

On the other hand, if everything is working fine, I probably wouldn't mess with it.

-Tim

[Don]

CHRISTmas IS COMING AGAIN wrote:

I guess my question is , after i set the ID to #7 and the other to #8 do I need to plug #7 into the computer by itself and let hardware utility reconize it as #7 or can I just manually add it in the hardware utility?

I wanted to touch on this a second ... for anyone else who might be reading.

In the course of normal operations, you do not need to use the HWU for anything (other than to set the ID on controllers that do not have selector switches)

Thus, if you buy the CTB16D boards and set the channels, you can simply add them to your network, and go about your day. There is no need to use the HWU to 'initialize' them.

The HWU's main functions are to upgrade the firmware, and set ID's. Aside from that, it's a diagnostic tool only.

[James Shelby]

Don
I'm sure you have read my problem of one channel that was stuck on. I was told to update the firmware and now I've crashed three to six of my controllers with no way to fix it. I now have a pile of junk controllers, they will play animation but not music. So a year of work is down the drain. The only fix I can find is to run animation and play music in the back ground. For all you out there DON'T touch the firmware I have found out the hardway there is no way back and NO support for this problem.

[LightORamaDan]

James Shelby wrote:

Don
I'm sure you have read my problem of one channel that was stuck on. I was told to update the firmware and now I've crashed three to six of my controllers with no way to fix it. I now have a pile of junk controllers, they will play animation but not music. So a year of work is down the drain. The only fix I can find is to run animation and play music in the back ground. For all you out there DON'T touch the firmware I have found out the hardway there is no way back and NO support for this problem.

Note: As far as I know, of the 10s of thousands of firmware upgrades, no controller has been messed up. There are untold thousands of controllers working on version 4 of the firmware.


James,

I am almost certian that your problem is not a result of a firmware download/upgrade. There is something else going on here. Controllers do not know the difference between an animation and musical seqeunce. Something else is going on. I replied to your email this morning.

----------- Email Response -----------

You say that the controllers work with animation but not with music. I have
to determine the differences in configuration to determine the problem.

When you are running a musical sequence, what is the configuration? Is it
run from a PC? Are the controllers directly wired to the PC or is there a
wireless connection? What communications speed do you have the Sequence
Editor set to? If you did not change the speed then it is the default.

When you are running an animation (which appears to work) what is the
configuration? Is the PC the director? IS everything setup the same? Does
the network change (different controllers connected) when you are running an
animation?

When you say that it was running okay for a while (in musical mode) was it
as expected and then all of the sudden things start to mess up?

---------- end of email --------

Since I sent that email ( about 3 hours ago) I have been trying to under stand the problem.

In your email to LOR you indicated that things had worked for a while then it seemed like things fell apart.

I wonder the following: Do you use downloaded sequences when you run things in "animation only". If that is true then it is possible that the director unit is somehow kicked in during the show. If it were to kick in then the result would be that you have two directors on the network (A PC and a director controller" The results will be pretty much random which is what you have experienced.

As I said we need to have more information and if things run correctly with an animation then they will run with a musical sequence.

I believe that in previous emails on this topic I had suggested that you reset all the controllers....

Dan

[James Shelby]

You say that the controllers work with animation but not with music. I have
to determine the differences in configuration to determine the problem.

When you are running a musical sequence, what is the configuration? Is it
run from a PC? Are the controllers directly wired to the PC or is there a
wireless connection? What communications speed do you have the Sequence
Editor set to? If you did not change the speed then it is the default.

When you are running an animation (which appears to work) what is the
configuration? Is the PC the director? IS everything setup the same? Does
the network change (different controllers connected) when you are running an
animation?

When you say that it was running okay for a while (in musical mode) was it
as expected and then all of the sudden things start to mess up?

Dan,
I'm sorry for being so upset this morning I didn't get much sleep last night.

OK here we go; All 14 controllers are connected to a single phase scorce.
All 14 are hard wired with cat5.
Everything runs from a PC.
The network setting is set to the left "longest"
I've changed USB ports on the computer.
I've changed the cat5 runs.
I've moved the location of the PC
I've changed the outlet connecting the PC to another breaker.
I opened all three boxes in queston reset to 0-0 unpluged the box for 30 seconds pluged back in reset to the right address, unpluged the controllers waited 30 seconds and pluged them back in. ( The one channel stuck on was now off and it stayed off for 4 or 5 runs of the show then it went back to being stuck on and still is.)
All my music sequences and animation sequences are home made on the computer in queston and have never left that computer other than a back up copy made. This computer has not been on the internet for the last year, all upgrades have been made via flash drive.
Tonight in a musical sequence controller #3 25% of the time won't come on, all 16 channels missing there turn to come on. It runs fine for 20 seconds then stops completely for a few seconds then picks right back up with in the musical sequence.
The other controllers run fine for a few seconds then one channel will stick on or shimmer for a few seconds until the musical sequence comes back to it, the it runs fine for a few seconds and then the process starts over. But the animation sequences work fine on all 14 boxes. The only differance between the two is .04 for the music and .1 for the animation. Also in animation these three boxes have 8 channels fade up full on for 60 seconds then fade down, then 4 channels fade up for 60 seconds then fade down and so on and so on, 15 minutes total nothing fast.
As I watched the people tonight no one really picked up on the mess but me, so if there is no fix for this problem I am so burnt out on this whole thing that I'm willing to wait til January. I have a lot of work to do for two Christmas plays comming up soon I don't have much time before the 15th but after that I'm free. I'm going to work on it tomarrow for a bit then I need a break from this to get my mind back where it needs to be before Monday. Sorry again to everyone and you too Dan for getting so upset but it was such a big deal for this to work right and when it didn't I was really hurt, SORRY.

PS Dan you must have sent the email to my work address not this one I can't view it til Monday.

[LightORamaDan]

James Shelby wrote:

You say that the controllers work with animation but not with music. I have
to determine the differences in configuration to determine the problem.

When you are running a musical sequence, what is the configuration? Is it
run from a PC? Are the controllers directly wired to the PC or is there a
wireless connection? What communications speed do you have the Sequence
Editor set to? If you did not change the speed then it is the default.

When you are running an animation (which appears to work) what is the
configuration? Is the PC the director? IS everything setup the same? Does
the network change (different controllers connected) when you are running an
animation?

When you say that it was running okay for a while (in musical mode) was it
as expected and then all of the sudden things start to mess up?

Dan,
I'm sorry for being so upset this morning I didn't get much sleep last night.

OK here we go; All 14 controllers are connected to a single phase scorce.
All 14 are hard wired with cat5.
Everything runs from a PC.
The network setting is set to the left "longest"
I've changed USB ports on the computer.
I've changed the cat5 runs.
I've moved the location of the PC
I've changed the outlet connecting the PC to another breaker.
I opened all three boxes in queston reset to 0-0 unpluged the box for 30 seconds pluged back in reset to the right address, unpluged the controllers waited 30 seconds and pluged them back in. ( The one channel stuck on was now off and it stayed off for 4 or 5 runs of the show then it went back to being stuck on and still is.)
All my music sequences and animation sequences are home made on the computer in queston and have never left that computer other than a back up copy made. This computer has not been on the internet for the last year, all upgrades have been made via flash drive.
Tonight in a musical sequence controller #3 25% of the time won't come on, all 16 channels missing there turn to come on. It runs fine for 20 seconds then stops completely for a few seconds then picks right back up with in the musical sequence.
The other controllers run fine for a few seconds then one channel will stick on or shimmer for a few seconds until the musical sequence comes back to it, the it runs fine for a few seconds and then the process starts over. But the animation sequences work fine on all 14 boxes. The only differance between the two is .04 for the music and .1 for the animation. Also in animation these three boxes have 8 channels fade up full on for 60 seconds then fade down, then 4 channels fade up for 60 seconds then fade down and so on and so on, 15 minutes total nothing fast.
As I watched the people tonight no one really picked up on the mess but me, so if there is no fix for this problem I am so burnt out on this whole thing that I'm willing to wait til January. I have a lot of work to do for two Christmas plays comming up soon I don't have much time before the 15th but after that I'm free. I'm going to work on it tomarrow for a bit then I need a break from this to get my mind back where it needs to be before Monday. Sorry again to everyone and you too Dan for getting so upset but it was such a big deal for this to work right and when it didn't I was really hurt, SORRY.

PS Dan you must have sent the email to my work address not this one I can't view it til Monday.

James,

If it is at all possible to send us a copy of one of the musical sequences (the worst one if there is a worst one) and one of the animations sequences that works it may help us to understand. Send to support@lightorama.com.

Dan

[scottsgrfx]

Ok, I am using 4 units this year, 1 unit says version 2.0, the other 3 say version 3.0, I want to upgrade firmware because I do have a channel sticking - staying on and want to see if this corrects this. 2 boards are blue, 2 are green, I under hwu there is ctb16dv5_blue. Is this the coorect one to use for the blue board, it's not the pc model. What is the ctb16d_v102? thanks.

[James Shelby]

I had one box at ver2 and seven boxes ver3 and eight ver4. .....Blue is for "blue boards" and .........Green is for the "green boards" I didn't get any farther than that.

[scottsgrfx]

under hwu there is ctb16dv5_blue. Is this the correct one to use for the blue board,