We Have 48 Pro Controllers And Are Losing Signal...

[gravrod]

We have 48 controllers all connected with CAT5 across a very large property. The entire show is plugged in using the G3 mp3 director. There are two CAT5 wires that plug in to the mp3 director. One goes to one half of the show which has 24 boxes and the other goes to the other 24 boxes on the other side of the property. I did not make any software changes with the network. All I did was plug it in to network 2. Was that a mistake? Do I need to go in to the sequence editor and assign all of the controllers on one side of the property to network 1 and the other half to network 2? I noticed when I add the show to the SD card there is an option to have a second network but it is grayed out and says "not active". Could that be my problem? It says "dual network directors only." Do you know how to activate the second network? Do I do that in the sequence editor?

 

When I turned the show on tonight I would say 90% of it turned on without a problem but then after a few minutes the controllers that are the furthest distance away show on the display "no connection" and then all controllers after that one do not work. All of the CAT5 is store bought from Fry's Electronics so the wire probably isn't bad. I only have 768 channels which compared with other people's shows isn't that much. Do you really think this is a network issue or perhaps there is just too much CAT5? I have the speed set at 500k. Is that too fast? Should I slow it down? Could I use some light linkers to help? We have 24 of them. 

[EmmienLightFan]

This could be an issue with a certain controller's comm ports and hardware.

 

 

 

I don't use a mini-director, but if you get a message saying "Dual network directors only" than maybe your director cannot support two networks for some reason. I know that the G3 MP3 Director can normally do it.

 

You do need to assign all of the controllers to network 2/AUX 1 or they will both mirror each other.

[larryk5]

I think I would lower the speed! You don't need 500k. You should be able to run 48  AC controllers from one network without problems.