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Sequence power usage utility

hobbes

By hobbes
in LOR S2 Software Suite

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hobbes Member

hobbes

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One thing that I know I had wanted to see (and I beleive others) added to LOR was the ability to see how much current was being drawn versus time in the sequence editor. Over the last couple of days I have developed an Excel spreadsheet that can calculate the current draw in 0.1 second increments and then display the data in a chart. Below is a sample chart that can be created.

sample_chart.jpg

The software gives you the ability to see total current draw vs time or each controller can be viewed individually. It can help with the layout/design of your display to make sure you don't over burden a particular controller.


If you are interested in using this you can find it at http://www.t2lights.com/christmas/lorutility.html

Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

tom.

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dslowik Member

dslowik

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I've been planning on creating and application like this for awhile, but never moved off the "TODO" list. I ran it with Excel 2000 and encountered the following errors.

User-defined type not defined on Dim fd As FileDialog in Sub CmdBut_choose_sequence_Click when clicking Choose Sequence File...

Same thing in Choose Channel list except the sub is CmdBut_channel_list_Click.

Variable not defined (xlsSortNormal) in CmdBut_new_chan_list_Click when Create Channel List.

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dslowik Member

dslowik

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Great, it does open in Excel 2000 now. I've got quite a few channels to setup. Any chance you'll make it so it can read an exported channel config file. We'd still need to fill in the amps, but the description, unit, and channels could be pulled in without any human errors being made.

Thanks.

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hobbes Member

hobbes

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You use the 'Create Channel List...' button to extract all of the channels from a sequence. It will populate a spread sheet with the following:

  • Channel Name
  • Unit ID
  • Circuit

You then only have to enter the current for each channel. You can extract the channels from any LOR2 sequence file.

tom.

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Dennis Cherry Member

Dennis Cherry

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hobbes wrote:

I have updated the program to be compatible with Excel 2000 and later.

http://www.t2lights.com/christmas/lorutility.html

tom.


Just to let you know this utility was updated again to V1.3. Now it works with Excel 97 also and the analyzing time is 5X faster.

Try the new update, no more looping of the cells and you can see the computations added to the spread sheet.

Very useful tool.

Dennis
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LightORamaDan Member

LightORamaDan

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It is a nice utility. That is one of the advantages of using XML in our files. It makes it easier for folks to make utilities like this and I think we will see more third party things like this pop up and make LOR even better.

We do have some plans to add something along these lines but that is a future enhancement.

Dan

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Tim Member

Tim

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I am trying to use this but keep getting an error that reads:

Run-time error '9':

Subscript out of range



Then it tells me to Debug and it does something crazy and thus I can't get it to work. I put the sequence in and also exported my channels and put in the amps in the current column and then the error. Does it matter that I am putting the amps in with decimals (i.e: 2.4, 0.66, etc.) and not whole numbers? Thanks for your time.

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hobbes Member

hobbes

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Decimals are fine for the data in the current column. You can send me the sequence file and channel list to the email in the utility. I can take a look and see what the problem is. I am sure that there are some bugs that I have not encountered yet.

tom.

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  • 3 weeks later...
hobbes Member

hobbes

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I have released v1.5 of the LOR Power Usage Utility and is available at http://www.t2lights.com/christmas/lorutility.html. This version has the following major changes. The complete changelog can be found at the bottom of the link posted above.

  • Decreased processing time. This version runs up to 10X faster than v1.4 and up to 50 times faster than the initial release.
  • Controllers are now divided into Lo (channels 1-8) and Hi (channels 9-16) sides.
  • Users now have the ability to group controllers together on the chart. This is useful if you have separate power feeds for your controllers. You can now see the total current draw from all controllers on each power feed. Channel lists created with earlier version will be modified to allow you to use the 'Group' feature. All of your existing data in the channel list will remain intact when it is converted.

For those people that may not be aware, this utility is an Excel spreadsheet that allows you to create charts of current usage versus time for a given LOR v2 sequence file. It can aid in the layout of your display to see if you may draw too much current from a controller or from your power feed circuit.

The data is extracted such that you can view any of the following: current draw from each side of each controller, total current draw from a controller, current draw for groups of controllers, and the total current draw for all controllers.

If you have tried this utility before and were disappointed about the length of time it took to process the file I would suggest that you try this version. It runs much faster than the early releases.

Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

tom.

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  • 4 months later...
thecats New Forum User

thecats

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I have updated this "application" to save the sequence directory and the "channel list" spreadsheet. Basically, this means that all you have to do is enter the sequence file name and request the charts to be created. I tried to attach the spreadsheet, but too close to the limit. If anyone is interested, guess you'll have to PM/request me to send it. ( it's only 1.3 mb, but the system didn't like it)

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  • 1 year later...
hobbes Member

hobbes

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I have released v1.6 of my Power Usage Utility. It can be downloaded from the following page: http://t2lights.com/christmas/lorutility.html

It is mostly bug fixes but I have also added support for the custom effects that were added about a year ago (Twinkle Intensity, Twinkle Fade Up/Down, Shimmer Intensity, Shimmer Fade Up/Down).

For those not familiar with the utility it is an Excel spreadsheet that can read LOR2 seqeuence files and create a chart of the current draw versus time. It has the following features:

  • View total current versus time
  • View each individual controller's current versus time
  • View each individual controller side (1-8, 9-16) current versus time
  • Able to group controllers together that are on the same power feed

sample_chart.jpg

Note: This utility will not work with LOR V1 sequence files or LOR2 sequence files that are encrypted. If you have a licensed and registered copy of LightORama S2 software you should not have a problem using this utility.

The changes in this version:

  • Changed 'integer' variables to 'long' variable to properly read longer sequence files
  • Now reads every line from sequence file instead of assuming that every other line is a blank line
  • Sequence files with more than 500 channels are now properly read into the channel list
  • Program will now remember the path of the last sequence file and channel list
  • Excel 2007 filenames now appear in the file open dialog boxes
  • Added support for the new custom effects (Twinkly Intensity, Twinkle Fade Up/Down, Shimmer Intensity, Shimmer Fade Up/Down)
  • Added a popup message if the sequence file is more than 53.3 minutes long (Excel has a limitation to how many data points can be viewed on a chart)

Feel free to contact me with questions, comments, or suggestions.

thanks,

tom. (Hobbes)

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  • 5 weeks later...
hobbes Member

hobbes

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I have released an update to my power usage utility. The latest version is v1.6a and fixes a problem where a user was unable to save a sequence file in the sequence editor while the power usage utility remained open. Thanks to Bob from Light-O-Rama for notifying me of the issue.

The latest version can be downloaded from: http://t2lights.com/christmas/lorutility.html

If you have any problems using the program, feel free to contact me.

thanks,

tom. (Hobbes)

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