Computer, and MP3 Director

[daniel]

First off, I know I asked a similar question a while back, but the variables in the original question(my problem), did not get a good enough answer.




I have a standard, regular LOR network. The computer does all the work via the serial adapter.

Q1. When the shows are enabled, and a sequence/show is NOT playing, are the controllers still "active" (Solid LED), I want to say no, as in 2007, it missed the first 2 commands in the sequence like it was still "finding" the controllers.


Q2. If question 1 above is no, then could I have an mp3 director on the opposite end of the network to play shows for testing? I had this thought that it would be neat to do the trouble-shooting from the yard, and not have to carry around a laptop. SO t he question here is, will the LOR signals from both devices (MP3 & Comp) damage the one that is not in use at the time?




Thanks for any help!




--Daniel L

[Guest wbottomley]

Daniel... I"ll let Dan & John give the politically correct answer.

Anyway: I did that using the Laptop to test and the MP3 Director to run the show. no problems here but only was using one at a time.

[daniel]

Thanks for the reply, though I think my plan is backwards.....


Picture diagram below...


Direct Image Link

Imagine shows are enabled, but not playing on the computer. Will the MP3 director work? If it works, could it damage the computer? If the MP3 Director was still plugged in when a scheduled show on the computer starts, any damage there?


Heres my idea, lots of people, if not everyone, wants to know how the show is done. So I thought it would be cool to take a show out on Saturdays (Say the 8pm show), and run it manually via the MP3 director out in the yard, that way I can control everything from the yard, and I can talk and answer questions from the yard over the PA system. So if everything is done correctly, I could disconnect the MP3 unit at 8:29 pm, and at 9pm, the computer takes back over to finish the night. I wouldn't mind if shows had to be disabled on the computer first, but I would prefer it to stay enabled to help the transition flow better.


Thanks for any help!





--Daniel L

[hbomb341]

Last year I had my computer and director hooked up at the same time to the same LOR board {Director - Phone Line / RJ-11 Computer - Cat5 / RF-45}. This was just in case I need to have the computer kick in due to a Director failure while I was out of town. I had no problems with this, but when I did my testing I removed the SD card to just be safe. I will admit one time I had the computer and the Director sending out commands and my show was NUTS but it appeared to do no damage. I don't think I would recommend it but I would be interested in hearing from LOR support on their words.

But I see what you are saying Director run show 8 - 9 PM and computer 9 -10; I don't see any issues. I have also had this same idea for using multiple Mini-Directors over a full Director if you wanted to run 2 shows vs 1 it can support - granted at that point it is the same price as the full director but still pondered.

Harrison

[cmoore60]

daniel wrote:

Q1. When the shows are enabled, and a sequence/show is NOT playing, are the controllers still "active" (Solid LED), I want to say no, as in 2007, it missed the first 2 commands in the sequence like it was still "finding" the controllers.

First to answer question 1. My experiens is. When the LOR Control Panel is in control of the show, shows are enabled and NO show is playing, the LED on the controllers is on solid.

Chuck

[LightORamaDan]

All the answers look good.

You can have a number of directors (either PC or Director Card, or Deluxe Controller) connected to the network. Here is the thing: Only one of them can be active at a time. For a PC Active is: (shows enabled). For a Director Card active is (SD card inserted). For a Deluxe Controller active is: Standalone Sequence Running that contains commands for a unit other than this one.

If you have multiple directors active at one time, you will get random results. The results will be random even if only one of the directors is playing a sequence. When they are active they are in transmit mode and you can only have one transmitter entity at a time.

It does not "hurt" to have two transmitters but it is not good thing to do. The two comm chips are fighting one another and if not for special circuitry in them to prevent damage (when fighting) they would be destroyed.

[hbomb341]

LightORamaDan wrote:

All the answers look good.

You can have a number of directors (either PC or Director Card, or Deluxe Controller) connected to the network. Here is the thing: Only one of them can be active at a time. For a PC Active is: (shows enabled). For a Director Card active is (SD card inserted). For a Deluxe Controller active is: Standalone Sequence Running that contains commands for a unit other than this one.

If you have multiple directors active at one time, you will get random results. The results will be random even if only one of the directors is playing a sequence. When they are active they are in transmit mode and you can only have one transmitter entity at a time.

It does not "hurt" to have two transmitters but it is not good thing to do. The two comm chips are fighting one another and if not for special circuitry in them to prevent damage (when fighting) they would be destroyed.

Thank's for the Answer Dan - Good to know.

Harrison

[LightORamaDan]

With respect to:

Q1. When the shows are enabled, and a sequence/show is NOT playing, are the controllers still "active" (Solid LED), I want to say no, as in 2007, it missed the first 2 commands in the sequence like it was still "finding" the controllers.

The reason that was happening had to do with the way the PC/Controllers interact. However that issue has been addressed in S2 software.

The problem is/was this: The controllers have a failsafe which causes them to turn off their lights when the signal from the PC is lost. Once a director goes active (PC-Enable shows), (MP3 Director - insert SD) the director starts sending the signal to get the controllers ready. It takes a few seconds for all of the controllers to get in sync with the master. On the PC, when your show started and the sequence started loading, the sync-signal was delayed long enough for the controllers to loose sync.

In S2, the sync signal is not delayed when then sequence is loading so this issue does not occur.

Dan