Stopping & Starting a sequence manually

[newby]

Can I start and stop a sequence manually?  I know I can start a sequence using the input pup, I've done that a lot, but I don't know if I can stop it manually without just stopping it suddenly with the end sequence now function and just turning the lights off instantly.  I need to be able to have the lights fade out on a signal from me to shut down.  This is part of our churches Christmas program and the sequence won't be tied to any music and I'll start it and stop it when signaled by the director of the program, so it can't be pre -timed.  

[k6ccc]

I don't know of a way force a fade at a given time.  I did figure a way to force an abrupt off.  Not sure if it's ideal for your application, but it worked for me.  Let me explain.

I run a year round landscape lighting show.  I have a bunch of lights changing in the evening. but overnight is just a few lights in a static configuration.  The evening show starts with a light sensor triggering an InputPup.  That part is easy, but there is no way in the LOR software to have a shutdown based on a Input trigger, so here is what I did.  During the overnight show, there is an Interactive that is another light sensor that drives a different input on the InputPup.  When the sun comes up in the morning, that triggers the InputPup which triggers a sequence called "Show kill.play.las"  The Show kill sequence has only one channel, and it comes on for the entire 2 minute sequence.  There is a loop that encompasses all but the first and last second of the sequence, and is set to loop 100 times.  Therefore, the sequence would take a little over 3 hours 16 minutes to run (which takes it past the end of the scheduled show - no matter when the sun comes up).  What that one channel does is energize a relay that opens the LOR network to all the controllers in the yard.  Upon loss of signal, LOR controllers will turn the lights off.  Below is a drawing of my network that shows this.  I know that the .jpg files is a little hard to read here on the forum, so I also included a link the a .pdf that is more readable (but the forum software does not understand .pdf files).  The AuxA network (green on the drawing) is the only network that is used for lighting controllers year round, so that is the one involved.  The CTB08 controller is prior to the relay, so it does not lose LOR network when the relay cuts off the rest of the network.  The InputPup is on my Regular network (red on the drawing), so it is also not cut off - see note on that later.  When the sun comes up, the light sensor triggers an input on the InputPup, which in turn triggers the Show kill sequence.  That sequence energizes channel 8 on the CTB08 controller which energizes the relay, which in turn opens the LOR  network for the rest of the controllers on the AuxA network.  A second of two later, the lights turn off.  At 7:00 (after the sun comes up any time of the year), the show ends.

Here's the note on the Regular network.  I changed this arrangement after a while because in this configuration, the InputPup would continue to send the triggers every 5 seconds.  This had no effect on anything functional, but it filled the log in the status window with the trigger events - which annoyed me.  I changed the relay configuration so that it opened both the Regular network and the AuxA network when the relay energized.  That stopped the InputPup from continuing to report the sun being up to the show computer.

http://www.newburghlights.org/images/LOR_Network_2016-04-19.pdf