Prop Definition

[Stephan Sherrick]

I am having problems defining my mini-tree prop.  I am using the Gilbert Engineering medium mini tree - 15 columns of 20 pixels.  I used three strings of 100 - string 1 for five legs, string 2 attached to string 1 at the top of leg 6 for legs 6 through 10.   String 3 on a second pigtail at the bottom of leg 11 ending at the top of leg 15.  I am attaching a 70 node star to the top of leg 15.  I am using a Falcon F16V3 controller.  

How do I configure this in S5 prop definition?

Thank you.

 

[k6ccc]

First of all, if I understood you description, you will have 200 pixels being fed from one port of the F16v3, and 170 pixels fed from a second port of the F16v3.  The F16v3 will happily provide the data for 200 pixels on one port.  However unless you set the intensity down to about 30% (maybe less) it can not provide power to 200 pixels.  You will need to either break that into four ports on the F16v3 (which will solve another issue I will get into in the next paragraph), or provide power injection.

As for defining that in S5, the tree sill look something like this:

In case the image does not show, go here:  http://www.newburghlights.org/images/Gilbert_tree.png

The Prop needs to be RGB Pixels (the yellow rectangle).  for shape, I used 90 degree tree, but you can change that.  Actual number of strings is you 3 real strings (the red oval).  Nodes per string is the actual number of 100 (the green oval), and number of folds is 4 (the blue oval).  That will result in a layout shown in the golden oval.  Now you may notice the issue I mentioned earlier.  The software is assuming that each string starts in the lower left corner.  So by using a total of four ports from the F16v3 you work around that issue.  There is another solution, tell the software that there is really just one string of 300 pixels with 14 folds.  You may have to play a few games with channel assignments if you do that to get both the Preview and the controller on the same page.

For your channel assignments, you are using DMX (actually E1.31 which is DMX over Ethernet) (the Orange arrow).  For my example, I used a separate universe per string (the purple arrow and pink oval), however you don't need to do that.  If you do cross universe boundries, make sure that the Max Channel (the brown oval) matches between the Preview and the F16v3 (510 channels is recommended).

The star would be created as a separate prop.

 

 

[Stephan Sherrick]

Thanks for your explanation.  I can only use two ports per tree since I have eight mini trees.  I am going to try defining it as one string with 14 folds and sort out the rest with channel selection with the Falcon.  

I tested the trees with 40 percent with good results.  I will drop it down if necessary.  

Again, thanks for the help.