Connecting a Pixie16 into my 4 controller AC display

[Donl1150]

JR.....you have SOLVED the problem.  A big Thank You!!  Thanks also to the others who helped me along the way to getting my singing Pixel bulb operational ..... Jim & The Ducks.  I am well on my way now to getting this Singing Bulb prop built into my entire show from last year and then on to more & more pixels I am sure of it!  This should be my best year ever.....and most likely with S5 from here on in.

ps to Jim - after I switched from Comm4 to Comm3 as JR suggested, I then re-installed my ELL's on the Comm3, the Regular incandescent network, and it works fine now as well.

[dibblejr]

1 hour ago, Donl1150 said:

JR.....you have SOLVED the problem.  A big Thank You!!  Thanks also to the others who helped me along the way to getting my singing Pixel bulb operational ..... Jim & The Ducks.  I am well on my way now to getting this Singing Bulb prop built into my entire show from last year and then on to more & more pixels I am sure of it!  This should be my best year ever.....and most likely with S5 from here on in.

ps to Jim - after I switched from Comm4 to Comm3 as JR suggested, I then re-installed my ELL's on the Comm3, the Regular incandescent network, and it works fine now as well.

When beta testing for LOR I discovered that one little puzzle. I’ve had several even as late as a couple weeks ago that had the sane issue.

Glad it worked

JR 

[Donl1150]

Something has gone wrong with the network.  I have been offline for several weeks now doing sequencing and have finished that.  I wanted to connect now to the props and see how it looks.  I plug the black adapter in with the ELL's attached and the HU finds the single AC unit #2 on com3.   All lights test out as working fine.  

With the red adapter plugged in and refreshing the HU, it does not seem to find the Pixie controller on com4, it only finds the AC on com3.  The red light on the controller is a steady red blink.

The device manager in windows finds both com3 & com4 ports.  checked for updated drivers and both say they are current.

Any ideas?

[k6ccc]

Over on the left, you have to manually select which comm  port for the HU to test on.  Also, in the upper right corner is the slider to set the max ID to check for.  Make sure that is high enough to cover all your expected unit IDs.

 

[dibblejr]

Red blinking means it’s ready to accept data.

Solid red means data is being received.

What Jim explained above should get you running.

You could easily create a test sequence and test everything at once.

JR

[Donl1150]

2 hours ago, k6ccc said:

Over on the left, you have to manually select which comm  port for the HU to test on.  Also, in the upper right corner is the slider to set the max ID to check for.  Make sure that is high enough to cover all your expected unit IDs.

 

My problem was the slider for max ID's to check.  I had apparently at one point slid it all the way to the left for minimum ID's.  I will have to learn this hexidecimal system now that I am adding Pixie controllers to my 4 AC units.  I moved the slider well over to the right, hit refresh and it found the pixie on Com4.  All lights work properly.

However, as I was then playing some of the sequences that I thought were done, I found out I am not 100% sure what "Motion Effects" are when using S5.  For some reason, I had Motion Effects in some of the AC channel sequences and that was preventing the sequence from running.  Got an error message about that and once I removed them from the AC portion of the sequence, all worked fine......AC lights and the pixie hanging bulb.

Learning pains about networks & S5.   Good thing I started this process in February!  Hopefully I will have all the bugs worked out of my display in time for the Season.  Thanks for the help guys.

 

 

[k6ccc]

2 minutes ago, Donl1150 said:

My problem was the slider for max ID's to check.  I had apparently at one point slid it all the way to the left for minimum ID's. 

 

Trust me - most of us have done that!  I leave mine at 16 most of the year (highest landscaping controller is 15), but have to push it up to at least 27 for Christmas.

 

3 minutes ago, Donl1150 said:

Learning pains about networks & S5.   Good thing I started this process in February! 

 

Yep!

 

[Box on Rails]

Something to keep in mind every time you use the HU to find the controls with a multiple Network set up. When changing com ports to test controllers it will always ask if the network you are choosing is the show network. Make sure that when you choose com 3 to test you say yes. that will keep com 3 as the regular network, If you choose another com port to test (com 5) and you choose yes to being the show network it will change com 5 to the Regular network and com3 will become AUX A. So with out knowing you have just flipped the 2 networks and then when you go back to run the show from SE nothing works correctly because the sequence props are now assigned to the wrong network. So the rule is once you are sure that Com 3 is set as the show port  in the HU the answer should be no for any other port as being the show com port when changing to another com port to test.  

[k6ccc]

There is a button or checkbox to "Don't ask this again" or something along that line.  Once it is right, check the box and you never have to worry about that one again.

 

[k6ccc]

45 minutes ago, k6ccc said:

There is a button or checkbox to "Don't ask this again" or something along that line.  Once it is right, check the box and you never have to worry about that one again.

And if you ever need to change it, you can do that in Network Preferences.