Controlling multiple houses

[Donl1150]

I haven't seen any recent posts about running a show on multiple houses.  There was a short thread about 2 years ago about it but that one is closed so I need to start a new one on the subject.  I currently run my show from a pc and prefer not to change to a Director which apparently has some good capabilities for such a show.  My show consists of:

• 3 - CTB16PC controllers for my AC lights
• 3 - Pixie 8's
• 1 - Pixie 16
• 3 - ELL units to run the AC lights on one regular network
• 1 - High speed adapter on an AUX network for the Pixies
• I currently run v6.1.6 Pro edition

 

My thought is to start small with the neighbor and have him get a single CTB16PC controller and an ELL.  Thus I could only control 16 channels of AC lights on his house but it's a start.  At some point if he wants to get into pixels, we'd have to address that somehow.  

Our houses are only about 80' apart so the ELL's shouldn't have a problem communicating, I think.

Is it best to just duplicate my existing Preview and then add his house to it? Or do separate previews for each house and somehow link them?  If it is best for a single Preview, how do you handle growth should other neighbors want to join in?  A single Preview could get very large, very quickly.

Appreciate any and all comments on the issue because I know we would need to start early for 2023......like right now.

Thanks,

Don

ps - I forgot to say that I added video projection to the show this year.   It is hardwired via HDMI port on the pc.   In my case, all of the audio for sequencing all of my lights is coming from the .mp4 video file.  I don’t think that would make any difference in running on multiple houses though.  

Edited December 7, 2022 by Donl1150
Forgot one thing.

[TheDucks]

Consider the N4G4 (master - slave) pair sync channel over ELL, that way you have 3 LOR ports for either Pixies or AC at the Slave end.

LOR Why not have a PC Emulate the Master? Master(PC) ->ELL ELL->slaveN4G4

[k6ccc]

Remember the original releases of S6 had a not yet supported Master Slave mode.  No real information other than it's not gonna be out for a while..  We'll have to see what that is going to look like.

Also note that if the future of remote pixels can be done via E1.31, linking that over an RF link is very easy.

 

[dgrant]

I'm doing two homes right now. What I did was to create a single preview with a picture of both homes. Now if you were doing more, not sure the software can handle two previews simultaneously except with animation/background displays which it certainly will do! Instead of ELLs which I found to be unreliable from interference, I just run a Cat5/6 cable(s) to the neighbor's house. RS485 is good for 4000 feet. Due to the different controllers I have over there, I'm running three networks to his house, 1 Regular rs485, 1 Enhanced and 1 TCPIP. My house doesn't need the enhanced but he's owning a single LOR1602 controller which will not run on enhanced. For the Regular network, I'm splitting out the Regular RS485 both directions using an LOR RS485 Repeater. As for the TCPIP, small GB Switches connect all to the inside PC.

So one preview I see no issue with for both homes since I do just that. Tying more than one preview to a sequence, not sure that's possible.