New S2 Release: Version 2.1.2

[Lights4Tikes]

XP Home with only one CTB16PC and everything went fine. i actually just got my CTB16PC just last night. i'm a newbie but having fun. my question to me now is how to waterproof all those cords????? YIKES. dang rain.

[iresq]

Waterproof the cords? No reason to.

[-klb-]

Just keep the cord ends somewhat separated from ground potential. In the yard, I use plastic C9 stakes to keep them a few inches above the lawn.. And downstream from the controllers, use cords without grounds...

[bhays]

-klb- wrote:

Just keep the cord ends somewhat separated from ground potential. In the yard, I use plastic C9 stakes to keep them a few inches above the lawn.. And downstream from the controllers, use cords without grounds...

But, the way I understand GFCI... it measures the voltage difference between hot and neutral and will trip if it varies too much... so, the ground is not really the issue.

[-klb-]

bhays wrote:

-klb- wrote:

Just keep the cord ends somewhat separated from ground potential. In the yard, I use plastic C9 stakes to keep them a few inches above the lawn.. And downstream from the controllers, use cords without grounds...

But, the way I understand GFCI... it measures the voltage difference between hot and neutral and will trip if it varies too much... so, the ground is not really the issue.

GFCI measures the difference in current between hot and neutral, and trips if they differ too much... Ground is the most common source of an imbalance in current. A hot or neutral of a different circuit are also potential sources of an imbalance, but not the most likely one to experience. Also note that it is possible for a person to become a path between a single circuit's hot and neutral, and it does not cause an imbalance, and does not trip the GFCI...

[cmoore60]

Are you sure you used the proper firmware? I remember seeing a reference from Dan, that you can't install the wrong firmware on a board.

LOR Can this thread be locked? Some of the issues here should go to the regular forums for discussion.

Thank You

Chuck

[Ed.Faranda]

I beleive I am. I double Checked that. There are two verison of firmware for that board. One for the GREEN boards the other for BLUE. I have the blue boards.

[daniel]

Thanks for the update! This is EXACTLY what I wanted to see! I was thinking about getting a MP3 director, but this, with triggers, will work just fine!




--Daniel L

[TonyW]

I am running Windows Vista Business with a 64 bit processor and had complications with the Fireware update. I am using 2 LOR1602W with ELL and the software upgrade seemed to do fine. After doing the software upgrade I ran sequences to make sure they still worked correctly and they seemed to function great.

Once I updated the firmware (blue, since my cards are blue) It would no longer find the units in the Hardware Utility. The only way I could get it to work agian was perform a System Restore.

My question, is there an additional area I will need to get the firmware since I am runing Vista 64 bit?

Since the software worked fine I will perform the upgrade again until somone can let me know if they have a solution for this issue.

Tony

[hbomb341]

Texan78 wrote:

hbomb341 wrote:

bhays wrote:

So how are you guys specifically using the Windows Shell function for RDS? The encoder I was going to use just uses a text file... are you using the Shell function to write a text file.. .are there values that can be passed using tokens in the Shell function... how are you doing it?

I had 2 ways come to mind when this was anounced:

1. Copy a txt file every time IE: XCOPY /y "C:RDSMagic.txt" "C:RDSLIVE_RDS.txt"
2. Use a command to write to a txt file everytime IE: ECHO Song:Magic 2 > C:RDSLIVE_RDS.txt"

Another idea is you can have LOR update your website so you can show what seq. is currently running.

I personally think best practice would be have each seq. call a batch file so you can do multiple steps like update website info, update RDS, update LED sign, send you an email .... the posabilitys are endless.

Harrison

This was started to be discussed on how to use it in this thread....

http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/forum72/18080.html

About sending the information to the web, I thought of the same thing and was going to do something like that. But LOR doesn't have FTP for as far as I know so you would need your FTP client to be updating probably ever 2 mins. I don't know about you, but I don't feel all that safe leaving my FTP connected like that. Once the text file is sent FTP, it wouldn't be hard to have a php script parse it and display it on the web. My lighting detection sofware for my lighting dector sends a txt file via FTP from inside the software. Then it is parsed to display varies information on the screen or map. So it is definately not something that is hard to do. It would help though if LOR was able to FTP from inside of S2....

I doubt that is something we will ever see because as cool as it might sound, honestly who is going to care what is playing at the display at the current time if they are not there.

Went through an updated this last night for me (Switched from my director to a system running the show) THANK YOU Steve for the clean way to write out to a file. As you call tell I am doing a little logging so I can run stats at the end of the season to see what songs played the most. I REALLY like how LOR made the potability endless by adding this feature (If you don't mind doing the scripting).

This writes out the song name / what ever I want to a TXT file for RDS to read then uploads that to my website to display. Check it out tonight 6:00 PM (CST) to 9:30 PM (CST).

Note: The FTP (Command) program is on all Windows box's since Windows 98.

RDS.bat

echo off
echo %* > "C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorMy DocumentsLight-O-RamaRDSCurrentSequence.txt"
ftp -s:ftp -s:"C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorMy DocumentsLight-O-RamaFTP_Script.txt" {FTP_URL}
echo %date% %time% - %* >> "C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorMy DocumentsLight-O-RamaRDSLOG.txt"
EXIT

FTP_Script.txt

{USERNAME}
{PASSWORD}
cd {FOLDER}
put "C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorMy DocumentsLight-O-RamaRDSCurrentSequence.txt"
bye

Command

"C:Documents and SettingsAdministratorMy DocumentsLight-O-RamaRDS.bat" White Christmas

Website

<?php
$myFile = "{FOLDER}/CurrentSequence.txt";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'r');
$theData = fgets($fh);
fclose($fh);
echo $theData;
?>

Check it out here {Bottom of Menu}: http://www.flowermoundchristmas.com/

Harrison

[bob]

I Downloaded S2 2.1.2 today and when I open the hardware utility and go to add a sequence on the MP-3 Player Showlist I get this message. (Error with sequence file:Creating Sequence File Path/File Access error)

This problem is fixed in version 2.1.4: http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/forum72/18146.html

[brianfox]

LightORamaDan wrote:

T110431 wrote:

We also have a little header that plugs into the 18 pin header that you can use to connect inputs. Will be in the store his week....

Can you please let us know when this header is in the store?

I also want to be clear about things. I have 8 CTB16PCs in a network. I should be able to purchase the header board and PIR Motion Detectors from the store. Using wire I supply, I should be able to connect the PIR detectors to the header and use them to enable lights, say, for security. Right?

This leads to a few questions:

1) Can I connect multiple PIR detectors in parallel to the same input on a header, or does one input only support a single detector at a time?

2) A CTB16PC has two unused inputs. Does that mean that 8 CTBs on a network globally have two unused inputs, or does EACH CTB contribute 2 inputs to the network - for a total of 16 inputs? That is, does an input have a unit ID as part of its address?

3) Assuming the Unit ID is NOT part of an input address (which would mean only two global inputs are avaialble on a network), can I put a sensor on Input #1 from Unit A and another sensor on Input #2 of unit B?

[brianfox]

brianfox wrote:

Can you please let us know when this header is in the store?

I also want to be clear about things. I have 8 CTB16PCs in a network. I should be able to purchase the header board and PIR Motion Detectors from the store. Using wire I supply, I should be able to connect the PIR detectors to the header and use them to enable lights, say, for security. Right?

This leads to a few questions:

1) Can I connect multiple PIR detectors in parallel to the same input on a header, or does one input only support a single detector at a time?

2) A CTB16PC has two unused inputs. Does that mean that 8 CTBs on a network globally have two unused inputs, or does EACH CTB contribute 2 inputs to the network - for a total of 16 inputs? That is, does an input have a unit ID as part of its address?

3) Assuming the Unit ID is NOT part of an input address (which would mean only two global inputs are avaialble on a network), can I put a sensor on Input #1 from Unit A and another sensor on Input #2 of unit B?

I did some searching and it looks like I can answer #2 and #3 by myself. Senior LOR, please correct me if I'm wrong...

2) Looking at Show Editor v2.1.4, it appears that the Interactive pane is where triggered sequences are added (referred to as "interactive groups"). For my purposes (security lights) I think Magic Toy would suffice, because all I want to trigger is an animated sequence. from the Add Interactive Group page, it looks like a trigger is identified by a Unit ID + Input Number, which implies that for my network of 8 CTB16PCs, I could have up to 8*2=16 different inputs. As I understand it, a CTB16PC has three inputs, but Input1 is in use by the Unit ID assignment logic (LOR units have DIP switches for ID assignment, freeing up Input 1).

3) If I am correct about #2, then this question is moot, because all unused trigger inputs for every CTB16PC is usable.

So my question about multiple motion detectors driving the same input is still open, but less important, considering how many inputs appear to be open to me. The question came about because I figure I'd need several motion detectors to cover my yard, and how could I assign 3 detectors to just two inputs. Throreticallty, I figure that since I'm suggesting connecting solid state relay outputs in parallel, there shouldn't be a problem. However, if I am able to trigger the same sequence from multiple inputs, the issue is moot. Still a question I'd like answered, though.