LOR software with SSR boards

[Guest guest]

Hi,

I have been out of the loop for a couple of years and LOR seems the new big thing in computer controlled lighting with it's dimming capability etc. I still have my original dasher DIO control boards (3x24 channels) and dasher 'D' software. I am looking to upgrade to LOR software that would allow dimming, shimmer etc. I am assuming the LOR software will work with DIO cards as controlled by Dasher 'D' using instacal? I am also assuming that unless i buy the LOR or D-Light hardware interface boxes/kits I will not be able to have any dimming capability? I will only be able to turn the channels either on or off seeing there is no feedback ability to detect zero crossing or micro to control turn on delay time in hardware? How is the LOR software/hardware setup to detect zero crossing and control turn on delay for dimming? (or is that a secret lol.) Ideally I would like to purchase the LOR software then design/build my own hardware interface boards (to save costs!) My current control interface SSR boxes were designed to work with Dasher and so are purely the basic opto-triac type. Appreciate any feedback/help on some of these questions....

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Yes you can control your DIO cards with LOR. The LOR boards have micro processors with a zero-cross interrupt. This allows them to set the intensity of lights. Dimming, fading and other effects are all handled in each of the controllers micro processors.

[Guest guest]

Thanks for the reply.

It seems the LOR system is designed to operate on an rs485 multidrop network allowing multiple control boxes to be hooked up. I am wondering how it works with the DIO card setup however. How does the LOR sw control the dimming when using DIO cards? Is there also another box containing the micro etc required that talks to the sw via serial port as well, given that the DIO card can only handle the channel outputs? Or do the DIO card 8 channel output groups each go to an LOR interface SSR box containing the hardware? If this is indeed the case, how is the dimming control done using purely digital outputs from the DIO card?

Thanks in advance...

[Guest guest]

Hi Luke.
I am using LOR with my existing PC DIO-96 board, and some LOR boards.
The DIO is only on-off.

I have made a few things happen such as :
for the power in on a 4 relay card, I have used a LOR channel.
so for my mega tree. 4 channels of RED all use LOR for fade and ramps, while the DIO controls on/ off.

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Thanks for the post. I'm a little confused still as to how LOR works with standard DIO cards and on-off SSR control. Is it possible to have LOR control the DIO and normal on-off SSR's as per the Dasher software for example, obviously without the dimming and other effects?

If I understand you correctly, you are using a DIO card with LOR sw, and presumeably an LOR box to control some dimming of the other on-off channels? So you only purchase 1 LOR hw box, with 8 channels for example, then use each channel out of that to control input power to other group channels on the on-off SSR boards, thus allowing dimming and effects for 8 separate groups of on-off channels? This would mean you use LOR sw to control the 96 channels just using on-off sequencing as you would in Dasher 'D' for example, then use another 8 channels with an 8 channel LOR hardware box to control the dimming and other effects in banks (eg12) for the other 96 channels. This seems a good compromise allowing effects control for banks of straight on-off channels.

[Guest guest]

LOR controls the SSRs on/off individually, and using the LOR board to power the SSRs is a bit of overkill, and complicates the sequencing, but I think its a nice way to leverage the power of both.
The only place I am doing this combo is the LEDs on my mega tree.