Generic Serial Port DLL, update to support 115.2K baud and more channels

R

ronp5683

New member
I have created some RGB lights which are serially controlled (RS232). I would like to have Vixen updated to support the higher baud rate and more serial channels. It seems to be an oversight that it only supports baud rates to 56K

Thanks

http://youtu.be/D2taeb2smkM
 
Hi There, I have run at 115.2 baud for the last two years on Vixen 2.1x, the only change was to the Reynard 64XC Pic programming, nothing at all for "Vixen" it self. I am also running two serial ports as well this year and you should have the ability run as many as you can attach. A little more digging into the settings may be required.

Terry
 
T.D.Sutton said:
Hi There, I have run at 115.2 baud for the last two years on Vixen 2.1x, the only change was to the Reynard 64XC Pic programming, nothing at all for "Vixen" it self. I am also running two serial ports as well this year and you should have the ability run as many as you can attach. A little more digging into the settings may be required.

Terry
Click to expand...


He's talking about the Generic Serial Driver not the Renard Dimmer (Modified).

OP, Should be an easy change, I'll see what I can do tomorrow. As for running more than one, you can, just copy the plugin over more than once and configure each with the appropriate com port and select the channels that each copy of the plugin controls.
 
ronp5683 said:
I have created some RGB lights which are serially controlled (RS232). I would like to have Vixen updated to support the higher baud rate and more serial channels. It seems to be an oversight that it only supports baud rates to 56K

Thanks

http://youtu.be/D2taeb2smkM
Click to expand...


You can manually edit the .pro profile file found in the profile folder find the generic serial plugin in the xml and edit the <Baud> tag - you can't do this through the UI, but the XML file will be okay and the code will accept it. I'll see if I can add it to the UI, but the code barfed on me tonight when I tried to make a quick change. We shall see. :)
 
Hi John, no offence taken at all, I replied without sufficient comprehension initially :-(

Have a great day,

Cheers,

Terry :)
 
Here is the new version of the Generic Serial DLL with 115,200 support. This is for Vixen 2.1 only (I will work on getting the 2.5 version out tonight, but I don't have my good development machine with me at the moment.)

Download the .zip attachment, backup the original GenericSerial.dll (in the Plugins\Output folder) and replace it with what is in the zip file.

-- John
 

Attachments

  • GenericSerial.zip
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Thanks you guys are awesome. Updated software in one day!!!

I am a EE with a lot of experience with hardware and FPGA's, and I would like to contribute. I imagine as the channel count goes up for RGB lighting that eventually the computer will have a hard time driving all of the lights (my experience with video and windows is not real time). You could solve this by moving the actually sequencing to hardware. Also, I will be searching the forum for how to best sequence RGB lighting. I have individually addressable lights, and I have been using a sequencer in the FPGA with cheesy ASCII interpreter (register for counter/delays) to minimize the sequences.

Thanks again.
 
ronp5683 said:
Thanks you guys are awesome. Updated software in one day!!!

I am a EE with a lot of experience with hardware and FPGA's, and I would like to contribute. I imagine as the channel count goes up for RGB lighting that eventually the computer will have a hard time driving all of the lights (my experience with video and windows is not real time). You could solve this by moving the actually sequencing to hardware. Also, I will be searching the forum for how to best sequence RGB lighting. I have individually addressable lights, and I have been using a sequencer in the FPGA with cheesy ASCII interpreter (register for counter/delays) to minimize the sequences.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

You're welcome and welcome to the forum.

I have a bias towards Vixen 3 for RGB, but there are other solutions out there which I cannot recommend since I do not have any experience using them.

The channel count "problem" is resolved by sending the data out via Ethernet instead of a serial port. People here on this forum have had no issue sending 15+ universes of DMX data out via that method. (That's over 7600 channels) -- What types of lights do you have, there are many users here using individually addressable lights and they may be of great help. Your hardware knowledge will probably be a great help here.

Take care.
 
I built my own Christmas lights from scratch, so they are unique. I also used my own controller. However, it was a lot of work and I am browsing the internet to see what is available. I will try Vixen 2/3 with my lights and if it works, I will probably go with your software. If that is the case I will probably build my own E1.31 bridge. With an FPGA I can get 30-40 universes with one controller for 50/60 bucks. I like lots of universes, so you run one control cable to each RGB string or object.

By the way is there anything out their for controlling lights besides E1.31? There is a lot of useless overhead in the messages and simple is always better.


RGB_Square.jpg
 
ronp5683 said:
I built my own Christmas lights from scratch, so they are unique. I also used my own controller. However, it was a lot of work and I am browsing the internet to see what is available. I will try Vixen 2/3 with my lights and if it works, I will probably go with your software. If that is the case I will probably build my own E1.31 bridge. With an FPGA I can get 30-40 universes with one controller for 50/60 bucks. I like lots of universes, so you run one control cable to each RGB string or object.

By the way is there anything out their for controlling lights besides E1.31? There is a lot of useless overhead in the messages and simple is always better.


View attachment 17477
Click to expand...

There is also Art-Net but I don't think it's wildly different than ACN/E1.31 - http://www.artisticlicence.com/WebSiteMaster/User Guides/art-net.pdf
and the Open Lighting Architecture (OLA) is there as well - don't know a lot about it though...
 
Hi!

I am Christopher from Germany i have a question about the generic serial plugin under vixen 2.1.1.0.
I will use the com ports 1 - 8 but in vixen i can only choose the com ports 1 - 4.

Is it possible to get an update for this problem or what i can do that i can use more com ports.

I have downloaded the newest plugin from the vixen website but it make no changes for this.

Regards
Christopher
 
Hi:
I know I'm getting denser every day.

I have searched many places but cannot find any documentation of the Vixen 2/3 Generic Serial Port.

Can anyone tell me how it works? In other words, what is sent out the port and when is it sent?

What values are put into the sequence to send a command to an external device? I know, the values would depend on what you are trying to control.

Thanks for your help. I've been away quite a long time and am just getting back into things.

Idun
 
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