LOR S6 Advanced?

Jeff Millard

Jeff Millard

New member
All the way back in 2007 when I was the 13th new member of this forum, I was using LOR. I started in 2005 when Dawn was really ill and I spent long hours at the hospital with her (she was often asleep, so I had a laptop and was sequencing) At some point, many of us became Beta testers on the understanding we’d have advanced licenses (semi-permanently.) I think some of us helped developers understand what we as users needed in the software package. Personalities led to some disagreements, I left and stopped using their software. And then stopped making blinky flashy. Well, we’ve moved closer to family and I’m ding dang close to retirement. I’m getting harassed by teeny tiny little kids for not making blinky flashy. So, I went to the LOR website and checked my license. Yep, they were serious. I still have an Advanced. So I took S6 down and started dusting off the cob webs. Grabbed an old Dell Inspiron out of a box in the attic, and it’s being restored as I type. There’s an app for iPhone. I linked that last night, and was testing lights in a back bedroom from work 31 miles away. Dawn was most definitely rolling her eyes when I texted her and asked her to watch and see if it works. The 2023 display starts now. I used xLights for a couple years, but it’s (I’m going to stop right here before I rattle cages!) not what I needed. S6 looks promising, and I’ve decided to old school it and return to the warm glow of incans I love so much. I intend to use this thread to roll out my likes and dislikes of their software as I go. I have a history. I’d like people to keep this nice. It’s about making little kids smile and be happy. That doesn’t mean I’m a better person than before. It just means I don’t suffer hate willingly. I can share, or I can delete.

First thing right out of the gate: You’re forced to create props to add channels. I spent so many hours working on that visualizer in S4 that I used up any time to make and create a display. You’re not really forced, it just sounds like it in the manual. ;-) At first, I started looking at S4 on the Dell, making comparisons. Then I realized it felt comfortable and thought it might get in the way of learning the new. So I just factory reset the laptop. No looking back. I’ll need some picture of the new house, but that has to wait until the weekend, as it’s dark when I leave and get home. No more excuses. Personalities aside. I hope some of you are still around. I won’t be chatting in DM. That always turned me into the worst person I could be.

Jeff
 
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First issue. When naming props in a preview, they automatically sort in alphabetical order in the preview bulk list. When I hit 2 controllers worth of channels, a new name can disappear off the screen. There really should be options for the sort. For example, I’d have an option to leave it the heck alone!!! So, I started over. When adding a 16 channel controller I omitted the “Unit” prefix and allowed the default “01.01, 01.02” naming convention. Then, when naming a channel I append it to the end of the default. That way it’ll be easy to find controller 6 channel 12 without having to know it’s name (“dead bush by the yard light”)

I also noticed it adds a space to the default name. For now, using replace text IE: Space02. With NoSpace02. Fixed that.

On on,

Jeff
 
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Next Thing. Making a 360 Wedge Mega with 12 slices using 3 16-channel controllers. Add a 16-channel controller, select the first channel and create a 12-slice wedge tree. Now you have 11 conflicts. If you start on channel 13 for the next 12-channel color, it creates channel 13 through 24 on the same controller. I have 16 set as max circuit. I would think it'd be smart enough to know there aren't any 17-24 circuits available. In the end, I deleted all but 4 channels. Then I renamed them and set them to the starting channel for each color. After the tree was sized, aligned and set in place I found the unused channels were still in the sequence but indicated they were archived with an @ prefix. There's an tool to manage them, and I just deleted them all. I'm sure there's an easier way, but as I'm working I'm remembering things from years ago when the original visualizer was released in beta. I'm seeing all the bad it had to offer all over again. The nice thing is, once I have it all laid out I can turn it off and never see it again! (I looked for a thumbs up emoji, no joy)

Jeff
 
An upgrade to Pro was cheap, and it seems I get some of the effects that are available in XLights. I’ve stopped sequencing and am now checking all the hardware I have. So far I’ve only bricked one item. An E681 with the UPG1 has been set to IP 10.0.0.255. Total freshman mistake. I can’t get any of the tricks to access the web server to work. I’ve tried tricking it with everything described in the manuals I have, and it just blinks and I swear I can hear it either laughing, or softly crying. I’ve shelved that until the weekend.(Update: I found a note… It’s 4 flashes not 3! The IP is now set to a number outside of the DHCP range… less than 254…) Next will be to test all the E1.31 devices I have, then all the DMX. C’Mon Friday at 3:30!

Jeff
 
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After a couple days spent looking for all the E1.31 devices I plan to use, I've finally settled on the network settings. The next annoyance I've found is LOR has decided to toss code for old devices. Old as they may seem, I have a small fortune invested in Digital I/O. I have four 96 channel cards, breakout boards I had manufactured that connect directly to our common 4 channel SSRs. I made nets for the roof that have a channel for every string, and they're spaced every 3 inches. The DIO was for the large channel count, even though it was on/off and not dimmable. The alternative will be to use REN32 boards in its place. If anyone has a need for some 96 channel DIO boards and the breakout boards I made for them, message me.

Jeff
 
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Getting back to this, I’v finally gotten a layout (Preview) completed. All the minor annoyances aside (every system has annoyances, LOR seems to have the least number of them I’ve found) I’ll have 11 Controllers and 1 spare. I’ll use all 4 E68x boards, even though I’ll have less than 2k pixels. I’ve built an 8 input switch box for interactive, but I need to make a stand for it to place at the end of the walkway. Someone on the LOR forum made a walk through pixel tunnel with 16 arches x 50 pixels each. It?s tempting, but I think it’ll have to wait until after everything else is built. I wasn’t a fan of the way the data cables entered the controller cases, so I started adding external waterproof sockets. Only 7 boxes will get them. I’ve got 3 done, for the $27 I spent on 6 sockets. Firmware is all up to date on both the LOR and the E68x?s. I have 2, 4 port RPM E1.31 bridges to use too. This weekend I’m starting the builds on the Blow-mold relight project. I bought a roll of LED rope light and a pile of Bridge Rectifiers. Each mold gets a bridge, and a single cut of LED rope wire tied to small frames I made from the metal stand that hold all those pesky political signs found along the road. About 30 molds waiting patiently for new lights out in the shed. I set them around the yard Sunday just to see if I liked my layout. Got told at least 20 times I was a little early to be decorating for Christmas?? Testing 12 five color super strings for the mega somewhere along the way. All the blue has to be replaced, as it seems the color flakes off the blue after a few seasons for some reason. All that’s left for major design, is a way to clip the Pixel icicles onto the gutters now that I’ve put gutter guards on. I’m thinking 1/2” pvc painted a dark color, with stand-offs made that clip under the guards. The old gutter clips hook over 1/2” so I’d be able to use the same clips this way. It was quite a shock when I got up on the ladder last Thanksgiving, and realized I’d forgotten those clips wouldn’t work anymore. Older I get, more I forget.

Jeff
 
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I’ve got 12 CTB-16PC 16 channel controllers built from kits. 4 of them for the Mega tree, and the rest for blowmolds, and 4 color strings on the windows and doors. We wrapped the trees with multis last season, and decided to use spare channels to control those too. All in all, it’s not a big display.

Forgot to add, I bought an E6804 to use for the TLS3001 pixels I have. It’s so nice to solder one of these kits up, and boom… it’s controlling lights. Well, after you set the IP address.

Jeff
 
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Tried to get the Ren 32 working over my RPM bridge all day today. It’s just not working for some reason. I have 32 candy canes relit with rope light that I used to line to sidewalk with. Not really sure what happened to it. It worked great when I built it, but now it just sits there mocking me. I hope to find some time to try and reprogram it. I’m not really sure where the Pic programmer ended up after we moved. Nothing to do with LOR, other than I was trying to ensure the layout had control of the hardware.

Also, I finally found the option to show Channel level in a pixel prop. I was starting to worry there wasn’t a way to do that.
 
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Trying to figure out what good the superstar sequencer is. It really makes no sense to me at all. Trying to insert effects to a section of a sequence, and it’s asking for a media file name. ???? I guess I have to watch YouTube videos now.
 
Did you get your REN32 working with the bridge?
I was wondering if you used DMX firmware or Renard.
Did you try reloading firmware yet?
 
I haven’t had a free second to even look at it. We moved, and I’ve got hardware spread across two sheds and an attic. I haven’t been able to locate the pic programmer. I can see it in a box, in my mind… it even has a note on the box “PIC programmer, do not lose or throw away!!!” Rain is scheduled for tonight and Thursday, so I guess I need to take some time and find it. I believe I used DMX firmware when I programmed it an built the case, with the bridge in it. It was controlling my Candy Cane SSRs just fine then. I’ll update when I start to troubleshoot.

Jeff
 
I FOUND IT! The PicKit3 was in the box I knew for sure it wasn’t in! Now I just have to find: my notes on what to do, and time to do it.
 
I think it’s been updated and does quite a bit more now. When I selected a 10 second portion of a motion effect row, it displayed the prop (a 50 pixel Shamrock.) I tried to use the instant sequence tool with no understanding of how it works, and one of the requirements was to add a media file. The main sequence was an animation, so… The next step is to view Brian’s YouTubes. When life isn’t going 160+mph… I’ll merge into that.

Jeff
 
Well, it wasn’t a great day. Woke up to the Mac Mini DOA. Dawn took it to the Genius Bar and a 21 month old machine is almost as much to fix, as it is to buy a new one. That ends any possible investment in upgraded pixels this year.
 
Another day another fail. Bought 2 cases from another LOR user. My goal was to move a newer CTB-16B-K into an older style case. Then I'd have two of the fat newer cases to use for DC cards. Built the case with the LOR DC controller and hooked up a RGB spotlight I got from Lowes on clearance 3 years ago and modified to hook up directly to the DC card. It was clearly marked 12VDC (by me) so no doubt I tested it to make sure it wasn't 5VDC right? Powered it all up, pretty RGB light flickering on the wall to a test sequence... ...ww what's that smell? Oh no! Magic smoke!!! The following attempt to get it out of the house before the smell was everywhere... I snapped a MOSFET off of the board. Sometimes I wonder how I'm able to safely get out of bed in the morning.

BTW, the MAC is fixed. But now I'm poor again.

J
 
Sorry for not updating, if anyone is even interested. Major health issues have pretty much stopped any progress. Cardiologist office visit tomorrow. Keep me in you thoughts if you can.
Thank you,
Jeff.
 
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