Running a Light-O-Rama CTB16PC Controller with Vixen

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ttr502

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I have been doing the light displays for 3 years now with the REN's, Grinch's, etc and a buddy of mine has got the "bug" now. He found a Light-O-Rama CTB16PC Controller at a flea market cheap that he wants to use to get started. He lives in a small conservative subdivision so he only wants to do fade between colors and other simple, slow lighting effects. He only got the controller in the enclosure and the guy gave his name and phone number promising the "cable and software" when he found them. And yes, surprisingly the guy had trouble finding them, and seems to be having phone trouble as well now??. I am sure there a way to do this as I found a few posts about it before the new forum software was put up, but now the search is not working so I can not find the posts again. I remember reading that I needed a special plug-in and a dongle. Where can I get more details and where can I get them? I have no problem with DIY hardware (in fact I find it more fun) if I can go that route.
 
Most of the LOR controllers can be run via DMX. LOR controllers will respond to DMX commands automatically, if it detects that DMX protocol is being used, rather than LOR protocol. It's all RS485 signalling. You just have to understand that LOR controllers use pins 4 and 5 of the RJ45 for data, and that it's exactly opposite in terms of polarity from a Renard controller. This means that Data+ and Data- are reversed from the Renard setup.

You will need a DMX dongle to do this.

You could also purchase a LOR dongle or other USB or RS232->RS485 "dumb" dongle and run Vixen. The LOR software isn't that expensive, or you could go the LSP route if you want to pay for some software.
 
ttr502,

In Google if you type "CTB16PC site:doityourselfchristmas.com" you can find threads. This method works for any search terms. It has saved me a lot of time.
 
ttr502 said:
I have been doing the light displays for 3 years now with the REN's, Grinch's, etc and a buddy of mine has got the "bug" now. He found a Light-O-Rama CTB16PC Controller at a flea market cheap that he wants to use to get started. He lives in a small conservative subdivision so he only wants to do fade between colors and other simple, slow lighting effects. He only got the controller in the enclosure and the guy gave his name and phone number promising the "cable and software" when he found them. And yes, surprisingly the guy had trouble finding them, and seems to be having phone trouble as well now??. I am sure there a way to do this as I found a few posts about it before the new forum software was put up, but now the search is not working so I can not find the posts again. I remember reading that I needed a special plug-in and a dongle. Where can I get more details and where can I get them? I have no problem with DIY hardware (in fact I find it more fun) if I can go that route.
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your friend got lucky with this find although sounds like it was stolen ...the LOR software is free up to 32 channels or at least you can find it free
 
ttr502 said:
Thanks for all the quick replies. I have been busy at work and have not had a chance to respond. I like the $27 LOR dongle as it seems simple and the cheapest way. The second question was about a special plug-in for Vixen to run the LOR controller. Has anyone tried this one :

http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com...&postcount=102
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I tried that link and it did not work, the only Vixen to LOR plug-in I know of only works up to 64 channels and I think you can't have a more than 3 to 5 second gap between sequences or it will loose sync and stop. The plug-in is called (reidfoLOR1_v21) hope this helps
 
Wildbill said:
The "Enttec Open DMX" plugin works for me.
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Correct that is what I use but if he is going to use the LOR RS485/ USB adapter for $27 all he can use is the reidfoLOR1_v21 plug-in and I have heard there were a lot of issues that were not resolved, so yes I suggest also that he uses the DMX adapter which I stated on the first reply of this thread. :)
edit,,, Now if he wants to got out and buy LOR S2 software the $27 dongle is fine but when Vixen is free I would do the DMX thing..
 
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Yes I am, I do have 1 small glitch ch 15 and 16 are reversed on each of my three LOR controlers. Other than that no problems.
"Enttec Open DMX" and Vixen 2.1.4
 
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Wildbill said:
Yes I am, I do have 1 small glitch ch 15 and 16 are reversed on each of my three LOR controlers. Other than that no problems.
"Enttec Open DMX" and Vixen 2.1.4
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From what I can tell you are only running 48 channels LOR and you will not see the the channels lag until you go over 64 channels with the reidfoLOR1_v21 plugin, and as for your other problem with the glitch I am not aware of that I know there are some problems related to the Enttec Open DMX but I am not sure what they are. I am using the Enttec DMX USB PRO plugin for RPM's Dongle with no issues and LabRats USB DMX Dongle which is still under development with Vixen 2.1.4
 
I asked him about if he thought the controller was stolen and he said "No way! The guy kept going on about his light show with details about the number of lights, location, stopping traffic, the divorce, no house now, etc. He was worse than you are about talking about Christmas lights!!"

If I can use the $27 LOR dongle with the Entec Open DMX plugin and get the 16 channels working for him, I think he will be very happy. All he wants to do is slow fades between colors in a loop with no music. He probably will not use all 16 channels. I am going to give it a try. If it doesn't work, I still have 9999 other things I can try, right?

Dave
 
ttr502 said:
I asked him about if he thought the controller was stolen and he said "No way! The guy kept going on about his light show with details about the number of lights, location, stopping traffic, the divorce, no house now, etc. He was worse than you are about talking about Christmas lights!!"

If I can use the $27 LOR dongle with the Entec Open DMX plugin and get the 16 channels working for him, I think he will be very happy. All he wants to do is slow fades between colors in a loop with no music. He probably will not use all 16 channels. I am going to give it a try. If it doesn't work, I still have 9999 other things I can try, right?

Dave
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If he is going to use less then 16 channels I guess he should be fine. If he decides to increase his channel count just let him know there will be some problems. I just wanted to be sure he was aware of the options that work without any issues with Vixen. :smile:

edit,, Well I guess you learn something new everyday, I setup my LOR stuff and used the mini LOR USB Dongle and ran it with the Enttec Open DMX plugin and it seems to work fine on the test bench, so your friend has quite a few options to use for his setup.
 
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If you are using the OpenDMX plugin, then you're sending DMX protocol to the LOR controllers. That's OK, since LOR controllers understand DMX, but you won't get the "shimmer" or "flicker" or whatever built-in effects that LOR controllers can do. Vixen will be simulating those via DMX.

Just remember you need to set the address of the controller with the LOR HW utility, and that if you set it higher than 1, that it will start the DMX address at a multiple of 16 plus 1. So controller ID 2 equals DMX address 17.
 
Further to this, I'm wanting to run my LOR 16CH with Vixen software. Can anyone confirm if a Cisco DB9 to Ethernet rollover cable would work or what the pinout changes would be? I have several of these available, so can sacrifice a few as a test.
 
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