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    pjveltri
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Dealing with many many LEDs

I am in the process of purchasing about 300 feet of LED Strip lighting. We intend to, in the end, purchase at least double this amount, which puts us in the range of about 4k dmx addresses for LED tape alone. I will be posting some of these questions over on the ETC forums but help here would be appreciated as well. 

I am looking for a "simple" way to control it over the in house lighting network. Sadly, Artnet isn't really an option as it would require a total overhaul of the network as it is set up to ETC standards (http://www.etcconnect.com/Community/wikis/products/knowledgebase-etc-network-ip-addresses.aspx) in the 10.x.x.x range rather than the Artnet allowed 2.x.x.x range. 

So, the house console is an Ion with 3072 outputs, about 500 of them are used up with the lighting so there isn't really enough room for the intended expansion of the LED installation. However I really like how this system works. The ability to turn on only specific pixels or to grab a group and edit only those, while still having the virtual media server is really really cool and allows for everything I want the system to do.

As far as consoles go, if I were to add another Ion (or Gio or Eos) to my system, or an rpu for that matter, would that increase the outputs I could use on my system? Or would I still be limited to the 3072 allowed by the Ion? 

If the Ion limits the total outputs I could have within the system, if I were to add Chamsys setup to my system, would there be a way to fire the Chamsys cues off of the ion?

Thanks

PJ

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    I deal with large LED counts every now and again.  A couple things come to mind - 

    1) There is a limit to how much processing your ION is going to be able to handle.  We are currently retooling the performance side of the console line to specifically address this issue - but the ION is the low end of the processor spectrum so it's hard to say.   A GIO is going to be leaps and bounds faster than an ION - especially if you are overlapping Pixel Maps and traditional channel effects

    Last week I did a small-ish LED wall (1.2K) on an ION (not by choice :-) - and it held up pretty well on the 2.1 software.  There were some large movie files in my default library and those caused the system to basically stop working.

    2) If you have ethernet distributed through the house - 4 strategically placed 4 port gateways would take care of the data.  You can enable Artnet on your desk and it will send it out using the 10.XXX IP - from there it's just getting a device to recognize it and convert it over if the lights specifically need 2.XXX.  I use Series 400 Nodes to "Sanitize" my Artnet stream all the time.   So a setup like Console > Node > Media Server works fine whereas Console > Media Server doesn't because the server wont recognize the IP.   

    3) Adding a console to the system is possible - but you'll probably end up using midi to fire cues.  To my knowledge there is no way to currently connect multiple ETC consoles together so that they increase the total output of the system and yet operate like 1 console.

    - P

     

  • 0 in reply to PatrickBoozer

    Partick,

    It sounds like you are saying for simple chases and color changing that the Pixelmapper built into the console would be more than acceptable, unless I am trying to run super large movie files. is this correct?

     

    Can you explain your Artnet sanitization scheme a bit more?

     

    Thanks

    PJ

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  • 0 in reply to pjveltri

    Hey PJ -

    In my experience the ION runs pixel map media of all forms perfectly well until it gets to full size movie files.  So if you have misc HD movies loaded on the desk trying to play those back will noticeably slow down the system - like to the point where all the keystrokes have a 10 second lag. 

    All the standard EOS movie files that come with the pix mapper ran fine last week.

    Artnet on the EOS is pretty simple - you turn it on and the console generates Artnet.  Say your console is plugged into your house Network - if you have an Ethernet port onstage and were to plug an Artnet device into it your device should "see" the console's Artnet signal.    As you've mentioned your only problem is going to be the IP range.  Your Artnet devices will probably ignore the console's signal because they are looking for 2.XXX

    So what you need is some network device that will take in the 10.X range and broadcast it from a 2.x address.    I usually have a PRG Series 400 system so I use one of their nodes for this purpose - but only because it's just sitting there and I don't have to configure it.

    Honestly I'm not really a networking guy - like all of us - but I think you can use an NAT (Network Address Translation) enabled router to perform this function.    If you were able to post your specific network setup and the lights in question we could probably find a setup that would work.

    If it were me I'd start by enabling Artnet on the ION and hooking it up to my laptop running Capture or Artnetometer or something like that.  That way you can mess around with it in a controlled environment.

    All of that being said - it may be a better option to purchase an appropriate number of ACN gateways.  It's more plug and play and you wont need to generate both protocols.

    - P

     

     

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