Integration with Vixen

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Chris Usey

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Nov 10, 2014, 11:32:51 AM11/10/14
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I was looking into custom synchronizations support with software that is already out there. Vixen happens to be one of the more popular choices for DIY Christmas light enthusiasts.  There seems to be a very popular protocol being used called e1.31 that most of the softwares supports.  Just putting this out there but it may be advantageous for us to look into implementing something like this, as it may go a long way with helping us develop support for custom synchronizations and networking as well.



On Nov 6, 2014, at 4:16 PM, chris usey <chris...@gmail.com> wrote:

Exactly, It would be quite advanced, and by default if a user chooses to enable it, you can simply mirror the channels on each device by default if they are not comfortable doing all the mappings.  And you are right, it would be much easier to just setup some port expanders, but in my case I have a large front yard and I have to run some very long extensions to reach all my lights. It would be a cleaner setup and much less expensive for me to have 2 pi’s serving different parts of the yard instead of running so many extension cables.  I also have a neighbor that wants to get into the hobby, it might be cool to have both of our houses work together !


On Nov 6, 2014, at 4:08 PM, Paul Dunn <dunn...@gmail.com> wrote:


hmmmm.. so let's say combined total for all raspberries, you have 48 channels. we could have it split the channels apart based on something like 16 on the master 8 on slave1 and 2 and 16 on slave3. Then do custom mapping for frequency range and which channels on which raspberry.
I like it!
might be a really advanced setting and for super users (or something) as it might be easiest to just go with a port expander with 48 channels directly on a single pi ;-)

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Todd Giles

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Nov 10, 2014, 11:35:38 AM11/10/14
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(changing the subject so this is in a new thread)

Sean Millar

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Nov 10, 2014, 12:01:34 PM11/10/14
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I think this would be a great supported add-on for the more advanced users out there. I did some looking into Vixen and apparently with version 2 you can parse the vixen sequence file on the RPi, I came across a thread where someone wrote an interpreter. The Vixen learning curve seems to be fairly steep as it’s quite involved. I am game to give it a shot.

 
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Chris Usey

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Nov 10, 2014, 12:15:45 PM11/10/14
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Sean 

Can you share any links you may have found when researching this.

Chris Usey

Paul Dunn

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Nov 10, 2014, 1:49:11 PM11/10/14
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We looked at this last year. The issue with Vixen compared to Lightshow Pi, is that sequencing on Vixen is manual and very time-consuming. Of course you can get other people's sequences. You also have very granular control. I found that I had to set the sequence to something like 25mS to get reasonable control. I did a test last winter with mine, worked fine. At the time, you set a program on the PC that would read the vixen log file and then stream those commands on the network. Then the Pi just reads from the net and blinks the lights.
while it worked fine, I'm honestly way too lazy to sequence a 4 minute song at sub 25mS intervals

I should still have that code around somewhere on an SD card

actually I think I based it on this one:
https://815e338d110dce5bbc10e68d1dbb29966dbe4d09.googledrive.com/host/0B6UI0f-tde55cnlPYnBoTzVCMFk/Raspi.html

Paul Dunn

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Nov 10, 2014, 2:54:51 PM11/10/14
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Sean Millar

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Nov 10, 2014, 10:25:15 PM11/10/14
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