DR4 that talks LOR protocol?

[mrpackethead]

Would it be possible for the DR4 to talk LOR protocol so that it could drive LOR type boards?

[neil]

I would think that Ed and Dan would need to get together for this to happen.
 
 

[mrpackethead]

it looks to me that the hardware layer is just rs485 and the protocol is pretty simple..  I'm sure that Ed could figure it out in a days effort

[Steve22537]

Ed and Dan please get together, this would be a very worthwhile project enhancement.......

[neil]

wasn't there some announcement from LOR that this year they would have ARTNET support

[budude]

Is this necessary since they already talk DMX? My two LOR 1602W's work fine off my DIY DMX dongle.

[neil]

yes the LOR 1602W's will work via DMX input, however you do lose the hardware's capability of shimmer and twinkle which is built into the LOR protocol.
 
Not sure about this, but do the PC series of LOR controllers support DMX input as well, for some reason I thought that they didnt.
 
I think Andrew was suggesting that you could drive your LOR controllers via the LOR protocol and allow a LOR plugin to drive ethernet into a DR4 and output LOR prococol on the DR$'s interfaces instead of DMX.
 
 

[ɟɐsʇǝppʎ]

Not sure about this, but do the PC series of LOR controllers support DMX input as well, for some reason I thought that they didnt.
 
I think Andrew was suggesting that you could drive your LOR controllers via the LOR protocol and allow a LOR plugin to drive ethernet into a DR4 and output LOR prococol on the DR$'s interfaces instead of DMX.

All the current LOR controllers work with DMX including the PC series and the CCR, they work very well with the ECG-DR4. There are some early version LOR controller (at least 3 years old) that dont work in DMX

Dan has mentioned a multi port DMX output for LOR that sounds very similar to a ECG-DR4 to be released this year but details are still very sketchy

[dmoore]

Ed and Dan please get together, this would be a very worthwhile project enhancement.......

I guess I'm missing why it is an advantage to have the LOR protocol running on a DR4?  The LOR protocol while great at low bandwidth and with poor cabling, it has some serious drawbacks when it comes to high volumes of data.

Knowing someone that did a complete reverse disassembly of the LOR protocol, he indicated that it took him several months to get it 100% complete.  This is the same guy that, despite having never seen DMX and not using the MC sample code, wrote DMX firmware, from scratch, in less than a week into his product.

Pro's and Con's:
http://www.holidaycoro.com/2010LSHWorkshop/DMX%20and%20LOR%20Protocols.pdf

[mrpackethead]

what about the upside down way..

A DR4 that can receive LOR and output it as E1.31?   that woudl be pretty cool, so you could use your LOR software to drive all sorts of things without needing to change your set up too much

[Steve22537]

Thanks Andrew, thats more along the lines of what I was looking for, to keep my existing LOR software & hardware and be able to connect other hardware into the LOR network. I've done little to no research regarding this so I'm ready for the onslaught of comments 

[dmoore]

Thanks Andrew, thats more along the lines of what I was looking for, to keep my existing LOR software & hardware and be able to connect other hardware into the LOR network. I've done little to no research regarding this so I'm ready for the onslaught of comments 

Steve -

Neil was correct - LOR is going to not only have native DMX with a cheap DMX "dongle" but they should also have ArtNet support.  So in that case, you could get one of their $40 DMX dongles for the DMX items and keep your exisiting LOR 485 adapter.

Can I ask how many channels you intend to use in your 2011 display?

[mrpackethead]

LOR is going to support art-net natively?  thats pretty cool.

[budude]

yes the LOR 1602W's will work via DMX input, however you do lose the hardware's capability of shimmer and twinkle which is built into the LOR protocol.
 
Not sure about this, but do the PC series of LOR controllers support DMX input as well, for some reason I thought that they didnt.
 
I think Andrew was suggesting that you could drive your LOR controllers via the LOR protocol and allow a LOR plugin to drive ethernet into a DR4 and output LOR prococol on the DR$'s interfaces instead of DMX.

Ok - but does either Vixen (w/plug-in) or LSP talk shimmer or sparkle to the LOR devices - I'm guessing they don't? I know at least Vixen has a shimmer-like and sparkle-like tool that does a fair job in faking it.
 
As for the other way - some of that work has been done on the PC side with xLights - it can talk LOR natively so perhaps something from that (the protocol definitions from LOR for example) can be leveraged to support a DMX to LOR device using the DR4.
 
Honestly though I'm not sure it's worth the complexity but perhaps someone will see a need for it.

[mschell]

LOR is going to support art-net natively?  thats pretty cool.

I'm not sure I saw the quote that said they would support artnet.  I think I saw a response that said they would be looking to use Ethernet as a distribution medium or an Ethernet->LOR type device.  But I don't frequent the LOR forums as much as this one....