ECG-Dx or ECG-DRx Keep Alive Settings

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garyh

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anyone with any of the ECG-Dx series come up with keep alive settings where the ECG-Dx will act like a USB dongle and keep a constant DMX signal going out?
I've played with 26 ms, 100 ms, 200 ms and any value never turns off the colorfade on these chinese RGB controllers. I can hook my USB Lynx dongle up and the controllers never colorfade--trying to get the same results out of the D2.
At best, I can reboot the D2 and the RGB controllers will keep colorfading, I'll have the orange LED lit for port #1 (only port I am using) for 2 to 5 mins then it goes out. As long as I get xlights on in that time I have control of the RGB element, but after a few mins the orange LED on port #1 goes out then the RGB controllers start color fading even though xlights is still doing a Red, Green, and Blue test pattern.
Here are my current keep alive settings that don't work, thanks for any help.
 

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From the top of my head that is similar to the way i have my DR4 setup as im using some LOR CCR controllers and if the signal is not constant then i find a delay as it works out if its DMX or LOR data. I also used these setting with a cheap DD100 pixel controller that would put out a test pattern when there was no DMX signal.

So im unsure why your signal is dropping out
 
so your DR4 will keep the orange LED on the entire time during xlights testing with an RGB pattern? It doesn't quit after 5 to 10 mins? From what I'm seeing, it looks like the D2 goes to sleep and I have to reboot it to get the keep alive working again.

What's really strange is I'm using these chinese RGB controllers and even when I have keep alive on and the orange LED is on, the controllers act like no DMX signal is there. I can hurry after I reboot and get it into xlights and as soon as I go to the testing part the controllers stop color washing, but if I don't fire up a test fairly quick they will colorwash again. What's even worse is the xlights RGB testing pattern only works for 5 mins or less before the orange LED is unlit and the RGB controllers start colorwashing again. Then they won't respond again unless I reboot the controller.
 
Im not using xlights to test with, I use the LSP hardware tester instead.

But i have the amber light on for the output as long as I have power to the Dr4 as its set to send every 25ms and not stop
 
Went a step further and hooked the ECG-D2 to a Lynx Express and watched the orange LED on the RJ45 jack. Daisychained off the Lynx Express was one of the chinese RGB controllers.

I was able to go into xlights, run DMX 33,34 for the Lynx Express lights, then go to RGB for the DMX 395-397 channels and cycle the xlights RGB cycle. This all worked solid for 10 to 15 mins but the orange LED light on the RJ45 jack went out. Trying to get control back of either the DMX 33,34 or the RGB DMX 395-397 was not possible without rebooting the ECG-D2.

At this point I believe the D2 has an issue.
 
Gary that is looking very similar to what I was getting.
Try turning the keep alive off now and see if the DR4 stays awake.

Jon
 
I did the same testing with Port #2 after I turned the keep alive on for it:
Once I rebooted the ECG-D2 I had orange lights lit on both RJ45 connectors and I was only plugged into Port#2. Port #2 orange lasted for less than a minute and went off-despite Port#1 orange LED being on still. Recycled power and once again both RJ45 jacks had orange lights. This time both ports stayed on so I went into xlights and did some color pattern testing then went to LSP to try the hardware controller, before LSP loaded the Port#2 orange LED went off, but Port#1 was still on. Anytime the orange LED goes off, the Lynx Express Data LED goes off. So I unplugged the RJ45 from Port#2 and moved it to Port#1 with the orange LED on and the Lynx Express Data LED lit up again. So I fired up xlights again and have it doing RGB color pattern testing--orange LED went out on Port#1 in under 10 mins.
JPB, I'll have to try that tomorrow, spent 15 hours in configuration/testing this thing in the last 2 days--I'll see what j1sys says.
 
Hi guys this is a issue that Ed is aware of and is working on this issue. i spoke to him about this a few months ago and about 2 weeks ago he told me it was on his list to do and would be sorted some time soon.
 
I wonder if this issue only affects the D2 and possibly the D4 DMX bridges only as I havent heard of anyone having these issues using the DR4.
 
I have a friend in California having problems with his D4 even when he sets things JUST LIKE I have on my DR4.
We get on the phone and try things. Works for me. Not for him.
 
A quick work around could be to send data to the D2 and D4 controllers by just sending constant data to each universe by having 1 channel always active in the sequencer, it doesnt even have to be a channel thats used.

For example create a channel that is above the range of your physical lights and then add this in the sequence and have it so it is always doing something, this way the controllers that have a test pattern when seeing no DMX signals or LOR controllers running in DMX will always be seeing a DMX signal. It also means you wont have to use the keep alives and then hopefully all should be fine

Worth a go for those that need a fix now.
 
From what Ed told me, the DR4 works fine, the firmware for the D2 and D4 is the same. Only the D2/D4 series has the keep alive issue that the firmware should fix.
 
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