Experiences with SanDevices E682 controller

[jstjohnz]

Yes as of right now all strings in a cluster are defined as the same length. The disadvantage is that if you have different sized strings on a cluster, you have to define the cluster based on the length of the longest string, so you wind up wasting some dmx channels. That becomes less of an issue if you have 12 universes of channels available.
That will probably not be changed in this release, but likely in the next. The code as it stands now just passes a single string length to each of the processors that send the data to the pixels.

 

[GoofyGuy]

As noted by Eddy and Gary, the board currently supports 6 universes. The upcoming firmware release will bump that to 7 universes for multicast, and also add support for unicast E1.31, and that should be capable of up to 12 universes.

Jim did I read that right 12 universes.

 

[jstjohnz]

Yes, up to 12 universes if you use unicast mode.

 

[Beefer]

Thanks Beefer. I think I'll order one next week and get started. What software do you use with it?

Thanks,

Grant

I'm using S3 Light-O-Rama - once you figure out how to quickly setup that many RGB channels it's a piece of cake!

 

[Beefer]

Yes, up to 12 universes if you use unicast mode.

Am patiently waiting for this new release
I will probably still use three controllers overall even though two with 12 universes would probably suffice - mostly because they will be in different parts of the garden - one controller for each major element/area seems sensible..
(plus I really enjoyed putting the kit-version together!)
I'm also thinking the bottleneck will now be power, and not channels! As from what I can work out, a single 350w power supply (at 12v) will probably handle about 8 strings or so, yet the e682 can handle double that many strings - I don't want to try and squeeze two power supplies into the same enclosure as the Sandevices controller...